Syllabus: 1st Year Political Theory and Ethics 2

For those who do not have a Facebook account, the following is taken from the group page:

“The management at King’s have decided to embark on an ill-conceived, immoral, and irrational attempt to make academic members of staff, including full professors, within the King’s philosophy department, redundant or retire under pressure (some details can be found here: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/). Not only is this happening in an arbitrary and unaccountable fashion, but it will undermine the integrity and academic culture of one of the world’s best research departments. As is to be expected, the proposed changes entirely contradict King’s self-professed attempts to foster “an intellectually rigorous environment” (quote from the KCL website).

Nor is it true that “ all current students…will be largely unaffected by these proposals”, as many will lose their supervisors, or be affected by the ensuing academic deficit that is likely to linger indefinitely as the department attempts to counter the harm caused by the actions of King’s administration.

This group illustrates our complete disavowal of the content of these proposed changes, our disgust with the manner in which this process is taking place, and our solidarity with any member of staff who finds their job or career under threat.”

Further information at: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/budget-crisis-at-kings-college-london-kcl-firing-senior-faculty-in-philosophy-including-full-profess.html

Letter from Professor Shalom Lappin: http://gist.github.com/288062

Letter from Mary Margaret McCabe:

Dear all,

Thank you for responding to David’s email, Maximilian.

This  process has Shalom Lappin and Wilfried Meyer-Viol face redundancy in 90 days time (they were informed of this, out of the blue, on Monday), and it has all the rest of us, both in Philosophy and in the other Humanities departments, declared at risk of redundancy, and so required to reapply for our own jobs. The reappointments will then be made on the basis of performance, such that at least eleven members of staff will be found to fail this test, and so  will be sacked (that was the word used by the HR person at a staff meeting yesterday).  There are, many of us in the department believe, other effective ways of responding to the financial crisis.

If you think — as we think — that the College’s proposed action is wrong both academically (both Shalom and Wilfried are integral to the department’s academic activity) and morally (they expect us to compete with our long-standing colleagues for jobs, on the assumption that not all of us will win. What would it be like to win, under those circumstances?) then you could write in protest to the Principal, Prof. Rick Trainor.  If you do, could you also copy your letter to the Vice-Principal (Research) Mr C. Mottershead, the Vice-Principal (Strand) Prof Keith Hoggart, and the Head of the School of Arts and Humanities, Prof. Jan Palmowski?

Thank you so much for your support.

Very best

MM

Mary Margaret McCabe

Professor of Ancient Philosophy

Department of Philosophy

King¹s College London

Her main academic interests are in legal, political and ethical philosophy – with a tendency to focus on the Ancient Greeks, and most specifically, Plato.  An emphasis is placed on the relationship between ideas and of living a life intimately connected to love and beauty.

The name kaloeides – of beautiful form – is used to connect her various philosophical interests: the idea that beauty connects all subjects and the recognition of which is necessary to living a good/flourishing life.

Philosophy opens dialogue – therefore requires an environment in which to question and investigate – or so she believes. It is the pursuit of finding such a community, in which to work and socialize, that this blog is born.

Her other interests include, in no particular order: travel, anime, fashion (that which explores various expressions of the individual and beauty), stories and fantasy and the connections between the “dream world” and “real world” and how to bridge the gaps that exist between them.

She is also involved in the Motion Graphics Festival (mgfest.com) and in moving to Chicago, she hopes to immerse herself within the philosophical community.