Palaeography threatened!

Cuts in academic posts at King’s College, London mean that, at the end of this academic year, a specialist chair in palaeography (the only one in the UK) will no longer be funded: the current holder is David Ganz. The implications of this decision are serious and deeply worrying. Without our specialists in palaeography and the textual understanding they bring to medieval studies, none of us (or very few) would be able to do our own research, and that’s even before we get started on how we train the next generation of medievalists.

This story has been picked up by other bloggers, notably Mary Beard. If you want to protest, the please write to Prof. Richard Trainor, the principal of Kings and copy your letter to Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of the School of Arts and Humanities.

We face worrying times in British HE at the moment, and I am fully aware that I have not blogged as much as I would have liked on these issues – it’s all too depressing for words.

Edit: here’s the link to an online petition.

Further edit: the petition has now reached over 6500 signatures. Informed and intelligent comment can be found at Magistra et Mater and on Jonathan Jarrett’s blog. Jonathan has also compiled a handy list of blog posts on the subject.

The 2010 Ford Lectures I: The Normans and empire

This year the Ford Lectures at the University of Oxford are being given by Prof. David Bates (UEA and Caen-Basse-Normandie) on the subject of ‘The Normans and Empire’. This series is named after James Ford who left a legacy to endow a lectureship in British history. Thankfully, the rules are flexible enough to encompass a large slice of European history courtesy of David Bates and the Normans. I hope to be able to attend all six and blog about them in due course.

Oops

I’ve just realised my last post – now deleted – was just a more anxious repeat of something I wrote in November (with a few things added). Apologies to everyone: I am clearly losing my, always tenuous, grip on reality.