Now We Are in Control Volume 16 I Winter 2016

9 West NewsRoad from the Faculty of English Now we are in control Volume 16 I Winter 2016 s I write this, in the continuously deposited, and that I have changing. The Faculty at present vivid azure of the South inadvertently revealed its existence and hosts one such project, Crossroads of of France, daunted by whereabouts – ‘Oh, haven’t you seen it Knowledge, whose Principal Investigator the prospect of taking under the floor of the Council Room in is Dr Subha Mukerjee and whose team over as Chair of the the Old Schools?’ Chest there is not, but of researchers occupy a well-situated Faculty Board from the distribution of funds that find their corner office on the second floor of our Amy predecessor Steve Connor, I find it way into the School we are a member Faculty building. Such grants are not difficult to ignore the fear and – alas – of – the School of Arts and Humanities suited to every project and much of the expectation that the UK tertiary sector is – is determined by the resources of the extraordinary research that takes place about to be hit by a tsunami. Everyone University as a whole. We do not get in our Faculty and indeed in the School I have encountered on my vacation, our hands on the many millions our of Arts and Humanities is carried out by most especially the French locals in our colleagues might raise in grants for imaginative, energetic and very talented holiday village, has wondered what on Engineering projects – anyone interested solo researchers. This is very unlikely to earth the UK population was thinking in setting up an interdisciplinary English- change, but as the university sector in the when it voted to leave the European Engineering project should write to me UK tries to adapt to a changing political Union. I suppose that many readers of immediately, perhaps ‘the language of and economic environment it will have our Faculty Newsletter might imagine surface tension’? – but the Resource little choice but to seek funding from that, given the nature of our subject and Allocation Model (the formula the outside agencies. If we are cut off from its requirement that, grosso modo, one University uses for distributing funds European Union resources it will leave a be native level competent in the English across all sectors of our activity) does very large hole in our balance sheet. language, Brexit will have little impact on mean that the Faculty’s resources are It is not simply a matter of funding, the Faculty’s work. So one might think deeply dependent on the University’s. of cash. Once again, although the that things will carry on as normal, as if So it sharpens the mind to think that academic and intellectual profile of there ever is a normal. It is true that we between 2007 and 2014 the University disciplines is very far from identical, it is do not teach many undergraduates from of Cambridge received €424M, nevertheless the case that my colleagues, other European countries – at the time of approximately 24% of its entire research like others across the University, have writing about 10% of the full cohort – funding, under the EU’s Framework colleagues outside 9 West Road or indeed but at postgraduate level this rises to just Programme 7. Indeed its annual inflow Cambridge. We might not be technically under 25%. of funds in the form of grants from EU engaged in a collaborative research However, once one stands back and sources is at least €45M. The University project, funded by the grand agencies surveys the larger context in which our is incredibly successful in winning which foster such types of research, but work, teaching and research take place, European Research Council grants – in we certainly have connections to other the storm clouds begin to gather rather fact it is more successful than any other researchers and research groups. The more perplexingly. The Faculty, in HEI in Europe. Not only in the UK, University has calculated that somewhere common with all the other Faculties and but in Europe. By November of last in the region of 100,000 collaborative Departments in the University, receives year, this totalled one hundred and fifty links have been established between resources – most significantly in terms five European Research Council grants, researchers in the UK and those in other of monetary value in the form of salaries or 22% of all grants awarded. Under European Union countries. Twenty-three paid to our establishment, including of another European Union initiative, per cent of academic staff come from course administrative staff – that are called Horizon 2020, the University of other European Union countries and complexly accounted for and distributed Cambridge received the highest amount 27% of our post-doctoral researchers by the central administration. We still of EU funding of any HEI; as of February also come from outside the UK. It is not, rather quaintly refer to this financial 2016 this amounted to £98,543, 527. of course, simply a matter of research resource as ‘the chest’. Whenever I Although the arts and humanities staff. The University of Cambridge is say this I want to retract it in case I are less practised in, and have far less a very large corporation that employs have given the impression that there is experience with, grant applications very many people as administrators indeed some wonderful, jewel-bedecked of the type overseen by the European and support staff. And the University medieval vessel into which gold coins are Research Council, this is rapidly is a major employer in the region and Contents Now we are in control Peter de Bolla 1 Shelley in the Alps Ross Wilson 3 Shakespeare in Swahililand Edward Wilson-Lee 4 Digital Knowledge Flueron Hazel Wilkinson 6 Introducing the Concept Lab Ewan Jones 6 Samuel Beckett’s Letters Publishing the Letters Linda Bree 8 A Correspondent Steven Connor 9 Read Any Good Books Lately? Faculty Recommendations 10 The Faculty Library and Twitter Libby Tilley 11 Athena SWAN contributor to its immediate locale. university is collegiate. Many of the Nicolette Zeaman 12 Universities UK, for example, calculate deep connections that are made while that EU students generate £247.5M for studying at Cambridge, at whatever Faculty People 13 our regional economy. level, are created through the collegiate Cambridge English Let us also consider what a ‘hard system. These connections are far from Trudi Tate 18 Brexit’ might mean for our students. merely social, as hardly needs pointing When I took my degree here in out: they are often significant with Literature and Creative Writing at ICE Cambridge no one dreamt of spending respect to the developing intellectual Jenny Bavidge 19 journeys of the kind we do our best as time away from the comfort and You Say 20 support of the Whim on Trinity Street teachers to feed, encourage, disturb and – does anyone remember their extensive learn from. They are often significant menu of wicked ‘Irish’ coffees? How in respect to the knowledge base we, disturbing would that be? But to my as citizens of the world, construct and great delight our current generation curate. They open our eyes to that of students has access to schemes that world. Our compulsory paper in Part enable them to explore teaching and II of the Tripos, the Tragedy paper, does learning, not to mention culture and many things – stimulates, frustrates, life-enhancing experiences, in our annoys – but it would be impossible neighbouring European countries. In to make much sense of its intellectual the UK as whole over 200,000 UK content from the perspective of a mono- If you have any comments or cultural and inwardly facing society or students have taken advantage of the suggestions, or if you know of polis. You will not get a better grade exchange programme called Erasmus. anyone who might like to receive this in Tripos by befriending someone from, newsletter and is not on our mailing And we here, in windy East Anglia, say, Italy, but you may well understand list, please contact: have been privileged to be challenged better and continue to think about what and amazed by students whose degrees it means to be a citizen of the world for Newsletter Editor are most likely to be conferred by the rest of your life. Let us hope that Faculty of English Universities in other European Union these musings are the product of too 9 West Road countries. Once again to place our much time in the sun. Cambridge CB3 9DP Faculty’s work in the broader context of the University, although our own [email protected] students do not number many from outside the UK, the University as whole admits 16% of undergraduates from We are considering whether to Peter de Bolla distribute the newsletter by email in other European Union countries. In the Chair of the Faculty future, so do make sure we have your postgraduate sector that figure is 17%. Professor of Cultural History and Aesthetics current address. As all reading this newsletter know, our Fellow of King’s College 2 9 West Road Shelley in the Alps A detail of the hotel visitors’ book recently acquired by the Wren Library n an attempt to feign respectability, Shelley being reluctant, and Polidori subsequent visitors, including his distant illicit couples might sign themselves spraining his ankle.) The Shelley party’s relatives Sir John and Lady Shelley, found ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’. Those with trip to Chamonix, in the shadow of Mont it so. It was less offensive, no doubt, to I nothing to hide just put their name, Blanc, much visited by English tourists in the ‘indecent’ and ‘hysteric’ Victorian nationality, and destination.

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