The UK's last Chair of Palaeography is being sacked.
So what, you may ask. Or, what? Palaeography is the study and decoding of ancient texts, from Beowulf to the Rosetta Stone. It's important to all the other disciplines - law, history, English, religion, everything. But it isn't sexy, so even posh places like King's College London are dumping it, leaving us all poorer. Without palaeography, even the partial text of Beowulf my students will study on Friday wouldn't be comprehensible.
There's a Facebook page for those of you who are so inclined, or you can contact the Principal of King's College London. If you're handwriting's bad enough, they'll have to employ a palaeographer to decipher it!
Even if you don't care about this specific subject, we need to resist the juggernaut - led by both political parties - to allow 'non-vocational' subjects to die. We are more than worker drones, and humanities are part of what makes us civilised.
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