*Cicero could always sweep all before her at university meetings. She could politic better than anyone. She knew how to get what she wanted. It was effortless. That’s what a communist upbringing teaches you.
How had she done it: open a philosophy department when the university had closed one so emphatically only a few years earlier? How had she created an entirely new philosophy programme of study when the university had declared itself utterly allergic to philosophy not so long ago?
How had she done it, when the higher ups couldn’t even speak about the trauma of closing the old philosophy department? When the memories of the old philosophy clearly made upper and lower management cringe? How had he pulled it off, even as older staff still remembered the farewell speech of the head of the old philosophy department?
But Cicero did it. Cicero outmanouevrered the enemy. Cicero boxed very clever. Cicero went the back door route. Cicero drew upon old allies. Secret connections. She called in some favours. She’d done things for people, and now she wanted things done in return.
How was it possible? But it was possible. A philosophy department. Philosophy, born again at Newcastle! Philosophy, alive again oh! Philosophy, rising, phoenix-like. Blazing into the sky.
Work in Progress 