Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk › Academic
Description
When Maartje Draak, professor of Celtic Studies at Utrecht University, said to her students in 1955 that pursuing Celtic Studies would perhaps not provide them with material riches but certainly with riches for the mind (‘rijkdom voor uw geest’), she states a truth that we all feel in our core. However, in the current Dutch academic climate, riches of the mind are not enough to justify the existence of a subject. A year after celebrating the centenary of Celtic Studies at Utrecht University, the dean of the Faculty of Humanities announced the closure of the programme, together with 5 other ‘small subjects’, which marked the start of a turbulent period for both students and staff. In this contribution, I will describe these turbulent months, and I will outline my thoughts on the importance of Celtic Studies as a subject in the Netherlands and the importance of our academic and public community in protecting it.