Reform UK’s disavowal of “Mickey Mouse degrees” (Report, 20 August) prompts me to disclose my own proposed thesis subject at the Suella Braverman Institute of Culture and Media Studies: “Do the Runaways, Cheap Trick, and Van Halen form three distinct subgenres in late 70s/early 80s rock music?”
Consider the rigorous training such a study would provide for modern working life. First, archival work in NME and Sounds, and distinguishing between primary sources (the records) and secondary sources (gig reviews from the periods in question).
Second, making a cogent argument. I would need to define terms precisely. Is Joan Jett’s proto-punk different in intent from Cheap Trick’s power-pop melodicism, and is that different again from Van Halen’s technical hard rock? That is taxonomy, debate and evidence-handling.
Third, transferable skills: close listening, contextualising art within economics and social change, handling contradictory testimony, and writing to a strict word count. Employers surely value graduates who can take a messy dataset and turn it into a clear thesis.
If we dismiss this as frivolous, we also dismiss the habit of asking specific questions about culture and answering them with care. That habit is what universities have been doing for an awfully long time.
So good luck to Suella Braverman and Richard Tice with reversing 2,500 years of human intellectual progress. I’m sure Aristotle would have had a strong opinion on Eddie Van Halen’s tapping technique.
Greg White
Totton, Hampshire
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