The Imperial University : Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent

394 Pages·2014·2.883 MB·English

by  Chatterjee, Piya, Maira, Sunaina

The Imperial University
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The Imperial University
Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent
Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, Editors
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
An earlier version of chapter 2, by Roberto J. González, was published in Militarizing Culture:
Essays on the Warfare State (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press, 2010).
An earlier version of chapter 11, by Jasbir Puar, previously appeared as “Citation and Censor-
ship: The Politics of Talking about the Sexual Politics of Israel,” Feminist Legal Studies 13, no. 2.
Published online, July 15, 2011.
An earlier version of chapter 13, by Vijay Prashad, previously appeared as “Teaching by Candle-
light,” Social Text 90, vol. 25, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 105–1 5.
Copyright 2014 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-P ublication Data
The Imperial University : academic repression and scholarly dissent / Piya Chatterjee and
Sunaina Maira, editors.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0 - 8166– 8089– 4 (hc : alk. paper)— ISBN 978–0 - 8166– 8090– 0 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Education. 2. Public schools—U nited States— Finance. I. Chatterjee, Piya. II. Maira,
Sunaina.
LB2825.I47 2014
371.010973— dc23 2013038691
Printed in the United States of America on acid-f ree paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-o pportunity educator and employer.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to Sri Rama Prasad Chatterjee— beloved baba, teacher,
and friend. With deepest respect and gratitude.
And to the Irvine 11, the Davis Dozen, and all those scholars
and students who paid the price.
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Contents
Introduction
The Imperial University: Race, War, and the Nation- State 1
Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira
I. Imperial Cartographies
1. New Empire, Same Old University? Education
in the American Tropics after 1898 53
Victor Bascara
2. Militarizing Education: The Intelligence
Community’s Spy Camps 79
Roberto J. González
3. Challenging Complicity: The Neoliberal University
and the Prison- Industrial Complex 99
Julia C. Oparah
II. Academic Containment
4. Neoliberalism, Militarization, and the Price of Dissent:
Policing Protest at the University of California 125
Farah Godrej
5. Faculty Governance at the University of
Southern California 145
Laura Pulido
6. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement and
Violations of Academic Freedom at Wayne State University 169
Thomas Abowd
7. Decolonizing Chicano Studies in the Shadows
of the University’s “Heteropatriracial” Order 187
Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo
III. Manifest Knowledges
8. Normatizing State Power: Uncritical
Ethical Praxis and Zionism 217
Steven Salaita
9. Nobody Mean More: Black Feminist
Pedagogy and Solidarity 237
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
10. Teaching outside Liberal- Imperial Discourse:
A Critical Dialogue about Antiracist Feminisms 261
Sylvanna Falcón, Sharmila Lodhia,
Molly Talcott, and Dana Collins
11. Citation and Censure: Pinkwashing and the
Sexual Politics of Talking about Israel 281
Jasbir Puar
IV. Heresies and Freedoms
12. Within and Against the Imperial University:
Reflections on Crossing the Line 301
Nicholas De Genova
13. Teaching by Candlelight 329
Vijay Prashad
14. UCOP versus R. Dominguez: The FBI Interview.
A One-A ct Play à la Jean Genet 343
Ricardo Dominguez
Acknowledgments 355
Contributors 357
Index 361
Introduction
The Imperial University
Race, War, and the Nation- State
Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira
Storm Troopers and Students
Piya: January 19, 2012. It is midafternoon on a brisk and beautiful winter
day in the Inland Empire of Southern California. I enter my second floor
office in the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of California,
Riverside. The hallway is silent. It reminds me, sadly, of any colorless and
functional corporate office building. I wish for sound, some sign of collective
social life. This alienating silence is particularly acute today given the noisy
scenes of protest (including some Rabelaisian revelries with drumming and
chants) taking place just a few hundred feet away in the student commons.
The Board of Regents of the University of California (UC) is meeting on
campus to address the budget crisis that has, for some years now, imper-
iled this great public university system and led to severe tuition hikes. Stu-
dents know that their fees will be raised again. Contingent faculty and other
workers know they will be plunged into further precarity. For some years
now, the alliances forged among student, faculty, and labor unions in
response to the public education crisis have meant that any high-l evel UC
administrators’ gathering is met with well- planned protests and resistance.
But it also means that police officers and other law enforcement agents are in
full gear and out in full force.
Earlier in the day, I join other protestors who throng the site of the meet-
ing and whose mood is quite upbeat. “Whose university?” someone chants.
“Our university!” replies the crowd. Plainclothes men mingle with protesters,
lots of cameras are out. A friend, familiar with surveillance techniques, nudges
me: “No need to get paranoid,” she says, “but you do realize we are all being
photographed?” A police officer repeatedly asks us to clear the commons. “Our
university!” chants the crowd in response. In that micromoment of regula-
tion around who should people “the commons,” I sense that a fence is being
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