A New Book: The Imperial University Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent

Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, Editors

The University of Minnesota Press, 2014

At colleges and universities throughout the United States, political protest and intellectual dissent are increasingly being met with repressive tactics by administrators, politicians, and the police—from the use of SWAT teams to disperse student protestors and the profiling of Muslim and Arab American students to the denial of tenure and dismissal of politically engaged faculty. The Imperial University brings together scholars, including some who have been targeted for their open criticism of American foreign policy and settler colonialism, to explore the policing of knowledge by explicitly linking the academy to the broader politics of militarism, racism, nationalism, and neoliberalism that define the contemporary imperial state.
The contributors to this book argue that “academic freedom” is not a sufficient response to the crisis of intellectual repression. Instead, they contend that battles fought over academic containment must be understood in light of the academy’s relationship to U.S. expansionism and global capital. Based on multidisciplinary research, autobiographical accounts, and even performance scripts, this urgent analysis offers sobering insights into such varied manifestations of “the imperial university” as CIA recruitment at black and Latino colleges, the connections between universities and civilian and military prisons, and the gender and sexual politics of academic repression.

Contributors: Thomas Abowd, Tufts U; Victor Bascara, UCLA; Dana Collins, California State U, Fullerton; Nicholas De Genova; Ricardo Dominguez, UC San Diego; Sylvanna Falcón, UC Santa Cruz; Farah Godrej, UC Riverside; Roberto J. Gonzalez, San Jose State U; Alexis Pauline Gumbs; Sharmila Lodhia, Santa Clara U; Julia C. Oparah, Mills College; Vijay Prashad, Trinity College; Jasbir Puar, Rutgers U; Laura Pulido, U of Southern California; Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, California State U, Long Beach; Steven Salaita, Virginia Tech; Molly Talcott, California State U, Los Angeles.

 Contents

Introduction. The Imperial University: Race, War, and the Nation-State

Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira
I. Imperial Cartographies
1. New Empire, Same University? Education in the American Tropics after 1898  By Victor Bascara
2. Militarizing Education: The Intelligence Community’s Spy Camps By Roberto J. González
3. Challenging Complicity: The Neoliberal University and the Prison-Industrial Complex By Julia C. Oparah
II. Academic Containment
4. Neoliberalism, Militarization, and the Price of Dissent: Policing Protest at the University of California By Farah Godrej
5. Faculty Governance at the University of Southern California By Laura Pulido
6. The BDS Movement and Violations of Academic Freedom at Wayne State University By Thomas Abowd
7. Decolonizing Chicano Studies in the Shadows of the University’s “Heteropatriracial” Order By Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo
III. Manifest Knowledges
8. Normatizing State Power: Uncritical Ethical Praxis and Zionism By Steven Salaita
9. Nobody Mean More: Black Feminist Pedagogy and Solidarity By Alexis Pauline Gumbs
10. Teaching outside Liberal-Imperial Discourse: A Critical Dialogue about Antiracist Feminisms
Sylvanna Falcón, Sharmila Lodhia, Molly Talcott, and Dana Collins
11. Citation and Censure: Pinkwashing and the Sexual Politics of Talking about Israel By Jasbir Puar
IV. Heresies and Freedoms
12. Within and Against the Imperial University: Reflections on Crossing the Line By Nicholas De Genova
13. Teaching by Candlelight By Vijay Prashad
14. UCOP versus R. Dominguez —The FBI Interview: A One-Act Play á la Jean Genet By Ricardo Dominguez