Katrina Asuncion
Section A01
Week 5

This week's readings discuss the imperializing and policing that occurs at the university, and the societal influence of our militarized, post 9/11 world. In "Imperial University," Maira and Chatterjee discuss the growing "the collusion of the university with militarism and occupation, the privatization of higher education, and economies of knowledge" (Chatterjee and Maira), linking the concepts from Week 4 with Week 5. In "Empire of Death and the Plague of Civil Violence," Hamamoto links the United States' extreme militarism to the societal culture that perpetuate the phenomena of mass murder and serial killing. Both readings suggest that the military occupations of the United States affect society, both at the civic and academic level. 

I have taken ASA 189I with Professor Maira, so I am slightly familiar with the concept of the imperialism that occurs in the university and I did not feel shocked by the neoliberalism and imperialism that runs rampant in the academy. However, it is still surprising to me to know that the U.S.'s actions as a nation state trickle down and cause the institutional silencing, censorship, and policing that occurs at the university. 

Question: Is the future of ethnic studies at UC Davis in particular threatened by the imperialism of the university?



Works Cited

Chatterjee, P., & Maira, S. (2014). Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Hamamoto, D. Y. (2003). Empire of death and the plague of civil violence. In Boggs, C. (Ed.), Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in the Era of American Empire (pp. 272-296). New York, New York: Routledge.

Parvini, S. (2016). UC Davis defends paying to remove pepper-spray references from Internet. LA Times.