Rachel Wong - Week 5

Rachel Wong
ASA 2- A02
Week 5
4/29/17

This week's article, The Imperial University: Race, War, and the Nation-State by Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, discusses the idea of an "Imperial University," which discusses how higher institutions have imposed a fixed set of "Americanized" education. The Imperial University is important in influencing America's norms. The imposition of its ideals are stemmed from the history of white supremacy, where western nations believe that their ideologies and practices is the correct and civilized way of thinking and living. Higher educational institutions want to impose their ideas of what they believe to be "true," disregarding conflicting ideologies.

The article also discusses how the Imperial University imposes academic containment, which represses people from expressing conflicting opinions. Fortunately, growing up in San Francisco, our school system was aware of issues regarding educational oppression. However, we still lacked complete academic freedoms. Our school still imposed white-centric education and did not offer any ethnic study classes, even when our school's student population was predominately Asian.

The existence of the Imperial University became especially apparent following 9/11. The American educational system imposed anti-Islamic ideals, which normalized backlash against Muslims in America. Protests against Islamophobia resulted in violent oppression, which normalized militaristic actions of the American institution. American society is becoming increasingly desensitized to violence, which can be seen in our society's increasingly violent Hollywood films and video games.

Question: Can the Imperial University ever be decolonized? Or are the Imperial University's ideals too deeply embedded into our culture?

Citations:

Chatterjee, Maira, P. (n.d.). The Imperial University: Race, War, and the Nation-State. Retrieved April 29, 2017.
Hope, Ernest. Free speech, war, and academic freedom. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web.