Week 5- Iris Wu

Iris Wu

Section A01

Week 5

In the article “Empire of Death and The Plague of Civil Violence, Darrell Y. Hamamoto mentioned the brutal murders and civil violence rise. He went into detail of the backgrounds and the behaviors of the killers and implied how the governmental imperial effects lead to their “killing behavior”. It is surprising how the time in war and the experience of fighting against enemies would potentially influence them on remaining this perspective, to continue “killing their enemies”, and based on their racist and sexist motivation. On the other hand, Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira introduced the idea of "Imperial University" and discussed about the militarizing corporation of the university in “The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent.” In need of funds and support, universities are forced to be in accordance with expectations of the corporation. Therefore, all “inappropriate” student activities that would potentially harm the funding are to be oppressed. Both articles brought up the influence of government and how these issues are important but usually neglected.

Universities are often praised of the freedom and diversity of student societies. Protests, free speeches, diverse cultural and ethnic club activities seem to provide students freedom to express opinions and democracy. However, it is sad to realize that there is still the irremovable “Imperial University” control on top of all these. We seem to hold all the rights but realistically all the actions are under concerns of economic, political issues. The UC Davis pepper spray incident in 2011 is indeed one of the most representative. Student protestors were forced to keep silent and sprayed by military-grade pepper spray. The police were posing violence to keep everything under the military’s control.

Question: Are there any possible ways to weaken the strong governmental power and control over universities to give universities "actual freedom"? That is, is it possible for Imperial University to be decolonized?

References:

1. UC Davis Defends Paying to Remove Pepper-spray References from Internet. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-davis-pepper-spray-internet-20160415-story.html

2. Boggs, C. (2013). Masters of War Militarism and Blowback in the Era of American Empire. New York: Taylor and Francis.

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