Week 5 - Savannah Keyse

Savannah Keyse

Section 2

Week 5

This reading opened with a scene of student protests on the UC Riverside campus, gathered to show distrust of the UC regents meeting to discuss the education budget during the height of the raising tuition prices. While the authors explain a different cause for protests, the scene reminds me of the protests held on Berkeley and Davis's campuses showing solidarity against corrupt UC executives. Throughout the multiple protests students are faced with military-like police, or in the authors' experience, SWAT teams, just to keep control of the peaceful crowds of students. The universities call these resistance teams to control, corral, and censor the students who are trying to get their opinions out in an institution that greatly suppresses them. Imperial University, this weeks' theme, is present in this article as it shows the domineering nature of universities. Chatterjee et al. explain that warfare and militarism are mixed with politics of race, class, gender and others, and all the notions behind these factors are embedded in academia. The Imperial University dictates the knowledge and logics that are present in universities and these are not up for debate they are rigid and need to be fought against. Students need to help pull back the aspects of the Imperial University in order to receive an education that will advance our minds and not produce students who are recreations of the university's ideals. The authors refer to the people who are fighting back as "organic intellectuals" and encourages all students to strive for new knowledge. 

Question: Would dedicating more money to non STEM majors help broaden the scope of course materials and allow students to become more "organic"?

• Chatterjee, Piya & Sunaina Maira (2014). The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
• Photo: Cover of Sunaina Maira and Piya Chatterjee, "The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent"