Transmogrification: Having read Churchill's and Dawson's articles, as well as Prashad's 'Teaching by candlelight', which is also on Blackboard, I am feeling distinctly uncomfortable and rather despondent about being so far away from home, and hurtling headlong into a space that is undergoing an ugly transmogrification.
Academic vs. Real Worlds: In the light of these articles, I think the oft-repeated refrain that 'academics overstate their importance' or notions that 'practical' concerns are different from academic self-importance can now be safely thrown out of the window. Academics are not physically separated from the 'practical' real world, the ivory tower is not a seclusion for allowing the inhabitants of the towers to play irrelevant language games; the ivory tower, in fact it is meant to be protection from a potential backlash from the 'practical' world. The academy, and for those of us within it, is at the fulcrum of shaping social forces OUTSIDE itself, and that is why the tower is built.
Mercantilism: Unfortunately, the increasing neo-liberalization of the University in the last two decades has seen a greater pressure on the humanities and social science departments to mercantilise. Grant culture forces academics to pursue limited range of research programs, especially when such grants become criteria for promotion and tenure. But even more insidiously, the University is a raced space. Churchill's and Dawson's cases have shown how ethnic identity becomes a central cog of neoliberal witch-hunts of Universities.
Labor: From Dawson's article we also learn the correlation between neo-liberalization and lack of graduate student empowerment in the University. Collective bargaining goes against the grain of neoliberal ideology, as we all know, and recent examples from our own campus, where wage cuts have affected almost all Purdue staff except the Board of directors, shows once again the looming threat of such politics in the University. From a personal political standpoint, it has just come to my knowledge that the State of Indiana refuses to accept student unions as legitimate entities. It is illegal for students to unionize in this state! How far have I drifted from the familiar, from the known?
To the marketplace, in chains, we go!: As academics who can only hope to make a dent large enough to be mud-slinged, like Edward Said, Churchill, Finkelstein, let's ensure we cross our Ts and dot our Is, and be prepared for the fact that the first sign of discomfort we have caused to the structure is when someone questions the credibility of your scholarship, or accuses you of plagiarism. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, often imprisoned for his fiery pen, once said,
Aaj bazaar main pa bajolan chalo
Dast afshan chalo, mast-o-raqsan chalo
Khak bar sar chalo, khoon badaman chalo
Rah takta hai sub shehr-e-janaan chalo
(To the marketplace, in chains, we go...
With palms exposed, with a song and dance,
With dirt in our hair, with blood on our chest,
Let us go while the entire city of lovers watches.)
While not meaning to romanticize the outing of scholars and the marketization of the University, this is the world that we know, a space that we need to look hard at, and even at the risk of things like premature dismissals, say unpopular things.
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