Textualizing cultures: thinking beyond the MIT controversy

Callahan, William A. ORCID: 0000-0001-6103-0586 (2015) Textualizing cultures: thinking beyond the MIT controversy. Positions, 23 (1). pp. 131-144. ISSN 1067-9847

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Abstract

This essay examines how the MIT Controversy hardened identities in terms of the timeworn template of geopolitical conflict of national stereotypes. It critically analyzes the Chinese students’ response to the “Visualizing Cultures” project by putting it in the context of the PRC’s patriotic education policy that securitizes culture by focusing on identity as difference in a zero-sum game that distinguishes civilization from barbarism, and China from the rest of the world. It critically analyzes the professors response to the controversy by highlighting how meaning is not only produced by the author; it is also consumed by various audiences that bring diverse sets of experiences into meaning making. It concludes that the controversy is less about content, and more about who controls knowledge production and distribution.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://positions.dukejournals.org/
Additional Information:	© 2015 by Duke University Press
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DS Asia J Political Science > JZ International relations
Date Deposited:	19 Nov 2015 11:03
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2024 05:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/64460

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