[Xmca-l] Re: Unreading Althusser

[David Kellogg]

Annalisa:

Sahlins' attacks on the Confucius Institutes have been discussed in this
space before. Some things to keep in mind.

a) Sahlins is worried about the ideological purity of the University of
Chicago, an institution whose links to terror regimes such as the Chilean
junta under Pinochet,  Israel under Menachem Begin...and Taiwan under
Chiang Kai-shek. When I was studying there, the Taiwanese regime was
allowed to carry on bitter anti-communist and even anti-Taiwanese
propaganda in the Chinese department where I was studying; Professor
Sahlins, who was in the UC anthropology department at the time, never to my
knowledge objected.

b) Chinese complaints about the so-called Tibetan government in exile have
nothing to do with the demand for greater autonomy, a demand Beijing has
always been ready to negotiate; they have everything to do with the fact
that the former slave owners and serf-owners, after decades of terror
attacks against the Chinese population of Tibet with CIA backing from bases
in Nepal, now advocate a form of ethnic cleansing for Tibet under the
rubric of "independence".

c) Chinese is the first major pretender to a "global" language in our era
to be taught by non-white people. No objections were EVER raised to the
global teaching of French, Spanish, or English, even when the institutions
teaching these languages were heavily involved in colonial and neocolonial
enterprises (viz., the British Council, AID, Alliance Francaise).

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies


On 9 February 2015 at 11:44, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Hello esteemed xmcars,
>
> Interestingly, Marshall Sahlins has recently published a book called,
> "Confucius Institutes: Academic Malware."
> http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/C/bo20637267.html
>
> Seems as if my fear has materialized!
>
> Apparently, Sahlin's suggested solution is to shun those who proliferate
> academic malpractice, in this case the Confucious Institutes. I'd never
> heard of them before.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>