The Role of the Humanities in the Corporate University

Author(s): Walter D. Mignolo

Source: PMLA, Vol. 115, No. 5 (Oct., 2000), pp. 1238-1245
Published by: Modern Language Association
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1238

PMLA

Conferenceon the Futureof DoctoralEducation

We
thecanon,butat thelevelofcriticalinquiry.
not
from
should shyaway
textsbecause
literary
canon.
theyhavebeenpartofthetraditional
My plea fora graduateprogramunderthe
auspicesofciviccultureplacestheemphasison
intellectualmaturity
ratherthanon vocational
skills.Vocationalskills,important
as theyare,
shouldbe perceivedas necessarytools fora
broadermission.Thismissiontakesnoteofthe
ongoingrestructuring
oftheuniversity,
butitdoes
notautomatically
regardthegrowingmarketofthecorporate
orientation
university
as a logical
toconstruct
imperative
thegraduateprogram
in
theforeign
languagesas anappendixtothebusinessworld.The goalhastobe renegotiated
with
thesocialcommunity,
thatis,withthecivilsociety,inwhichthedemandsoftheeconomymust
be considered
butarenotthefirst
priority.

TheRoleoftheHumanities
inthe
Corporate
University
WALTER

D. MIGNOLO

DukeUniversity

WHEN I WASINITIALLY
THINKINGOF A

topicto addressin thisconference,

I suspected,
and mysuspicionswerelaterconfirmed,
thata
mainconcernwouldbe thejob market.
I am of
courseverysensitiveto thisproblematic
issue,
yetthereare otherand in thelongrunno less
important
issues thatrelateto themostpressingneedsof graduatestudentsand futurecolleagues.Amongtheseissues,I focushereon the
role of foreignlanguagesin highereducation
andtheroleofthehumanities
in an increasingly
corporate
university.

WORKS
CITED
Denham,Scott,IreneKacandes,andJonathan
Petropoulos,
eds. A User's Guide to GermanCulturalStudies.Ann
Arbor:U ofMichiganP, 1997.
Simon
Gibbons,Michael,CamileLimoges,HelgaNovotny,
PeterScott,and MartinTrow.TheNew
Schwartzman,
Production
ofKnowledge:TheDynamicsofScienceand
Researchin Contemporary
Societies. London: Sage,
1994.
A ClassicalDeNussbaum,Martha.Cultivating
Humanity:
fenseofReform
inLiberalEducation.Cambridge:HarvardUP, 1997.
andtheEnd ofthe
Pan,David."TheCrisisoftheUniversity
Humanities."
Telos111 (1998): 69-106.
Readings,Bill. The University
in Ruins.Cambridge:HarvardUP, 1996.
Reich,RobertB. The WorkoftheNation:PreparingOurselvesforTwenty-First-Century
Capitalism.New York:
Vintage,1992.
Slaughter,
Sheila,and LarryL. Leslie. AcademicCapitalism:Politics,Policies,and theEntrepreneurial
University.Baltimore:
JohnsHopkinsUP, 1997.

Therearefewer
jobs in thehumanities
than
thereusedto be, in partbecausethehumanities
havelostthefundamental
roletheyheldin the
humanistic
of
university theRenaissanceandin
theKantianuniversity
fromtheEnlightenment
to WorldWar11.1I haveno specificrecommendationbutbelievethatthefight
forjobs willbe
moreeffectiveif thehumanitiesmake themselves moredesirableratherthanplace themselvesin a beggingposition.
Geopolitics of Languages and
Knowledge:The Place of Foreign
Languages and Literaturesin the
Post-Cold War University
Historyis movingtowarda transnational
world,
butourprofessionis stillanchoredin national
languagesandliteratures.
Inthepastfewdecades,

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I 15

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on theFutureof DoctoralEducation
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curricular
therehasbeensignificant
changeunder
andpostcolonialstudthenameofpostmodern
ies; culturalstudies;ethnic,gender,and queer
studies;and so on. This changedid notcome
indepartments
without
struggle,
of
particularly
Thedebatebetween
languagesandliteratures.
litandcomplieraryandculturalstudiescontinues
thealreadyexisting
tension
catesfurther
between
languageteaching
andliterary
studies.
The obviousand necessarylinkbetweena
nationallanguageand a nationalliterature
becomes less obvious when we move to postcolonial,ethnic,or genderstudies.Whileit is
"natural"to teachHispanicliteratures,
to teach
Hispanicgenresis a non-sense.Yettheneedto
deal withgenderin particular
nationalcontexts
has recently
emerged.For thatreason,cultural
studieshas been rightlyembracedby those
whoaresuspiciousofthelinksbetweennational
languages and nationalliteraturesas a field
of study.Whenthemainfocusis a givenlananda givenculture,
guage,a givenliterature,
the
borderlinebetweenbeinga scholarin thehumanitiesand being a sophisticatedtouristor
government
agentis blurred.This ambiguity
is
notequalacrosstheboard.Ifyouarea scholarin
Frenchor Germanlanguageand literature,
for
example,yourrolewouldbe similarto thatofa
scholarin Spanishlanguageand literature
but
nottothatofsomeonewhosespeciality
is Bolivian literature
in Spanish,Aymara,
andQuechua.
Bolivia does not have the capacityto invest
moneyin thepromotionof thingsBolivianin
Americanuniversities,
as Germany,
Spain,and
Francedo fortheirnationalities.
Similarexamples couldbe foundforthecase ofIndiaandthe
interaction
ofEnglish,Hindi,andBengali.
Meanwhile,as each nationinvestspower
andpossibilities
in Americanhighereducation,
historyis movingfroma nationalto a transnational(some would even say postnational)
world.Whatvalue do nationallanguagesand
literatures
havein sucha world?Whatshoulda
majorprogramin Spanish,French,Romance
studies,German,or Arabiclook like?Whatis

inliberaledutheroleoflanguageandliterature
cation?Fifteenyearsago, a student
majoringin
FrenchorSpanishwas expectedtoknowFrench
andSpanishandhavea senseofthenationalliteratureand culture.Todaywe can stillsay the
same,yetI havethefeelingthatthegoals will
be different
in thefuture.Obviouslya student
majoringin Frenchor Spanish should learn
Frenchor Spanish. But whatelse should be
learned?Spanishis notonlya foreign
language
but also a minority
nationallanguagein the
United States. The grammaris the same in
Spain, Bolivia, and California,butlearninga
languageis morethanlearninggrammar,
espeworld.If we beginto
ciallyin a transnational
thinkaboutSpanishin theUnitedStatesas opposedto Spanishin Spainor in SpanishAmerica, thegoals we setourstudentsmaychange.
The job marketfor majors in Spanish may
widenbeyondteachingSpanishin highschools
or goingto graduateschool,where,at theend
of the road,the problemof fewjobs will be
thesame.
Whatwill thisexpandedjob marketlook
like?Translation
is destinedto becomeincreasinglynecessaryin a transnational
society.The
goal of learninga second language will no
longerbe competencein it and themasteryof
itsnationalliterature
and culture;thegoal will
be the abilityto translate.When I speak of
I do notmeantranslating
translation,
literature.
Rather,I referto theworkof translation
and
transculturation,
assumingthata transnational
societyis a societyofinteraction
acrossnational
frontiers
and acrosslanguagesandcultures.2
A
majorin foreignlanguagesandcultureswould
no longerbe someonecompetent
in a national
languageandwellversedin a nationalliterature
andculture;itwouldbe someonetrainedin livingbetweenlanguagesand cultures,an expert
as necessaryforthesocietyas a majorin computingsciences.
I am awarethatthisconference
focuseson
graduate
educationandthefuture
ofPhDs inthe
fieldsof languageandliterature.
Therearetwo

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justifications
formydetourthroughlanguage societybeforeWorldWar I1,becamea suppletoeducation.First,thePhD in languageandlitera- mentto an educationgearedincreasingly
Therefore
there wardtrainingexpertsin practicalknowledge
turewillteachundergraduates.
theneedsofwhatis today
is a vicious circleto be solved here.To train andtowardsupplying
in translation
andtranscultur- calledtheneoliberalproject.Becomingsupplegraduatestudents
ationinsteadof foreignlanguagesand litera- mentalin thecorporate
thehumaniuniversity,
education ties relinquishedthecriticalpowerthatgave
tures requiresthat undergraduate
Studentsmajoring themstatusin theRenaissanceuntiltheeighreflect
thesameorientation.
will have a
in translation
and transculturation
teenth
andintheKantianuniversity
until
century
to teach- WorldWarII. The Kantianuniversity
in societythatis notrestricted
function
thrived,
ing. They will be needed in severaldomains historically
and ideologically,in theperiodof
and
(media,health,publicpolicy,government,
inEuropeandtheAmericas.
nationbuilding
ofthetransnational
ofcourseartandliterature)
My referenceto the Kantian university
andtranscultural
cen- comesfromKant'sTheConflict
societyofthetwenty-first
oftheFaculties.
tury.Who will traintheseundergraduate
stu- Kantdistinguished
betweenthehigherand the
dentsifnotgraduatestudentswhohavea PhD
lowerfaculty.
Theirdifference
was nota matter
notin French,Spanish,German,Arabic,or any ofranking
butinvolvedtheirrelation
tothestate:
of theotherforeignlanguagesand literatures
Wecantherefore
assume[. .1] thattheorganibeing taughtat Americanuniversitiesbut in
zationofa university
intoranksandclassesdid
translation
andtransculturation?
not
on
chance[... .]. According
depend
entirely
Sucha scenariomaydrawthecriticism
that
in
to
Reason
Kant'sideaofuniver[the
spine
curricular
changesofthisorderareunthinkable,
the
order
existsamongtheinsity],
following
a dream.Thesecriticsarerealistic
butnotimagcentives
thatthegovernment
canusetoachieve
inative.Theyacceptdefeatbeforefighting
the
itsend[ofinfluencing
people]:first
comesthe
battle.But to complainabouttheshrinking
of
eternal
ofeach,thenhiscivilwellwell-being
tenure-track
jobs in languagesand literatures
beingas a member
ofsociety,
andfinally
his
whilemaintaining
an academicstructure
thatis
wellbeing[... .]. So therankscustomphysical
leaving manyPhDs withoutjobs is, frankly,
arilyassigned
tothehigher
faculties,
Theology
nonsense.It is also nonsenseto say thatgraduLawsecond,
first,
andMedicine
third. (33)
ate studentshave to look forjobs beyondthe
university
whilethetraditional
structure
ofdocThe "naturalinstinct,"
Kantadds,followsthe
toralprograms
in foreignlanguagesand litera- reverseorder.Food andhealthcomefirst,
social
turesremainsin place. But the departments well-beingnext,and last, as life is winding
have theabilityto transform
themselves
andto
down, the need for theology.For Kant, the
contribute
totherestitution
oftheroleofthehu- lowerfacultyis philosophy.The dividingand
manitiesin societywithoutlosingtheintellec- rankingofthefacultyhavebeendonewithreftual groundthatthe humanitieshave held in
erence to the government
and not withrefhighereducation.
erenceto thelearnedprofession.A facultyis
consideredhigheronlyiftheteachingof it interests
thegovernment.
Thefaculty
whosefuncTransculturation,
and the
Translation,
tionis to look aftertheinterestsof scienceis
CriticalFunctionof Humanistic
deemedlower,becauseitmayuse itsownjudgScholarship
mentabout what it teaches. Philosophy,the
Thehumanities,
havinglosttheplacetheyoccu- lowerfaculty,
is dividedintotwodepartments.
pied in highereducationand consequentlyin
One is historical
knowledge
(history,
geography,

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I 15 5

philology,the humanities,and the empirical

knowledgecontainedin thenaturalsciences);
theotheris purerationalknowledge
(puremaththemetaphysics
ematicsandphilosophy,
ofnatureandofmorals).
As we can see, thereis no roomforlanguage and literature,
and evenless forforeign
languagesand literatures.
The verynotionof
foreignattachedto nation-state
was stillnew
whenincorporated
as partofthedepartment
in
the blueprintof the modernuniversity.
The
closerwe getto whattodayis languageandliterarystudies(foreignor national),the more
philologyis partof historicalknowledge.But
how did we getfromphilologyin theKantian
department
ofhistorical
tophilology
knowledge
as an autonomous
Thischangeocdepartment?
curredthrough
theconsolidation
ofthenationstateand theroleof languageand literature
in
raisingnationalconsciousness.
The subdivision
betweennationalandforeign
languagesandliteratures
occurred
bythesamenationallogic.
As thenationalliterary
modelmadeitsway
to theuniversity,
it had to displacetheclassics
(see Hutcheon),Greekand Latin,whichwere
presupposed
inwhatKantdescribed
as philology
and thehumanities.In theUnitedStates,this
displacementoccurredat theend of thenineteenthcentury
and coincidedwiththecreation
oftheModernLanguageAssociationofAmerica (Jones),withtheconsolidationof national
ideologies and nationallanguagesin Europe
(Hobsbawm),and withthemassivemigration
fromEurope to theUnitedStates(see Gere).
Fromthe end of the nineteenth
centuryuntil
WorldWarII, thereorganization
oftheuniversityinnationalandforeign
languagesandliteraturesfollowedthe structure
of power of the
secondstageof modernity-that
is, whenEngland and France (afterNapoleon) took over
Spain and Portugaland colonized Asia and
Africa.The firststageofcolonizationis partof
theRenaissance,thesecondof theEnlightenment.This reorganization
was notonlya nationalquestion.It was also embeddedin the

ideologicalstructure
of themodernworldsystemas describedby thesociologistImmanuel
Wallerstein(ModernWorld-System).
The foreignlanguageswereGermanand Frenchfirst,
thenItalian,Spanish,andPortuguese.
Thishierarchicalarrangement
stillholdstoday.It reflects
themodern-colonial
worldsystem,3
whichdistinguishes
betweenEuropeanmodernity
in the
north(Britain,
the
France,Germany; Enlightenment)and Europeanmodernity
in the south
(Italy,Spain,Portugal;theRenaissance).There
were,andstillare,twoconceptsof"foreign"
in
languageandliterature.
Spanishwas andis notonlythelanguageof
a southern
It is also theoffiEuropeancountry.
cial languageofmostLatinAmericancountries
(as Portuguese
is theofficial
languageofBrazil
and a fewcountriesin Africaand Asia), and,
since 1848 and 1898,ithas becomea minority
nationallanguagein the UnitedStates.Thus
Spanishis thelanguageofa southern
a
country,
ThirdWorldlanguage,and a nationalminority
language(see Mignolo,"LargerPicture").
The firstreasonthatI deviatedfromKant
andwentbackto Spanishis notwiththeintentionof promoting
Spanishoverotherforeign
languages.Spanish,afterMandarinandEnglish
the mostspokenlanguagein the world(Mignolo,Local Histories,ch. 7), is nowundergoing a most interesting
transformation
in the
domainof the geopoliticsof language.This
transformation
shouldbe studiednotonlyby
scholarsin Spanishlanguageandculturebutby
everybodyin the humanitiesand social sciences.The impactofFrenchtheory
in the1970s
was not limitedto Frenchspecialistsbut affectedtheentirefieldofthehumanities
and social sciences.We arecurrently
facinga similar
phenomenon,
exceptthatthistimethephenomenonis frombelow,fromhistory
itself.The second reasonI deviatedfromKantwas because
the Kantianuniversity
coincided,on the one
hand,withtheideologyofnationallanguages4
and,on theotherhand,withthehegemonyof
German,French,andEnglishas thelanguages

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andtransculturation
havesuggestedtranslation
of science and scholarship.The changes in
as theoveralltrustof languageand literature,
Spanishas a languageofthesouthofEurope,as
a language of ThirdWorldnationsin Latin because thefuturerequiresa transnational
(or
if in
postnational)perspective.Consequently,
America,andas a nationalminority
languagein
theUnitedStatesplace Spanish(as well as the EuropeandtheUnitedStateslanguagesandliteraturesin thepast threehundredyearshave
othercolonial languages of modernity)in a
been definedin tandemwithnationalideoloratherthatnationalframe.Since
transnational
theMLA was foundedat thecrucialmoment
gies,thefuture
of all
requirestheparticipation
of
nationalideologyandsincewe arenowmoving those languages and (sub)continents(Asia,
moreand moretowarda transnational
world, Africa,LatinAmerica)thathavebeen leftout
or thathave occupieda secondaryrolein culthemissionof theprofessionmustchangeas
well.Thatthefieldoflanguagesandliteratures, turesof scholarshipof themodernNorthAtand thehumanities
in general,losttheplace it
lanticworld.
occupiedin theKantianuniversity
and has not
yetredefined
itsrole forthecorporateuniverThe RoleoftheHumanities
ina Transsityof thefutureinvitesus to thinkprecisely
and Postnational
World
about this necessityforchange. What could
be theroleoflanguagesandliteratures,
andthe My argument
thatall theMLA and
presupposes
humanities,in thecorporateuniversity
of the itsmembersaredoingto improvethejob situatwenty-first
century?
Kantwouldassigna question is necessaryand should be maintained.
tionlikethisto thedomainofphilosophy,
since However,as MLA membersand humanists,
he viewedphilosophy
as thelowerfaculty(43),
we shouldalso questionwhyit is thatthehuwhichdoes notreceiveordersfroma superior. manitieshavefallenin desuetudeat theend of
Philosophy
was,in otherwords,the"postofobthetwentieth
I have suggestedthatwe
century.
servation"of thebattlefield
below. However, thinkaboutredirecting
themissionof ourprophilosophyhad itslanguagerequirement.
I do
fession,at boththeundergraduate
andgraduate
notthinkthatKant would have acceptedthat levels,towardtranslation
and transculturation
philosophy
couldhavebeenpracticedin Hindi, ratherthanlanguage(competence)and literaArabic,or Aymara.He had a clearidea of the ture(interpretation,
criticism,
etc.),because in
distribution
oftheplanetaccordingto race;the thetransnational
worldin whichwe live and
rankingof races; and theimplicitconnection whichwill intensify
in thefuture,translation
amongrace,language,andknowledge.5
andtransculturation
arephenomena
ofeveryday
The humanities,
as a disciplinary
configura- lifeandwillsupplant
theidea ofnationalvalues
tion,wouldbe thena trans-(ratherthaninter-) embeddedin languagesand literatures.
New
disciplinary
spaceforbotha positiveproduction needs are beingdefinedacrosslanguagesand
and transformation
of knowledgeand under- acrosscultures.If thisredefinition
ofthediscistandingand forcriticalreflections
on thepro- plinestemsfromtheexperienceofforeign
lanductionof knowledgeand understanding.
As
guages,thecurrent
divisionbetweennational
such,thehumanities
shouldnotbe conceivedas
andforeign
languageswillbe eradicated.
a newdisciplinethat,thistime,is transdisciplinThereis a need to replacetherole of phiary.Rather,theyshouldbe conceivedas the losophy(and thephilosopher)in theKantian
space forconversations
and interactions
where university
and to offerthatpositionto thehuno one,personor discipline,has thelastword manities(and thehumanist-intellectuals)
in the
andthepowerofordering
fromabove.Butwhat corporate
university.
Since a keyfeatureofthe
aboutlanguagesandliteratures
in thatspace? I
corporateuniversity
is thetrainingof experts

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on theFutureof DoctoralEducation
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1 55

who will contribute

to increasingproduction
andmaintaining
excellencefora societygeared
towardthemarket,
thehumanities
mustredefine
theirfunction.Unlikemedicine,wherehealth
has becomeone ofthemostattractive
industries
forfinancial
or
unlike
investments,
engineering
andcomputer
sciences,whichcanraisesubstantial fundingfortheuniversity,
thehumanities
are,fromtheperspective
oftheideologyofefficiencyandthemarket,
quitesuperfluous.
Yetit
is precisely
thissuperfluousness
thatneedstobe
examined.For whatlies beyondefficiency?
Is
a
efficiency
a warranty
of happyand peaceful
society?Has itnotled to thearrayofproblems
societyis experiencingtoday,fromthe arms
race to the illegal drugindustry,
fromethnic
cleansingto extreme
poverty?
FranzHinkelama theologian
of liberation
mert,
inLatinAmerica
who was bornin Germany,tells the followinganecdote.Aboutfiveyearsago he was flying fromChile to Costa Rica, wherehe lives.
He was seatednextto a Chileanexecutivewho
workedfora transnational
The concorporation.
versation,verylively,turnedto globalization.
Hinkelammert
offered
his criticalviewofglobalization,emphasizingits darkerside: theextrememarginalization,
theincreasingpoverty
andpoorconditions
in whichthelargerportion
oftheplanetis living.The executiverecognized
thatwhatHinkelammert
was sayingwas true.
Yethe asked,"Do younotthinkthatwe havebecomemoreefficient
at thesametime?"Hinkelammert
thentranslates
thequestionaskedbythe
executiveintoan image.Imagine,he says,two
mensitting
ontwobranches
atthetopofa thirtyfive-foot
tree,witha saw intheirhands,competingforefficiency.
The first
whocutsthrough
his
branchis themoreefficient,
thoughthewinner
dies first.
AlthoughI speak fromtheperspectiveof
languagesand literatures
and specifically
from
theperspectiveof Spain, Latin America,and
HispanicsandLatinosin theUnitedStates,I am
awarethatsomeonein Africanlanguagesand
literatures
(or German,French,English,clas-

sics) will have a different

approach.And for
scholarsin religion,arthistory,
ortheperformingarts,thechallengesandthesolutionswillbe
evenmoredifferent.
This is nota problem.On
thecontrary,
thehumanities
welcomethesedifferences
forcriticalconversation,
transdisciplinaryindeed,aboutknowledge
andunderstanding,
alertto theexcessesofefficient
knowledgedeprivedofethicalvalue.6Skillandtechnology
do
notensurethem.The strongclaimI makingis
thatonce computerscienceexperts,engineers,
or specialistsin tropicaldiseases becomehumanistsandentertheinterdisciplinary
conversation,theirskillswillbe accompaniedbycritical
and ethicalreflections.
Thereforethecritical
space ofthehumanities
thatI am envisioning
is
notlimitedto humanists;
it is opento all areas
ofknowledge.This space is notforspecialists
in thehumanities
butshouldtaketheplace of
philosophy
in theKantianuniversity.
Today,the
humanists
foranddefinethatspace
mightfight
at theuniversity.
Its obtainment
mayindirectly
benefitthejob market,
because thehumanities
willhavebecomenecessaryforthetransformationofsocietyrather
thanbeinga supplement.
Translationand transculturation
wouldbe
the particularcontributionfrom languages
and literatures,
as we knowand practicethem
today,to thisspace ofthehumanities.
Learning
a languageand interpreting
a textwouldthen
become a subsidiary,
althoughnotsecondary,
activity-subsidiaryin the sense that they
would no longerbe thefinaldestinationbut,
instead,a necessarystepto dealingwithtranslationand transculturation
as social and transnationalphenomena.Foreignlanguages and
literatures
wouldthenhavea leadingrolein the
space of thehumanitiesand in the corporate
ofthefuture.
university
I do notintendto declareobsoletetheneed
of expertsin thehumanities.People who can
readan ancientpapyrus,
organizearchaeological
remains,
oreditold manuscripts
willcontinue
to
be necessary.
Buttheseexpertsmustalso reflect

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on theirroleandfunction
critically
inthecorporateuniversity.
A transdisciplinary
space ofthe
humanities
willincorporate
notonlynaturaland
social scientists
buttheprofessional
schoolsas
well.The mostefficient
businessstrategy
does
nothaveembeddedwithinita criticalandethical perspective.That perspectivecan be providedbytranslation
andtransculturation,
which
of languagesand literaexistingdepartments
tureswouldcontribute.
One consequenceof globalizationand the
endofthecold waris thegrowingrelevanceof
non-Western
languagesandknowledge.7
If the
sceneofspeakingis changing,
so is thesceneof
knowledgeproduction.
Doubtsare beingcast,
all overtheworld,on thelogicofWestern
scholarship.It is stillverycommonto havescholars,
scientists,and intellectuals
fromAfrica,Asia,
and Latin Americacome and studyin United
Statesor in Europeanuniversities
and thenreturnto theirnativecountrieswiththeirhands
fullof Westerntricks.This is theone-wayexchangethatremainsfromthepast.Butifscholars,scientists,
and intellectuals
fromtheThird
Worldstilltrainthemselvesin Europe or the
UnitedStates,itno longerfollowsthattheywill
returnto theirnativecountriesand promote
NorthAtlanticscienceor scholarship.
A critical
tensionis at work,andthattensioncalls forthe
space of thehumanitiesand,in particular,
for
translation
andtransculturation.

NOTES
l Two recentaccountsof thecrisisof theKantianuniversity
withan eye on thecurrent
transition
towardthecorporateuniversity
are by a scholarin Canada (Readings;a
debateon thisbook, whichoccurredat theUniversity
of
Sydney,can be foundin Smith)and a scholarin Chile
(Thayer;a debateaboutthisbook,in Santiagode Chile,can
be foundinNepantla).AlasdairMaclntyre,
in thelastofhis
GilfordLecturesdeliveredin 1988,framedtheissueas the
end of theeighteenth-century
encyclopedictradition.
He
put it thisway: "The preliberalmodernuniversity
was a
ofenforced
university
andconstrained
agreements.
The lib-

eral university
aspiredto be a university
ofunconstrained
and henceitsabolitionofreligiousand moral
agreements
textsandexclusions,and thenalso [. . ] itspresentendangeredstate.Suchreformers
as thosewhoproposesomeversion of a GreatBooks curriculum
ignorethefundamental
characteror ourpresentdisagreements
and conflicts,
presupposingpossibilities
ofagreement
ofa kindwhichdo not
at presentexist.Whatthenis possible?The answeris: the
as a place of constraineddisagreement,
university
of imin conflict,
in whicha centralresponsiposedparticipation
bilityofhighereducationwouldbe to initiatestudents
into
conflict"
(203-31). Theseremarks,
whichI endorse,should
be qualifiedwhenappliedto ThirdWorlduniversities,
particularlyin thosecountriesin whichstudentsdo notneed
thecurriculum
tobe initiated
intoconflict!
2 ElsewhereI explorethequestionof translation
and
transculturation
fromthecolonialperspective
(Mignoloand
Schiwy).RecentworksraisethesamequestionfromtheexperienceofChinaandtheWest(Liu; BassnettandTrivedi).
Basically,theyredressthedirectionality
in whichtranslationhas beenconceivedandpracticedin themodemworld.
They look at the modern-colonialworld. On transculturation,see the fundamental
introduction
by Fernando
Coronilto theEnglishtranslation
of theCubananthropologyclassicCubanCounterpoint:
Tobaccoand Sugar.
3I developthisargument
at lengthin Local Histories/
Global Designs: Coloniality,SubalternKnowledges,and
BorderThinking.
4 On thisaspectof Fichte'sconcern,see Balibar.For a
comparisonamongFichte's"internal
borders,"
Anzaldua's
and Nebrija's "expansionof theEmpire,"
"borderlands,"
see my "Bi-languagingLove." Anzaldua opened the
transnational
space thatNebrijabeganto close through
the
complicitybetweenlanguageand empire,and Fichtebetweenlanguageandnation.
5 This pointis strongly
madeby twoAfricanphilosopherswhoseconcernswithphilosophy,
as a discipline,are
parallel to myconcernsherewithlanguageand literary
studies.See Eze, "Color";Serequeberhan.
6 1 am using"transdisciplinarity"
withintheparadigm
of
as definedby Dussel. Basically,trans"transmodernity"
conteststheidea thatmodernity
modernity
is a European
phenomenonand proposesthatit is a planetaryone. Impliedin thisviewis thedarkerside of modernity,
thatis to
say,coloniality.
The intersection
ofmodernity/coloniality
is
theframeoftransmodernity.
Consequently,
as faras thedisciplinesandtheculturesofscholarship
in whichwe areengagedtodayarea modemconceptualization,
transmodernity
bringsto theforeground
transdisciplinarity
andknowledges
thathavebeensubalternized
bymodernepistemology
and
theinstitutional
disciplinary
structure.
A moredetaileddiscussionoftheseissuesis inMignolo,Local Histories.
en7During thecold warperiod,whilethehumanities
joyed thesuccessof structuralism
andpoststructuralism,
in
theUnitedStatesthesocial sciencesweretakingtheplace

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115

Conference on the Futureof Doctoral Education

thehumanities
enjoyedbeforeWorldWarII. Foreignlanguages, in this context,were mainlyThirdWorld languages,as themajorlanguagesofAsia andAfricabeganto
gain groundnotonlyin thesocial sciencesbutalso in the
MLA. The intersection
betweenforeignlanguageswithin
thenationalideologyin whichtheMLA was foundedand
foreignlanguageswithintheinternational
ideologyof the
cold warperiodshouldbe examined.For thestructure
of
theuniversity
duringthecold warperiod,andfromtheperspectiveofthesocialsciences,see Wallerstein,
"Unintended
Consequences."

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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