Cold War legislation mobilized US universities to produce imperial knowledge

Evidence

Knowledge production in think tanks and academic institutions has been critical for US imperial domination after World War II. The 1958 National Defense Education Act was passed with the aim of turning universities into centers for the generation of knowledge that would aid the Cold War aims of the United States. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 745 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

In the social-science order of things, language study is a mere tool for higher aims, certainly not for reading literary texts. In 1958, for example, the Middle East Institute—a quasi-governmental body founded to oversee and sponsor research interest in the Middle East—produced a Report on Current Research. The contribution “Present State of Arabic Studies in the United States” (done, interestingly enough, by a professor of Hebrew) is prefaced by an epigraph announcing that “no longer is knowledge of foreign languages, for instance, the sole province of the scholars in the humanities. It is a working tool of the engineer, the economist, the social scientist, and many other specialists.” The whole report stresses the importance of Arabic to oil-company executives, technicians, and military personnel. But the report’s main talking point is this trio of sentences: “Russian universities are now producing fluent Arabic speakers. Russia has realized the importance of appealing to men through their minds, by using their own language. The United States need wait no longer in developing its foreign language program.” Thus Oriental languages are part of some policy objective—as to a certain extent they have always been—or part of a sustained propaganda effort. In both these aims the study of Oriental languages becomes the instrument carrying out Harold Lasswell’s theses about propaganda, in which what counts is not what people are or think but what they can be made to be and think. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 740 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: American cold-war occupation policy funded the Frankfurt School’s first postwar empirical study — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1865; Foundations and state built area studies to serve Cold War empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 240; The 1958 National Defense Education Act enlisted universities in Cold War empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 745 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The 1958 National Defense Education Act enlisted universities in Cold War empire #exemplifies (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 745
• Cold War funding tied Middle East studies to US strategic needs #expands (0.90)
• Orientalist knowledge became enlisted in Cold War counterinsurgency and national-security manipulation #expands (0.85)
• Cold War language programs reframed Arabic study as a propaganda and policy tool #exemplifies (0.85) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 740
• US universities produced Middle East knowledge specifically to serve imperial needs. #expands (0.82) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 139
• Harvard’s center steered Orientalism toward Cold War area-studies policy #exemplifies (0.80)
• Postwar US empire was legitimated through modernization theory and Orientalism #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 256
• Knowledge-producing disciplines were mobilized in service of imperialist worldviews #expands (0.78) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 77