University Middle East centers were conceived as marketing mechanisms

Evidence

From a university point of view,” Nolte writes appropriately, “the [Middle East] centers can be seen as a promising new marketing mechanism for university output — helping not only to produce a more marketable product, area-trained specialists of useful disciplines and professionals for potentially huge new markets, but also to create the markets.” And he says in connection with M.A. programs, “The governmental, corporate, banking and other professional markets for appropriately trained M.A.s with a Middle East dimension is comparatively brisk, thanks to economic and political factors similar to all. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 334

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Michael Foucault’s incitement-to-discourse framework that Said invokes a few paragraphs later, and to the general economics-of-knowledge literature.
• QUESTION: Who commissioned the Nolte study — Esso Middle East — and how did that funding shape its conclusions?