Fwd: Re: Title VI Reform - S. Kurtz replies

[Sharon Knox]

I forwarded Prof. Qualin's comment to Stanley Kurtz and received
this reply (my apologies for misidentifying him as Howard Kurtz!):


----- Forwarded message from Stanley Kurtz <comments.kurtz at nationalreview.com> -
----
    Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 16:44:10 -0400
    From: Stanley Kurtz <comments.kurtz at nationalreview.com>
Reply-To: Stanley Kurtz <comments.kurtz at nationalreview.com>
 Subject: Re: Title VI Reform
      To: sccampbe at uchicago.edu

I'll try to look at this whole exchange later.  Too busy just now.  But yes,
I have read Orientalism, and other post-colonial theory as well.  I've also
read and taught Foucault.  Like any paradigm, post-colonial theory is a
complex beast.  My testimony fairly connects Chapter 3 of Orientalism with
the boycotts leveled by Title VI centers and various area studies
associations against the NSEP.  The spirit of that chapter pervades
postcolonial theory, although of course any paradigm is complex and
difficult to summarize.  The point of my testimony was to show the
connection between the premises of post-colonial theory and the actions of
many area studies centers and associations.  That connection stands.  So
far, the only attempts to refute it I've seen are either denials that
post-colonial theory is influential (as in Hartle's hearing testimony) or
this quick claim that postcolonial theory is complicated.  It would be
interesting to see a complex and lengthy take, from a postcolonial
perspective, on the relationship between Title VI funding, the NSEP boycott,
academic knowledge, and American power.  Somehow I doubt that an honest
treatment of those issues from a post-colonial perspective would come to
different conclusions than I offered in my testimony.  I suggest that this
is why you have never seen such an analysis.


----- End forwarded message -----

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