Monstrous Lessons
The educational legacy of imperialism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2922535 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Trifonas, Peter Pericles Trifonas (University of Toronto, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 105-114 |
| Publication date | 2001-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Discourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0159-6306 • E-ISSN: 1469-3739 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01596300120039795 |
| OpenAlex | W4253575236, W2068881951 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 5 |
The ‘age of imperialism’ is over. Or so it has been said. The above statement is often supported in the afterglow of the rise of a virulent postcolonialism that has rightfully sought to address the social injustices of European empire building. And yet, the educational legacy of imperialism lives on. The effects of its reality come alive through the consciousness and actions of those whose institutions and traditions have been forever marked by the arbitrary boundaries of a world geo-graphy constructed—mapped out, studied, carefully logged in, written down and taught—according to the ‘colonizing imperative’ of de ning the difference of racial, ethnic, social and cultural identities as nite polarities of human being in relation to the history of the West. To say the West has learned much from the global conquests that imperialism originally initiated as voyages of discovery is to underestimate the power and passion of the educational imagination that feeds the will to know ‘the Other’ no matter what the cost. To some, this may seem an odd way to put it, but there can be no denying the intensity of the Western desire to assimilate new forms of knowledge and experience beyond the safe horizons of the familiar so as to codify and therefore possess the ontological and epistemological domains of an ever expanding sense of world (Said, 1978, 1993). Indeed, the chronicles of difference archived during the era of European expansionism tell the tale of a wanting-to-know gone awry, the so-called ‘disinterestedness’ of intellectual and scienti c objectives quite overtly implicated in the quest for power guided by imperialist economic and political agendas. That will ‘to know the Other’ which had signi ed to Western consciousness a frontier of boundless possibilities beyond the limits of imagination, essentially facilitated the logic of the rise of a new mercantilism working methodically and ruthlessly toward the appropriation of material and human resources. Let us make no mistake, the golden age of imperialism was a movement intended to grow the economic power base of European states and governments through exploration and colonization designed to ful l grandiose images and
Aesthetics · Consciousness · Cultural imperialism · Empire · Epistemology · Expansionism · Hegelianism · Passion · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Uncanny · Education Systems and Policy · Gender Studies · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.08 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2001 - 2008 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |