Rage against the machine: The university -military -industrial complex and contemporary American culture and democracy
Abstract
This study investigates how five late twentieth and early twenty-first century authors – Don DeLillo, Rebekah Nathan, Richard Rodriguez, Jane Smiley, and Tom Wolfe – use one of their respective books to reflect on and shape what has come to be called the University-Military-Industrial Complex (UMIC). Specifically, it explores how different literary works interpret, instantiate, challenge and attempt to reconfigure the confluences of power that constitute the UMIC. The implications of this phenomenon are explored for all members of the university community – faculty, staff, and students – as well as the nation and the world at large. Each source or set of sources is used to explore a particular aspect of the UMIC. DeLillo's End Zone and Smiley's Moo are used collectively to trace the rise of and change in the influence of corporatization and militarization in higher education from the late 1960s through the present. Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons is used to explore the corporatization of college athletics and to place this trend within the overall UMIC construct. Nathan's My Freshman Year is unpacked to scrutinize what corporate culture is doing to traditional faculty power in higher education. Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory is combined with the Fortune 500 amicus curiae briefs and related documents from the 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the use of race in admissions at the University of Michigan to explore both the commodification of education and race in contemporary American postsecondary education. The concluding chapter includes four recommendations drawn from the lessons provided in the chapters that comprise the dissertation. While not rigid blueprints, the recommendations suggest questions and resources that allow the recommendations and the broader study's content to be applied in a contextual manner that can promote the growth of persons, communities, and, ultimately, democracy in contemporary America. This analysis' literary emphasis differentiates it from other analyses associated with the University-Military-Industrial Complex. In short, by drawing on literature, it follows a path that no other UMIC-focused project has yet to take. Focusing attention on understanding how and why these authors use their works to reflect on and shape academe's role in the UMIC sheds light on how Americans (as authors, readers, etc.) interpret their respective and collective experiences and, ultimately, how they make and shape meaning in their lives and the nation and world at large. It also explains the role of the contemporary university in American democracy and culture.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Rud, Purdue University.
Subject Area
American studies|American literature|Higher education
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