UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Learning to Remake the World: Education, Decolonization, Cold War, Race War Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2w0214t4 Author Iyengar, Malathi Michelle Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Learning to Remake the World: Education, Decolonization, Cold War, Race War A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the degree requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies by Malathi Michelle Iyengar Committee in Charge: Professor Kalindi Vora, Chair Professor John D. Blanco Professor Kirstie Dorr Professor Ross H. Frank Professor Dayo F. Gore Professor Wayne Yang 2017 Copyright Malathi Michelle Iyengar, 2017 All rights reserved The dissertation of Malathi Michelle Iyengar is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2017 iii DEDICATION To Ryan and Sanjana, with love iv TABLE OF CONTENTS SIGNATURE PAGE ………………………………………………………………...…iii DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………………….iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………………..v ACKONWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………….vi VITA……………………………………………………………………………………..x ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………xiv Introduction – Learning to Remake the World: Education, Decolonization, Cold War, Race War…………………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter I – Learning to Liberate the Subjects: Colored Cosmopolitanism and the Classroom ………………………………………………………………………………61 Chapter II – Colored Cosmopolitanism 2.0: Queering Transnational Consciousness ………………………………………………125 Chapter III – Echolocation: Juxtapositions and Text-Life Resonances ………………186 Chapter IV – The “sisterhood arrangement”: Cold War contestation, the international politics of race, and U.S. involvement in the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur …………………………………………239 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….……...284 WORKS CITED ……………………………………………………………………...287 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has been made possible through the labor and love of more people than I can name here. My limited space allows me to offer thanks only to a few specific individuals, but my gratitude extends to many more. My first thanks go to Dr. Kalindi Vora, for accepting me as an advisee and mentoring me through this life-changing doctoral program. I would also like to thank my entire dissertation committee for their invaluable instruction and advice over the years. In addition, while I am grateful to all of the professors with whom I have studied at UC San Diego, there are two particular professors – apart from my committee members – who have been extremely influential. The first is Dr. Roshanak Kheshti, who has been a rich source of scholarly ideas and inspiration throughout my time at UCSD. Secondly, I am particularly grateful to Dr. Gabriel Mendes for his graduate course Black Thought: Roots and Routes , which fundamentally shaped my thinking during the early stages of my PhD coursework. I would also like to thank Dr. Cameron McCarthy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for his generative AERA pre-conference seminars and for his kind support of my intellectual and professional development over the past several years. Another important “long-distance” influence during these years has been Dr. Luisa Ossa of La Salle University, whose intellectual generosity and personal kindness have helped me to expand my thinking through engagement with new texts, ideas, and scholarly gatherings. vi A special thank you to Dr. Carlos Tejeda of California State University, Los Angeles, whose influence on my trajectory as a scholar and teacher would be difficult to exaggerate. It was my first course with Dr. Tejeda at CSULA that set me on the path towards what would eventually become a PhD. In addition, Dr. Chogollah Maroufi was a major influence during my time at CSULA, a source of much insight, support, and humor! I would also like to thank Bill Powell of the California Institute of the Arts, whose artistic influence continues to manifest itself in my scholarly and creative endeavors. I am particularly grateful to our Ethnic Studies Department Graduate Student Affairs Officer, Christa Ludeking, whose untiring work in support of graduate students has been invaluable for so many of us over the years. Thank you also to Daisy Rodriguez, our Undergraduate Student Affairs Officer, for being a kind and supportive presence in the department for graduate and undergraduate students alike! My journey towards the completion of this dissertation would not have been the same without my wonderful PhD cohorts: Sal Zarate, Christina Green, Lisa Ho, and Kai Small. Thank you to all of you for being part of my journey, and for allowing me to be a part of yours! I would also like to extend my thanks and admiration to Vanessa Saldivar and Juvenal Caporale, whose presence at UCSD during my early years there was such a meaningful part of my graduate experience. Many other fellow-students have helped me along this path at different times and in various ways. I especially want to thank Vineeta Singh for her friendship and support, and for spending long hours studying together in crowded cafes! Thank you to Mychal vii Odom for recommending so many of the books that have shaped my thinking over the years. Thank you to Juan Carmona Zabala for offering early feedback on some of the material in this project. And a huge thank you to my “cross-country” dissertation-writing group: Brenda Nyandiko Sanya, Karishma Desai, Durell Callier, Katie Kirchgasler, and Chris Kirchgasler. We made it through the dissertations – hoorah! I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with undergraduate students, both as a TA and as an instructor of record, during my time at UCSD. There are so many students who have taught me so much, it would be impossible to name them all here. I am also grateful that, as an academic student-worker, I was represented by a strong activist union: the UAW 2865. Thank you so much to my union comrades, of all generations, for your tireless work on behalf of all of us! I am so thankful to have had the protections of a collective bargaining agreement throughout my time as an academic student-worker, and to have had the privilege of being involved in social justice unionism within such an inspiring network of people. My parents and in-laws have supported my PhD process in numerous ways. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my father, Laxminarayana Gopal Iyengar; my mother, Marilyn Jean Iyengar; and my mother-in-law, Singhild Baker. Thank you also to all my brothers: Raj Iyengar, Ravi Iyengar, Sriprakash Mayasandra, and Kyle Baker. Finally, and most importantly, my greatest thanks go to my spouse, Ryan Paul Baker, and our daughter, Sanjana Kiranmala Paul – my two best friends and fellow- travelers in this unpredictable journey of life. Thank you for your patience and love viii during these many years of study. I could never have finished this dissertation without both of you. And now, on to our next adventure! Chapter I contains material that appears in Iyengar, Malathi, “Colored Cosmopolitanism and the Classroom: Educational Connections between African Americans and South Asians,” in the Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, edited by M.A. Peters (Singapore: Springer Business and Science Media, 2015). The dissertation author was the sole author of this material. ix VITA EDUCATION Doctor of Philosophy, Ethnic Studies University of California, San Diego, 2017 M.A., Educational Foundations California State University, Los Angeles, 2006 M.F.A., Music California Institute of the Arts, 1999 Bachelor of Music University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 196 ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS Vora, Kalindi, and Malathi Iyengar. “Citizen, Subject, Property: Indian Surrogacy and the Global Fertility Market.” Assisted Reproduction in Movement: Normalization, Disruptions, and Transmissions. Ed. Merete Lie and Nina Lykke. Oxford/New York: Routledge, Advanced Feminist Theory Book Series, 2017. Iyengar, Malathi. “Colored Cosmopolitanism and the Classroom: Educational Connections Between African Americans and South Asians.” In M.A. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory . Singapore: Springer, 2015. Iyengar, Malathi. “Language Ideologies in an Anglo-Controlled Bilingual Charter School: A Teacher’s Reflections.” In Readings in Language Studies, Volume 4 , edited by M. Mantero, J.L. Watzke, & P.C. Miller., Grandville, MI: International Society for Language Studies, 2014. Iyengar, Malathi. “Not Mere Abstractions: Language Policies and Language Ideologies in U.S. Settler Colonialism,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, Vol. 3, no. 2, 2014, pp. 33-59. Iyengar, Malathi. Review of Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity , by Irene Marques, Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 51, no. 2, 2014, pp. 347-350 x Iyengar, Malathi, and William E. Powell, “One Who Knows Music: Sri Narasinhalu Wadavati and the Clarinet in Hindustani Music, Part 1,” The Clarinet, Vol. 38, no. 2, March 2011. Iyengar, Malathi, and William E. Powell, “One Who Knows Music: Sri Narasinhalu Wadavati and the Clarinet in Hindustani Music, Part 2,” The Clarinet, Vol. 38, no. 3, June 2011. COURSES TAUGHT – UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Ethnic Studies 113, Decolonizing Education (Winter 2016) This course examines historical and contemporary relationships