Academic market culture meets Zionism: interest and demand in the case of Israeli Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. Issue 1 (1st January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Clyne, Eyal
• Is Part Of: Critical discourse studies. Volume 16:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 21
• Page End: 39
• Publication Date: 2019-01-01
• Subjects: Neoliberal academia -- market society -- promotional culture -- political unconscious -- conceptual metaphors -- Zionism -- orientalism -- Hebrew -- academic culture -- ethnography based critical discourse analysis; Critical discourse analysis -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1080/17405904.2018.1500924
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1740-5904

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper explores specific forms that neoliberal discourse and culture in academia today take in the field of Israeli Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. The article applies various textual and contextual interrogation strategies to the language, narratives and the unsaid in interviews with leading scholars in the field, in order to construe what Fredric Jameson calls the 'political unconscious, ' particularly that arising from the use of market as a conceptual metaphor. Contextualising this field of discourse within neoliberal academia, I deconstruct the work 'demand' and 'interest' do, and highlight the dialectical dynamics of experts' dependence on audience. I argue that, in this field, the economic discourse shelters Zionist logics, presuppositions and praxis, such as recruitment logics and fundraising practices that effectively address Jewish and Zionist students and donors.