US Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary

Abstract

I argue that ‘globalization’ is not simply a concept describing the world but rather an imaginary; a mental practice which renders multiple, often competing, social relationships into a meaningful, coherent whole. While some scholars have made similar arguments, none has laid out a theoretically rigorous understanding of the global imaginary. I first draw upon the work of Charles Taylor and Manfred Steger to better understand globalization as an imaginary, but find their work unable to explain how the global imaginary is produced. To ameliorate this deficiency, I turn to the work of Louis Althusser to theorize globalization as socially produced within particular material apparatuses that organize daily practices. I conclude by applying this theory to examine how the apparatus of the US university has transformed from an institution designed to produce a national imaginary to one producing the global imaginary.