LAUSR

Abstract In this paper I explore the relationship between Orientalism, empire-building and the development of the social sciences in the US during the long twentieth century. I focus on the construction of a series of academic infrastructures that the sponsors of the social sciences have underwritten to produce knowledge about the Others of empire. I am especially concerned with the role of these academic infrastructures in concealing imperial domination and in Orientalising imperial subjects. I trace the historical development of the infrastructures and explore the dilemmas they create for scholars who seek to critique processes in which they are unavoidably involved.