The apostle of internationalism: Stephen Duggan and the geopolitics of international education

Abstract

Stephen Duggan, the educator and director of the Institute of International Education (IIE) between 1919 and 1946, has been described as an ‘apostle of internationalism’. Duggan's work as the director of a new international agency in the co-ordination of educational exchange sought to position the United States of America as the centre of international education. Duggan's writings during this period reflect the articulation of a geographical vocabulary which positioned the United States as a steward of an ‘international’ space of education despite Duggan's continual disparagement of cultural imperialism. This paper explores the geographies of Duggan's discursive rendering of American responsibilities for the security of ‘the international’, the potential for America to act as a beacon of educational exchanges, and as the ‘rational’ space to counteract threats to an imagined American educational hegemony. This outline was shot through with the anxiety of alternative internationalisms and the possibility for education to be used in opposition to the ‘virtuous’ international education proposed by Duggan and his contemporaries. An exploration of Duggan's writing provides a backdrop to the development of international educational agencies in the interwar period as critical technologies of an American geopolitical power.