Hoarding Culture and Extracting Knowledge: Imperial Legacies at Scripps College

At Scripps College, there is a little-known “ethnographic” art collection stored in an alarmed basement, collecting dust. This collection, which includes everything from human remains to looted Buddhist sculptures, has been exploited and neglected by the College for decades. In this thesis, I argue that Scripps is an “imperial college” carrying out colonial violence in its acquisition, mismanagement, and exploitation of this collection. This case study upends myths about the U.S. academy, art museums, and knowledge production— exposing processes through which imperial institutions legitimize empire.