Pedagogical Desire: Authority, Seduction, Transference, and the Question of Ethics

by jan jagodzinski

What is the right pedagogical distance for learning to take place? What should be the teacher's role concerning a student's desire? Ethically speaking, how are we to understand the dialectic between desire and the drive? Are we obligated to help students mourn the knowledge that they must let go? Can ignorance (which sounds pejorative) be pedagogically useful as that which is unsaid and repressed? When the pedagogical distance collapses and seduction takes place, can such behavior be excused?

These are just some of the questions that are raised throughout this collection by the authors. Lacanian psychoanalysis presents a challenge to our usual understanding of the subject as formulated by ego psychology, as well as the discursive subject of postmodernism. Can Lacan's tripartite psychic registers of the Real, Imaginary, and the Symbolic present the subject in unending intrapsychic conflict? Can pedagogy address this struggle? How do we, as educators, take the notion of the unconscious seriously into account? The authors of this collection engage themselves in such questioning, in some cases examining their own practices and in other cases developing possible strategies with a view of understanding the psychic life of teaching.

264 pages, Textbook Binding

First published August 1, 2002

About the author

jagodzinski’s work bridges philosophy, art, and education, exploring how technology, ecology, and popular culture reshape contemporary pedagogy. His writings draw upon poststructuralist and posthumanist theory, offering provocative insights into the future of education and cultural practice.