Aporia and Responsibility in Teacher Becoming

• In Event: Roundtable Session 107
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Psychoanalysis and Knowledge: Laughter, Radical Love, and the Emotional Self

Abstract

Theories of subjection, the discourses that both subject and constitute identity (Butler 1997, Davies, 2006) have been useful in illustrating the becoming of teacher as always already subjected to being teacher in particular ways, constituted by the circulating discursive norms. This paper draws on a qualitative research project to consider the fissures within subjection, considering what might provoke the subject to enact teacher differently than the subjective forces prescribe. Drawing on poststructuralism and psychoanalytic theory, this paper theorizes a significant moment within the research project to consider an aporia (Derrida, 1999) in which the teaching subject is faced with both undecidability as well as responsibility, thus contributing to the theorizing of teacher identity at the intersection of curriculum theory.

Author

• Melanie D. Janzen, University of Manitoba