Teaching positions: difference, pedagogy, and the power of address

Abstract

Drawing on media studies, literary theory, and the work of psychoanalytic feminist theorist Shoshana Felman, Ellsworth portrays the work of pedagogy as a performative practice, revealing the manner in which pedagogy positions teachers and students to engender gaps and silences in the communication of knowledge and self. This provocative study of the teacher-student relationship uses recent developments in film and literary studies to explore how education understands who it is teaching and how teachers understand who their students are.