Abstract
Žižek warns us that that we become enslaved to particular ideas and beliefs which implicate our inner-most unconscious desires and drives. Dialectically, being ‘critical’ about these ideas can work as an insidious way for such ideas to tighten their grip. So what can teachers and students do to bring about something else? Can we escape enslavery? For Žižek, we cannot escape the very Symbolic which guides us in knowing how to act in practice, and which manifests throughout vast educational and broader regulatory systems. So whatcan we do? This, Žižek points out, is our task rather than his, and refuses to provide specific actions for us—and is this not fully aligned to a slippery ‘hag fish’ pedagogy where we have to find the answers? Crucially, Žižek raises the urgency of a need to act, and gives us glimpses into directions that we might consider. Educational researchers have taken Žižek’s inspiration and call to action, and have documented how they have constructed alternative actions in practice. Their interpretations have involved attempting to draw from different zones of the Symbolic realm, and patiently considering how such activity appears to be implicating themselves and others in their educational practices. Yet these are never definitive, victory narratives, as Žižek reminds us of Lacan’s famous statement “les non-dupes errent”: only those who think they have not been duped have already been duped. Such attempts do act, however, as beacons towards producing different understandings of education, and therefore hold the potential for change.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aitkenhead, D. (2012). The Guardian - Slavoj Žižek: ‘Humanity is OK, but 99 % of people are boring idiots’. Retrieved March 14, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jun/10/slavoj-zizek-humanity-ok-people-boring.
Barltrop, R. (1975). The Monument: The story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. London: Pluto Press.
Barnett, R. (2000). Realizing the University in an age of supercomplexity. Buckingham: Open University/Society for Research into Higher Education.
Barnett, R. (2003). Beyond all reason: Living with ideology in the University. London: Society for Research into Higher Education.
Barnett, R. (2011). The coming of the ecological University. Oxford Review of Education, 37(4), 439–455.
Bolden, R., Connor, H., Duquemin, A., Hirsh, W., & Petrov, G. (2009). Employer engagement with higher education: Defining, sustaining, and supporting higher skills provision. London: Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
Bourdieu, P. (1988). Homo academicus. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bradford, K., & Brown, T. (2005). C’est n’est pas un circle. For the Learning of Mathematics, 25(1), 16–19.
Brown, T. (2008). Desire and drive in researcher subjectivity: The broken mirror of Lacan. Qualitative Inquiry, 14(2), 402–423.
Brown, T. (2013). The sublime objects of mathematics in schools. Paper presented at the mathematics education and contemporary theory conference, 21st–24th June.
Brown, T., Atkinson, D., & England, J. (2006). Regulative discourses in education: A Lacanian perspective. London: Peter Lang Publishers.
Brown, T., & England, J. (2005). Identity, narrative and practitioner research: A Lacanian perspective. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 26(4), 443–458.
Brown, T., & Heywood, D. (2011). Geometry, subjectivity and the seduction of language: The regulation of spatial perception. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 7, 351–367.
Brown, T., & Jones, L. (2001). Action research and postmodernism: Congruence and critique. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Brown, T., & McNamara, O. (2011). Becoming a mathematics teacher: Identity and identifications. Dordrecht: Springer.
Brown, T., & Walshaw, M. (2012). Mathematics education and contemporary theory. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 80(1–2), 1–8.
Butler, R. (2005). Slavoj Žižek: Live Theory. London: Continuum.
Chahine, I., & Kinuthia, W. (2013). Juxtaposing form function, and social symbolism: An ethnomathematical analysis of Indigenous technologies in the Zulu culture. Journal of Mathematics & Culture, 7(1), 1–30.
Cooley, A. (2009). Is education a lost cause? Žižek, schooling, and universal emancipation. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 30(4), 381–395.
Empire State College. (2015). The global learning qualifications framework. Retrieved March 15, 2015, from http://www.esc.edu/suny-real/global-learning-qualifications-framework/.
England, J. (2003). Researching race in school: A psychoanalytical perspective. Manchester Metropolitan University.
For Dummies. (2015). For dummies [Homepage]. Retrieved March 14, 2015, from http://www.dummies.com/.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge. In C. Gordon (Ed.), Selected interviews and other writings 1972-77 (pp. 170–194). Brighton: Harvester.
Furedi, F. (2006). Where have all the intellectuals gone? Confronting 21st Century Philistinism (2nd ed.). London: Continuum.
Furedi, F. (2010). Wasted: Why education isn’t educating. London: Continuum.
Greenstreet, R. (2008). The Guardian Q&A: Slavoj Žižek, professor and writer. Retrieved March 14, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/09/slavoj.zizek.
Habermas, J. (1976). Systematically distorted communication. In P. Connerton (Ed.), Critical Sociology. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Kaino, L. M. (2013). Traditional knowledge in curricula designs: Embracing indigenous mathematics in classroom instruction. Studies of Tribes and Tribals, 11(1), 83–88.
Mariborchan.si. (2014). Slavoj Zizek - Education, Tutors, Universities, Students. Retrieved October10, 2014, from http://mariborchan.si/video/recordings/slavoj-zizek/slavoj-zizek-education-tutors-universities-students/.
Meakin, D., & Wall, T. (2013). Co-delivered work based learning: Contested ownership and responsibility. Higher Education, Skills & Work Based Learning, 3(1), 73–81.
Pais, A. (2011). Mathematics education and the political: An ideology critique of an educational research field. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Aalborg Universitet, Aalborg.
Perrin, D. (2000). The Socialist Party of Great Britain: Politics, economics and Britain’s oldest socialist party. Wrexham: Bridge Books.
Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative (Vol. 1). Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Rose, J. (2002). The intellectual life of the British working classes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Schuman, R. (2014). Slate—Please stop worshipping the Superstar Professor who calls students “Boring Idiots”. Retrieved March 14, 2015, from http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/06/02/slavoj_zizek_calls_students_stupid_and_boring_stop_worshiping_this_man_video.html.
Smith, K., Hodson, E., & Brown, T. (2013). Teacher educator changing perceptions of theory. Educational Action Research, 21(2), 237–252.
Steele, T. (2015). Enlightened publics: Popular education movements in Europe, their legacy and promise. Studies in the Education of Adults, 42(2), 107–123.
Taylor, P. (2010). Žižek and the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Tran, L. T. (2013). Teaching international students in vocational education: New pedagogical approaches. Camberwell: Australian Council for Educational Research.
Vasagar, J., & Smithers, R. (2003). The Guardian—Will Charles Clarke have his place in history? Retrieved March 14, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/may/10/highereducation.politics.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wall, T. (2013). Professional identities and commodification in higher education. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester.
Walshaw, M., & Brown, T. (2012). Affective productions of mathematical experience. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 80(1–2), 185–199. doi:10.1007/s10649-011-9370-x.
Wedgewood, M. (2008). Higher education for the workforce—Barriers and facilitators to employer engagement. London: Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
Wolters, E. (2014). Critical Theory - Professor of the year, “if you don’t give me any of your shitty papers you get an A”. Retrieved March 14, 2015, from http://www.critical-theory.com/professor-of-the-year-if-you-dont-give-me-any-of-your-shitty-papers-you-get-an-a/.
Yunkaporta, T., & Kirby, M. (2011). Yarning up indigenous pedagogies: A dialogue about eight aboriginal ways of learning. In N. Purdie, G. Milgate, & H. R. Bell (Eds.), Two way teaching and learning: Toward culturally reflective and relevant education. Camberwell: Australian Council for Educational Research.
Žižek, S. (1989). The sublime object of ideology. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (1994). The spectre of ideology. In S. Žižek (Ed.), Mapping ideology (pp. 1–33). London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (1999). The ticklist subject: The absent centre of political ontology (2008 Verso ed.). London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2002). Enjoy your symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and out (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Žižek, S. (2006). The parallax view. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Žižek, S. (2009). First as tragedy, then as farce. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2010). A permanent economic emergency. New Left Review, 64, 85–95.
Žižek, S. (2013a). Denial: The Liberal Utopia. Retrieved January 17, from, http://www.lacan.com/essays/?page_id=397.
Žižek, S. (2013b). The New Statesman—The simple courage of decision: A leftist tribute to Thatcher. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2013/04/simple-courage-decision-leftist-tribute-thatcher.
Žižek, S. (2014a). Event. London: Penguin.
Žižek, S. (2014b). Trouble in paradise: from the end of history to the end of capitalism. London: Allen Lane.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wall, T., Perrin, D. (2015). Now What Might We Do?. In: Slavoj Žižek. SpringerBriefs in Education(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21242-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21242-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21241-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21242-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)