Psychopedagogy: Freud, Lacan, and the Psychoanalytic Theory of Education

194 Pages·2009·2.068 MB·English

by  K. Daniel Cho (auth.)

Psychopedagogy
Psychopedagogy
Freud, Lacan, and the
Psychoanalytic Theory of
Education
K. Daniel Cho
psychopedagogy
Copyright © K. Daniel Cho, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-60608-1
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States – a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Permission to reprint:
“Wo es war: Psychoanalysis, Marxism, and Subjectivity,” Educational
Philosophy and Theory 39, no. 7 (2007): 703–719.
“Teaching Abjection: A Response to the War on Terror,” Teaching Education
16, no. 2 (2005): 103–115.
“Lessons of Love: Psychoanalysis and Teacher/Student Love,” Educational
Theory 55, no. 1 (2005): 79–95.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37336-9 ISBN 978-0-230-62221-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230622210
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cho, K. Daniel.
Psychopedagogy : Freud, Lacan, and the psychoanalytic theory of
education/K. Daniel Cho.
p. cm. — (Education, psychoanalysis, social transformation)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Psychoanalysis and education. 2. Freud, Sigmund, 1856–1939. 3. Lacan,
Jacques, 1901–1981. I. Title.
LB1092.C56 2009
370.15—dc22 2008054868
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Macmillan Publishing Solutions.
First edition: May 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my parents, Seihwan and Jei-Jin Cho
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Pedagogy with Psychoanalysis 1
Part I: Prolegomena to Any Future Psychopedagogy 7
1 The Unconscious: A Form of Knowledge 9
2 On the Ego and Other Strategies of Resistance 27
3 T ransference or, When Discourses Shift: Toward a
Theory of Psychopedagogical Technique 45
Part II: Secondary Revisions 69
4 Wo es war : Marxism, the Unconscious,
and Subjectivity 71
5 P edagogy of the Repressed: Repetition As a
Pedagogical Factor 95
6 Education by Way of Truths: Lacan with Badiou 109
7 Lessons of Love: On Pedagogical Love 125
8 Teaching Abjection: The Politics of Psychopedagogy 149
Notes 165
References 179
Index 189
List of Figures
2.1 L acan’s diagram of the imaginary function of the
ego and the discourse of the unconscious 31
3.1 The basic scheme of the four discourses 49
3.2 The master’s discourse 50
3.3 The discourse of the hysteric, the analyst, and the university 50
3.4 Discursive relations of Ranciere and Lacan 66
6.1 The discourse of the analyst 110
Acknowledgments
My understanding of psychoanalysis owes itself to Kenneth
Reinhard. Ken taught me to see Lacan as a closer reader of
Freud—an approach that informs every aspect of this book.
He is responsible for my attending the inaugural Seminar in
Experimental Critical Theory at the University of California
Humanities Research Institute in Irvine, California, in 2004,
where I learned from renowned scholars working in the field
of psychoanalysis. And Ken’s Mellon-Sawyer seminar on “The
Ethics of the Neighbor” gave me an invaluable education. His
intellectual prowess and personal generosity still serve as a
model for me. Of course, any shortcomings of this book are
my responsibility alone. I am also greatly indebted to Douglas
Kellner. Doug’s supervision and encouragement supported me
while I was toying with these ideas in my dissertation work. His
knowledge of European intellectual history is bottomless, from
which I frequently drew in many conversations over the years.
His guidance remains indispensable to me, even today. A gener-
ous dissertation fellowship from the Hayman Endowment of
the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
at UCLA funded the writing of the dissertation in which many
of these ideas first appeared. This book literally could not
have been possible without the enthusiasm and support of jan
jagodzinski and Mark Bracher. It is my great fortune to know
these two giants. And it is a great honor that my book appears
in their series. I want to thank Fredric Jameson and Alenka
Zupancic for reading early versions of some of the chapters. On
a more personal note, I want to thank friends at two institutions
for stimulating conversations over the years. At UCLA, Tyson
Lewis, Richard Kahn, Clayton Pierce, Dolores Calderon,
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Miguel Zavala, Tammy Shel, and Richard van Heertum. At
Otterbein College, Debbie Halbert, Paul Eisenstein, Margaret
Koehler, Karen Steigman, Phyllis Burns, Eric Jones, Wendy
Sherman-Heckler, and Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens. Finally, I especially
want to thank my family who supported me throughout the years.
To my wife, Haelyn, my sons, Jameson and Henry, my brother
Brian and his wife Sophia, and above all, my parents, Seihwan and
Jei-Jin, to whom this book is dedicated: thank you for endowing
me with strength, energy, joy, and faith.
Early versions of chapters 4, 7, and 8 appeared in the following
journals under these titles: “Wo es war: Psychoanalysis, Marxism,
and Subjectivity,” Educational Philosophy and Theory 39, no. 7
(2007): 703–719; “Teaching Abjection: A Response to the War
on Terror,” Teaching Education 16, no. 2 (2005): 103–115; and
“Lessons of Love: Psychoanalysis and Teacher/Student Love,”
Educational Theory 55, no. 1 (2005): 79–95.
Introduction: Pedagogy
with Psychoanalysis
Jacques Lacan’s approach to psychoanalysis is more than a clinical
model; it is a robust interpretative framework as well. Its infu-
sion into such disciplines as philosophy, literature, film and cul-
tural studies, religious studies, and political science—to name only
a few—has yielded not only some of the most fascinating insights
but also a radical rethinking of the very stakes on which those
fields stand. It has done so because psychoanalysis goes beyond the
surface to uncover the libidinal investments made in the ongoing
projects in those fields. And because of the insight it affords into
the literary, the textual, and the human, Lacanian psychoanalysis
has become a sine qua non in the theoretical humanities.
Psychoanalysis’s infusion into the theoretical humanities is
unsurprising since Sigmund Freud, throughout his oeuvre, rev-
ealed an abiding interest in literature, art, politics, society, religion,
and such matters. But of the potential disciplinary fields to which
psychoanalysis can make a contribution, Freud singles out one:
“None of the applications of psycho-analysis has excited so much
interest and aroused so many hopes, and none, consequently, has
attracted so many capable workers, as its use in the theory and
practice of education.”1 Yet, he goes on to say that while recogniz-
ing “the bon mot which lays it down that there are three impos-
sible professions—educating, healing and governing,”2 he regrets
that most of his life’s work was “fully occupied with the second of
them,” at the exclusion of education. “But,” Freud interjects, “this
does not mean that I overlook the high social value of the work
done by those . . . who are engaged in education.”3