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The Circle of Learners in a Vicious Circle: Derrida, Foucault, and Feminist Pedagogic PracticeAuthor(s): Jacqueline FoertschSource: College Literature, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Fall, 2000), pp. 111-129Published by: College LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25112539

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TheCirclef LearnersnaVicious

Circle:errida,oucault,ndFeminist

Pedagogicractice

Jacqueline Foertsch

Have youseen this card, the

image

on

the back ... of this card? I stumbled

across it yesterday, in the Bodleian (the

famous Oxford library), I'll tell you

about it. I stopped dead, with a feeling of

hallucination ... and of revelation at

the same time, anapocalyptic

revelation:

Socrates writing, writing in front of

Plato.... (Derrida, 1987a, 9)

The image described in the epigraphto

this essay depictsa scene of instruc

tion vertiginously, "catastrophically"

reversed. In areproduction from a 13th-cen

tury drawing by Matthew Paris, Plato stands

behind and seems to dictate to his teacher,

Socrates, who seems to comply willingly

with his student's instruction. It is widely

believed, says Derrida, that historically

Socrates "did not write" (1987a, 20), that he

dictated his ideas to Plato who fulfilled the

role of conscientious copyist in addition to

Foertsch teachesatAuburn

University and specializes in

postwar literature and culture.

She has published essays on

AIDS fiction and drama, the

((alterapocalyptic>}in nuclear lit

erature,and straighteminisms

"lesbian experience."

8/13/2019 25112539


112 Collegeiterature7.3 Fall000)

that of inspired student. In the drawing reproducedon the Bodleian post

card, Socrates is both humbled and victorious inways that threaten the very

foundations of westernphUosophy: either he is sacrificing himself to the sec

retarial needs of another man, or he is stealing the secretarial product from

him?eventuaUy associating himself with and taking credit for ideas not at aU

his own.

Derrida reaUzes early in the "Envois" that he has been led to the discov

ery of this card by his guides and friends Jonathan and Cynthia CuUer who

"were observingme

obliquely, watchingme look. As if they

werespying

on

me in order to finish the effects of the spectacle they had staged" (1987a, 16).

Like the good student he is,Derrida takes the bait and plays endlessly with

the meanings and possibiUties generated by the reversal depicted in this

reproduction. FinaUy, he is electrified by the discovery, and we can see the

ways in which this picture has inspired fundamentaUy the fascinating and

wide-reaching work that became The Post Card. In his introduction,

Derrida's translator Alan Bass sums up the excitement of such afinding when

he asks "What if this system [phUosophic, pedagogic, postal, poUtical]neces

sarily contained a kink, so that despite the absolute authority of its usual

sequences... somewhere it contained the subversion and reversal of its own

progression" (1987a, xii)?For Bass at any rate, "reversal" walks hand in hand with "subversion"

through this text, and certainly there is something potentially Uberating in this

upending of the teacher-student hierarchy. In the contemporary and comple

mentary writings of Foucault, it is not reversal but resemblance which provides

the Uberating jolt: Foucault sdiscovery of the ways schools since the

EnUghtenment have reflected the structures and ideologies of their seeming

opposites (hospitals, prisons, madhouses) has deeply influenced teachers think

ing

about

power

in the classroom and

wishing

to

rearrange-so-as-to-chaUengepower structures. Joining with theories of critical, Uberationist, Marxist, and

feminist pedagogies developed in the 1960s and 1970s, these newer poststruc

tural theories of being (and teaching) have given progressive coUege-level

teachers even more ways to think about revolutionizing the classroom.1

Inspired by the Marxist-materialism of authors such as Paulo Freire, fem

inist pedagogues have developed strategies for democratizing classroom

space, such asarranging chairs in circles or meeting in smaU or whole groups

outside the classroom, giving students a voice in the development of course

structure and evaluative criteria, and offeringa

personaUzed, first-name-basis

relationship complete with easy accessduring frequent office hours. Such

practicesare

designedto counter previous and concurrent student experi

ence in more traditional classrooms where information moves unUateraUy

and student perspective is downplayed. Critiquing such oppressive class

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JacquelineFoertsch 113

rooms, feminist pedagogic writing itself becomes a "safe space" for previous

ly silenced female and male student voices, where student comment is quot

ed variously and atlength, and students sometimes even take on roles as col

laborators.2 Recent statistical analyses have surveyed and tabulated responses

from feminist teachers to"prove" the legitimacy and distinctiveness of such

feminist pedagogic practice.3

Yet Derrida and Foucault themselves, aswell asmany feminist theorists

guided by their work, complicate and deconstruct this sense of liberation

almost as soon as it is identified. For Derrida, the scene of instruction he wit

nesses on the Bodleian postcard is far from utopicor even

especially pro

ductive. He problemetizes the image of Plato throughout?villainizing him

as teacher, disempowering him as student: Plato bosses Socrates arrogantly,

rises vengefully against his "father" in classic Oedipal fashion, and comes after

the revolutionary threat posed by Socrates (culminating in his murder/sui

cide) to "check the disaster" with his more conservative ideas (1987, 227).

Derrida seems fixated on the way Plato is "screwing" his master, as the draw

ing contains aninexplicable "poker" of some sort, protruding from beneath

Socrates sforegrounded thigh. Derrida's language is explicit throughout: "I

see Plato getting an erection in Socrates9 back and see the insane hubris of his

prick, an interminable, disproportionate erection ... before slowly sliding, stillwarm, under Socrates' right leg ..." (18) and later: "you can feel that he has a

hard-on ... in his back. Look at the oblique kolossos, at how he is shoving

it between the loins, beneath the robe" (129).

Especially concerningtome, as this reversed scene of instruction deteri

orates, isDerrida's other reading of Plato, asstruggling

to see what his mas

terproduces, yet ever excluded from the conversation between Socrates and

"writing" by the fact that "Socrates turns his back to Plato" (1987a, 12).

Remaining the student despite his attempted power-plays, Plato is smaller insize than Socrates, wears the diminutive "flat hat," and, asDerrida points out,

"hitches himself up behind Socrates, with one foot in the air as if he wanted

to come up to the sameheight

or as if he wererunning in order to catch a

moving train" (17). Struggling to see what Socrates is in fact up to, his view

(and his attempt at power) is blocked by Socrates's supervening position of

centrality and strength.

Reinforcing this reading of Plato as ever the disempowered outsider,

Derrida returns to Socratesagain

andagain:

both thesuccessfully

rebellious

student and the "real" teacher in this contrived setting, Socrates is not only

both anterior to(coming before) and posterior to (standing behind/sup

porting) Plato but also the father of the line of philosophy Derrida is tracing

throughout The Post Card "from Socrates to Freud and Beyond." Socrates's

superior,more liberal philosophies position him for Derrida as both hero and

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victim in this story, with Plato cast as the pretentious pretenderto his mas

ter's throne (ironicaUy, by making this master sit?and take dictation).

Always inmind of Freud and his offspring (specificaUy daughter Sophie

and grandson Ernst) as he views the "father-son" coupUng on the postcard,

Derrida identifies both Socrates and Plato as prototypes of both Freud and

Ernst. In "Freud" mode, Plato is the shriveUing, agingman who looks with

pride and fear at his "big grandson"; in the moreplausible "Ernst" role, Plato

"like Freud's grandson,. . . causes to be written, he 'lets' be written for him,

he dictates and persecutes Socrates" (1987a, 234). Yet as acomposite of both

Freudian figures, Plato must be considered, alarmingly,as a

powerful figure

who engages, perhapseven

unconsciously, in childish games: as with Uttle

Ernst's comforting game of "fort-da" with the wagon toy on its string, with"the skUlfulness with which [he] sent the thing off and made it come back"

(242), do feminist pedagogues engage in a game with students, seeming to

set them free in aliberating learning exercise, only to yank them back at

every evaluation interval and perhaps at every moment of resistance to cher

ished positions? Do we do so for the samecomforting yet unconscious rea

sons the child (master) Ernst obeyed? As grown-ups with anunderstanding

of these problems,are we able to successfuUy terminate the game or are we

consigned to its endless replay inone

teaching experience after another?

Everywhere in his work Derrida deconstructs the role of authority,a

gesture feminist pedagogues applaud, yet does so inways counter to the fem

inist project, in ways that may establish anunnerving resemblance between

feminists and chUdren engaged in comforting games. For Derrida opposes his

"untethered," deathward-tending, endlessly iterable principle of writing to the

vested, soUtary, and divine emanation constituted by voice, then proceedsto

deconstruct this opposition by noting the ways in which voice, too, is sepa

rated from its divine sourceby

the "violence" found at aUorigins (1976;

1978, "Violence"). How then to reconcile Derrida's castigation of the voice

with feminists' emphasison women's (and students') "voice" in a

personal

ized writing style, in an embodied political and professional subjectivity, in a

feminist classroom? Reading the feminist study Women's Ways ofKnowing,

Laurie Finke notes "the persistence of voice" in this text and in its survey of

female students which "contrasts with the metaphors of vision traditional

pedagogies employto describe cognition" (1993, 13).4While Finke herself

attempts to deconstruct feminists' emphasison voice, she can only do sowith

recourse to the contrived scenario of a tape recorder in the classroom. Then,

she correctly argues, the voices of students and teachers are"infinitely repro

ducible," yet the argument faUs flat when we realize that writing inevitably

produces such iterability and that voices?especiaUy inwomen's studies class

es whose sometimes "confessional" atmosphere would expressly prohibit the

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JacquelineFoertsch lis

presence of recording devices?do indeed producean

immediacy and "real

ity" that feminists pedagogues have been able to offer students as agenuine

alternative to traditional class experience. Still, Derrida would questioneven

this idea of a "genuine" alternative and likely ask feminists to reconsider their

"metaphysical" investment in the power of the voice.5

Inwork related to this issue, Foucault asks "what is an author?" and pro

ceeds to challenge the "individualization" of texts that generates "authors"

and "the author function." Foucault quotes approvingly from Beckett, who

once asked '"What does itmatter who is speaking?'" (1984, 101) and claims

that attachinga name to a text has been simply

a way to ward off death,

specifically "writing's relationship with death" (1984,102).While he suggests

that the author function emerges from certain texts deemed threatening to

society (marking "authored" texts asseemingly subversive instead of conser

vative), Foucault emphasizes the reactionary nature of the author function

itself: "The question then becomes: How can one reduce the great peril, the

great danger with which fiction threatens our world? The answer is: one can

reduce itwith the author" (1984, 118).

Certainly many feminist theorists concur with Foucault's distrust of the

author (or perhaps "genius") function as it controls the canonization of cer

tain (often white, western, male) classroom and cultural texts and alwaysexcludes others. Instead, they make frequent

use of collaborative authorship

to produce their own decentered teaching and writing and work to develop

or restore the reputations of marginalizedwomen authors in their classrooms

and scholarshipaswell. Still, because of generations of "anonymous"

women

authors denied the authority of authorship and thus now lost to feminist

teachers, and because of generations of women students who have been

silenced in traditional classrooms, total indifference to "who is speaking" will

not beacceptable

to themajority

of feministpedagogues.

This clash between

Derrida/Foucault and feminist theorists on these issues may indicate aprob

lem with poststructural and/or feminist pedagogic theories, at the very least

with the relationship between them.

Also as with Derrida, Foucault problemetizes the notion of asimple

reversal of power structure, since for him power is not a unilateral force

wielded by oppressor against oppressed which can, oncerecognized, be sub

verted and overthrown. Instead, power is a multidirectional relationship

between two or more individuals, the "subversion" of which is

inevitablyrecuperative, at least in part, of the original power imbalance. In The History

of Sexuality, Volume 1, Foucault chides us "other Victorians" for committing

this very crime?for convincing ourselves that "the mere fact that one is

speaking" constitutes "deliberate transgression" (1990, 6). Elsewhere,

Foucault has clarified, "One doesn't have here a power which iswholly in

8/13/2019 25112539



the hands of one person who can exercise it alone and totaUyover others.

It's amachine in which everyone is caught" (1977, 156).

FuUy complicated definitions of power such as these produced by

Derrida and Foucault have opened a debate in the feminist community as to

the very value of feminist pedagogic practices. A wave (some would say a

backlash) of commentary stringendy critical of such practices has, some fear,

fueled the hostility of the radical right which would disband feminist peda

gogic strongholds, specificaUy women's studies programs, if it could. In sepa

rate studies, Karen Lehrman and Christina Hoff Sommers have questioned

the ultimate value of "therapeutic teaching,"a

de-emphasison

grades and

performance, and anideological agenda

asoppressive to "non-believers" as

any other we might find in a coUege classroom. In a more thoughtful

(though statisticaUy limited) analysis, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge

interview a smaU number of current and former women's studies professors

who describe the troubles (and some horrors) involved with feminist teach

ing. The refusal of almost aU of their sources to go on record points, say Patai

and Koertge, to the coercion by the extreme left of these moderate feminists

seeking to operate in women's studies programs. The authors discover an

interesting dichotomy between academics and activists in these programs and

locate the problem in the sometimes anti-inteUectual fervor that can takeover. Elsewhere, their interviewees describe disruptive and abusive students,

drowning out a teacher with stamping and yeUing because the teacher has

been deemed not radical enough. We may be reminded, of course, of Plato

"screwing" Socrates in a similar manner, take the part of either teacher or

student in the situation, yet be forced to agree that in such a classroom the

opportunity for learning has been aU but destroyed. In response to these aUe

gations, others writing recently have emphasized the role played by "critical

thinking"in the feminist classroom.6

Yet drawing specificaUyon Foucault, some feminist theorists7 acknowl

edge the difficulty,even the impossibiUty, of ever

actuaUy "empowering"stu

dents.8 Others have used Foucauldian insightsto chaUenge the "utopics" of

feminist teaching,9 and Imean here to build upon their efforts by examin

ing in new ways this reinstatement of the status quo, despite teachers' best

intentions. However, whUe I have been aligning the findings of Derrida and

Foucault thus far, I now wish to contrast the two by compUcating the

Foucauldian

undoing

of feminist

pedagogic practices

with the ideas of

Derrida. For Foucauldian assertions that even the most radicaUy feminist

teaching is ultimately "part of the problem"must be coupled with an under

standing of the way these suspect maneuverings themselves, in classic decon

structive fashion, are part of the solution as weU. Deconstructive methods

enable us to understand the ways in which power plays "against" students can

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Jacqueline oertsch 117

be read not onlyas the "dirty secrets" of feminist pedagogy, but also as defin

ing elements, those which work ultimately in students' interest. For our

fullest understanding of this dynamic, however, we mustcomplicate both

Foucault and deconstruction, by moving beyond them, beyond theories in

general: this essay seeks, and finds, the feminist model for service to students

much less frequendy in abstract theories than in the practices of day-to-day

teaching, in the realistic assessment of what exactly students need and the

diligent effort to give this to them.

In an essay entided "The Subject and Power," Foucault stipulated that

power is "exercised onlyover free subjects, and only insofar as

theyare free"

(1983, 221), since the fully, permanendy immobilized opponent requiresno

such expenditure of energy, no action of power to contain or "govern" him. As

Foucault concisely put it, "slavery is not a power relationship when aman is in

chains."What he is describing, then, is not adichotomy (empowered/disem

powered) but asupplement,

adynamic and hinge-like interdependence

between, accordingto Derrida, a

primary, "original" element, which the sup

plementnot

only adds to but completes, that is, in part constitutes (1976).

Certainly my ownexperience, both as a

graduate student dealing with

professors and students, and now as abeginning faculty member dealing with

senior colleagues, administrators, and of course even more students, can becharacterized as a series of supplemental relationships which has caused me

to question the idea of a unidirectional power vector. For beginningaca

demics?and in fact all academics?function as "students" as often and as

importantlyas

they do as teachers.10 As students, their many "needs"?for

learning, for concentrated research (and the fellowships, grants, and sabbati

cals that enable this concentration), for "attention" (recognition and respect)

from peers and leaders in their field?compete with the needs of their stu

dents, that is,with their responsibilities as teachers.11 As teachers they mustdevote time and energy to class preparation and grading instead of research,

give generous praise and encouragement when they might preferto sit back

and receive these instead, and, mostsignificantly here, increase the burden of

these already-large responsibilities in the employment of almost always time

consuming and energy-draining feminist pedagogic practices.

With somuch press about the recent job crisis, I need say litde about the

oppressed position inwhich hundreds of graduate students and non-tenure

trackfaculty

find themselvestoday.

In obviousways they compete

with the

undergraduates of their institutions for the time and favors of powerful "reg

ular faculty" who must write letters and make phone calls on their behalf,

whom they must enlist as readers and editors of their scholarly work, if they

are to advance their careers. Indeed, these undergraduates must be recognized

as in some ways having more power than the low-level instructors who sup

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posedly lord it over them in the classroom: students, after aU, are the "paying

customers" who may legitimately "own" a greater share of senior faculty

members' time than untenured and non-tenure-track coUeagues whose

claims are not institutionaUy prepared for orguaranteed in any way. Inmore

unfavorable situations, these "customers'" irate complaints todepartment

chairs and deans' offices, even vaUd or frivolous charges of harassment and

discrimination and attendant threats of lawsuits, can distract mentors and

administrators even more and have enormously constraining effects on non

tenured staff.12

In classic poststructural fashion, the supplemental relations among teachers

and students areproductively (as Foucault would say "positively") parasitic: the

more our needs as "students" preoccupy us, the more Ukely we are to cut cor

ners as teachers, so as to save time and energy for scholarly pursuits; the hard

er we work to ensure anenUghtening, nurturing, democratic, and memorable

classroom experience for aU our students every semester, the more trouble we

wiU have meeting the profession's requirements for research and pubUcation,

untU our very roles as teachers are threatened with extinction.

The supplementalnature of the student-teacher relationship forces us to

rename the feminist-pedagogic "power-share"as the more accurate and real

istic "power-shift." It is probably not the case for most faculty, and certainly

not the case for struggling graduate students and junior faculty, that theyare

bloated and deluded byan excess of power. Due to the exigencies of this

country's ever-shrinking pubUc education fund and to the pressures appUed

from above by image- and budget-conscious administrators and legislators,

the coUege teacher of any stripe has the power she needs, and Uttle more.

Perhapssome of itmust be exercised less, to enable students to exercise theirs

more,13 to ensure their positionsas active, productive learners?but my con

tention here, based on my readings of Derrida and Foucault, asweU as on myown

experience, is that this shifting wUl not onlycome with a

price, but wiU,

as an element in the overarching power play, reinstate the old dynamic,

regardless of our efforts to the contrary.

In "thick descriptions" of his experiences teaching EngUshat a rundown,

forgotten CUNY sateUite on Staten Island, Ira Shor refers to"Angela,"

a

tough-minded, outspoken member of his "Utopia" class who one semester

chaUenged his attendance requirement (1996). Representinga

large contin

gent of overworked, underpaid adults in the class, who had pressing job- andhome-related responsibUities, Angela argues that in the truly democratic

course Shor wastrying to create, students would be aUowed to do the work

"on their own" solong

as they turned in assignmentson time. Shor is sur

prised and confounded by this argument, stammers around in the develop

ment of an adequate response, and finaUy exercises his power to deny Angela's

8/13/2019 25112539



request by weakly promising that the class, with attendance required, will not

be boring, will indeed be a valuable group experience.

Shor's confused and vague defense of required attendance surprises and

frustrates me. Certainly had I had Angela in a class of mine, multiple argu

ments for her required presence there would have leapt to mind. Aside from

the learning that certainly comes, the many ideas that arealways generated,

only within the context of the class meeting, several pragmaticreasons neces

sitate students' presence as a group in one spot at adesignated time, as teach

ers know it is finally difficult if notimpossible for students to "do the work

on their own." As Shor himself acknowledges, what Angelawas

proposing

was "an individualist approach to getting educated" (1996, 107), which

would no doubt require teacher availability for the interpreting of material,

the answering of questions, the evaluating of drafts of assignments, but

according to each student's own timetable. When it came toproducing writ

ten work, or evenjust making

sense of the literature, Shor's students would

be on the phone and at his office door requiring private tutorials during

whatever hours they could release themselves from work and family respon

sibilities. Shor would be clarifying the samepoint, making the same

reminder, fixing the same mistake for each of his 35 students; certainly he has

not enough hours in his day (and is probably not paid enough) to functionin this private-tutor capacity for every student.

In our ownexperience,

we know that students with Angela's "syn

drome," who for excused or unexcused reasons miss multiple classes and

insist onbeing "caught up"

over a series of one-on-one in-office sessions,

drain valuable time from our other work; those who abuse the attendance

policy and test the hmits of ourpatience with "individualist" education

become objects of resentment, until we remove them from the rolls. But even

all of the teacher self-interest I am describing here completes itself in a sup

plemental, fully student-centered, oppositeaswell: a teacher's research is fun

damental not only to her role asexciting and dynamic classroom presence

but also as contributor to the reputation of her department and collegeor

university?a reputation bearing directly and significantlyon the worth of

the degree her students take from there. Finally her withholding of time and

energy must be understood as a function of her being merely human: were

she to try to sacrifice herself fully to student-defined "needs," she would

shortlybecome

exhausted,and be of no use to

anystudent at all.

In other discussions, Shor describes lengthy, complicated classroom pol

icy negotiations in the early days of the term (subtracting time, of course,

from the schedule devoted to reading and interpreting literature) and in a

continually convening "after-class" group (subtracting time, again, from

Shor's own schedule of writing, researching, living his life). Elsewhere, when

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teaching Henry V, he suggests that "teachers could assemble files about recent

wars that America has conducted inVietnam, Grenada, Panama, and Iraq"

(1992, 154) to make Shakespeare's themes of war "relevant" to students.

Certainly, some of us would object to the amount of preparation necessary to

developa

war-readings portfoUo that even somecoUeagues in the PolySci

department would admire. AdditionaUywe

might chaUenge the merit of

goingso far outside the text at hand just to "question" Shakespeare and give

students a sense of attachment to Uterature or a voice during class discussion.14

It is significant that almost aU of the student-centered teaching Shor describes

has Utde ornothing

to do with the Uterature designated by the syUabus: in the

Utopia class, "power-sharing" takes place duringmore than aweek of intro

ductory sessions and after class; Shor offers no evidence that these democrat

ic methods work during the regular study of utopic Uterature.15 Reading

Henry V, Shor's students onlyseem

empowered when theyare

talking about

the Gulf War or the generation gap orrewriting parts of the play. How,

though,can students do this rewriting, without an

understanding of the orig

inal writing in the first place? Certainly, they wUl get nohelp in deciphering

the joys and mysteries of blank verse, EUzabethan history,or

Shakespeare's

poetic gifts by readingnews articles on the Gulf War. FinaUy,

as Gerald Graff

(1994) and others have pointed out, students wUl be "led to" (Foucault s term)this sort of expert knowledge by the controUing figure of the teacher?the

only one in the room able to do it and who therefore simply must.16

The Graff essay I refer to here is in part a response to Jane Tompkins's

brave and provocative description of the ego-trip that is teaching, of the

"performance" she put on every dayto

impress her students and herself, untU

she confronted the anxieties underlying this action and surrendered the spot

Ughtto the group at

large (1994). This acknowledgement of the psycholog

ical insecurities that "weaken"a

teacher with respectto

her students?inShor's formulation, "I need them more than they need me"?moved

Tompkins to "strengthen" her psychic self by "strengthening" the role of stu

dents in the classroom?turning teaching responsibiUty and credit almost

entirelyover to them.17

Certainly I have employed this sort of democratizing job-sharing in

classes I have taught and watched students "blossom" during in-class presen

tations of their work under the warmth and intensity of my hothouse gaze;

I haverequested

that students address me

by my

first name

(though

not in a

spirit of generosityso much as, again, through my sense of being equaUy

powerless,on the same level as

they). I have become sodependent

on cir

cling students into large, inward-facing groups, stationing myself at the back

of the classroom (as Shor names it, "deep Siberia") or at any other point in

the ring, that I know IwUl always do so.Whenever relevant, I introduce

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issues of classism, racism, sexism, orhomophobia and challenge

asproduc

tivelyas

possible students' bigoted remarks during discussion or inwriting. I

employ frequent conferencing and midterm evaluations from students, and

encourage feedback and protest with respect to assignments, grading, teach

ing methods?everything.

But I do not kid myself with respect to the double-edgednature of all

of these feminist-pedagogic offerings bestowed on students: empowering

students (remembering Foucault) always automatically empowers me.Yet, as

Iwill argue at the end of this essay, this supposedly insidious reclamation of

the reins of control (remembering the Derridian supplement) is also what I

use to serve students best, tohopefully free them from myself, from their

need of something from me, when our teacher-student relationship is over.

Certainly the circle of desks or chairs, which soequalizes and democratizes,

simultaneouslymoves everyone into an

easily surveyed and policed front

row; it is ahighly effective panopticon, and I use it as such.18When some stu

dent has gone too long without contributing to class discussion, this deficit

is obvious, and I correct it by engaging him, eventhough this imposes upon

him my preference, that he be agood student instead of a

sleepingone.When

sorority sisters arechatting and giggling

at the far side of the room, I can

move myself easily between them for as long as is necessary, never missing a

beat with respect to class discussion: bodies don't have to turn in their chairs,

necks just have to shift a little bit, and I have effectively "silenced" this "sub

versive" dialogue which wasfrankly ruining my enjoyment of the group's dis

cussion, not to mention my handling of it.19

Efforts to"personalize" class experience by using first names and one

on-oneconferencing empower students; at the same time, they reflect the

isolating, individuatingnature of power which Foucault finds atwork in the

creation of "docile bodies" by army generals since the late 18th century andin the architecture of prison cells which "guarantees against

... communica

tion between inmates" (1984, 218). Elsewhere he notes the criminologist's

microscopic interest in the "biography" of the "delinquent" (resembling

teacher interest in students' "life experiences"), and describes "pastoral

power," employed by clerics during the church's solidification of Western

Europe, as intensely personal, close-range, and admirably selfless: "Pastoral

power... must be prepared to sacrifice itself for the life and salvation of the

flock"(1983, 214).

In a recent Foucauldian analysis, Diann L. Baecker has examined "the

rhetoric of the syllabus" employed by multiple instructors of introductory

writingcourses and discovered "the coercive we." Quoting

an earlier study,

Baecker sees "we" functioning often to '"draw the listener into complicity"'

(Muhlhausler and Harre 129, qtd. in Baecker 1998, 3), spread responsibility

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for teacher-generated poUciesto students in their acceptance of the syl

labus/contract,20 and hide or soften the presence of obvious authority.

Baecker concludes that "a balanced syUabus is not one in which power is

shared, but rather one in which power ismade expUcit" (4). Imyself admit

to anentirely calculated use of pronouns in teaching, although mosdy dur

ing the composition of evaluative responses on student papers. WhUe "you"

(the student) is always given credit for what works in agiven essay, "we" (the

student and myself) always share the blame for what does not succeed. WhUe

I regard my use of this connective "we" as in part genuine (it beingmy fault

to a certain degree when a student fails to grasp a skiU or concept I am try

ing to promote), I know that I am also in part employing this to coerce and

cajole: perhaps the student wiU not notice or mind the very low grade he (cer

tainly not "we") is in the process of receiving?at least until I am out of the

room or the student evaluations arecompleted; perhaps the student wiU be

encouragedto try again if I position myself

aswiUing to share this burden,

but also asfundamentaUy invested in her success and profoundly affected by

her failure.Whether conceived asraising students up to our level or

dropping

ourselves down to theirs, our first-name-basis, one-on-onepolicies draw stu

dents closer to us, giving them Uttle room, if anywhere at aU, to hide.21

As Imyself often do, Patricia BizzeU invests her role as a feminist peda

gogue with activist import, determining value-neutral teaching to be an

impossibility and claiming that the values she passes on are not"simply those

that the teacher prefers" but instead "those that are cherished in the society

whose culture the educator is paidto

reproduce" (1964, 196). But of course

Foucault has shown that the instiUation of values (the reform of "delin

quents," the instiUing of "guilt" inmadmen) hardly subverts power structures

but instead only strengthens and enlarges them, "fixing" (both correcting and

holding)societal

renegadesin

highlyeffective

ways.In fact BizzeU and aU of

us know that the values society cherishes and in fact pays her toreproduce?

competitiveness, materialism, self-centeredness, "freeenterprise"?have

nothingto do with the ones she is interested in passing along. Despite the

pose of pubUcservant she adopts early on, BizzeU dismisses the issue by

feigning ignorance?"Of course, I can never know to what degree the val

ues I promote reflect an American consensus" (200)?enabling herself to

continue her projectas "enforcer" of her own

agenda. Iwant to reiterate that

BizzeU seeks to passalong

the same values in her classroom as I do; it is her

denial of the power imbalance teachers take advantage of to "reform" stu

dents in this way which we must recognize and question.

Certainly my "surrendering" of research and presentation responsibUities

to students is ablessing whose mixed nature is lost on no one in the class.

For assignificantly

as we resemble our students in the supplemental fashion

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Jacquelineoertsch123

I describe above, in important ways we arenothing like them, and their goals

for our class experience togetherare often the opposite of ours. Recall that

most of us were skilled in language study in college who went on to get

PhDs in literature and Uke-minded disciplines; we took many literature and

writing classes and excelled in them. Likelywe were conscientious even if

not successful students in all oursubjects and enjoyed the chance to show off

for teacher and peers when we were invited to hold the floor for extended

periods. We are teachers now because weenjoyed teaching

even then; but

how many of our own students, especially in the lower-level courses, will

major in literature, get PhDs in the subject, devote their lives to the teaching

and advancing of it aswe have? How many of ourgraduate students are

busy

studying for exams, teaching their own classes, or writing dissertations, and

rather resent the copious extralegwork that will be involved just

to function

as a student in some class we have decided, for probably perfectly valid rea

sons, to "not teach"?

Certainly most of our students define "power" inways that would never

occur to us.They value neither a voice, nor a

growth experience,nor a life

long relationship with us but a decent grade?that which is standing

between them and their scholarships and ROTC programs, their junior years

abroad, their release from academic probation. Certainly, the most radicalform of power-sharing in their estimation, and perhaps the most efficient,

institutionally subversive method we ourselves could devise, would be to

hand around the As and Bs on the first day of class, ensuring the financial and

academic rewards that areseriously threatened by students' very presence in

our class, and suggest everyone get together for an hour of coffee and shar

ing during the final examperiod 15 weeks later.

Instead, of course, weunilaterally determine that this sort of strategy is

notin students' best

interestand

refrain fromgiving grades

ofany quality

until they have been earned. We redefine power-sharing in academically

sanctioned terms, which may only enforce the distance between us and

them. Once they have accepted their status as "stuck in class," however, most

of our students?the ones who need us most22?are countingon us to lead

and instruct, tomake decisions and give good clues, to take responsibility for

passingon the knowledge and skills we

promise them onday one, which will

enable them to succeed?land a decent job, get off of welfare, support a fam

ily, gain

more

happiness.

I return once more to Derrida'sreading

of that

notorious scene of instruction: "this incredible representation of Socrates ...

turning his back on Plato in order towrite" (1987a, 15; emphasis added). Here

Socrates's reassumption of the leadership position is perceivedas essential to

his very functioningas servant (to his student, to society, to his own needs to

get his thoughtson paper and use these productively).

In the final supplemen

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talmove of the student-teacher power relation, that which restricts students

most may finaUyserve them best; and service to students, aU pedagogical the

ories aside, must be the feminist teacher's most constant and effective practice.

Notes

1See for instance Gabriel and Smithson (1990),Kreisberg (1992),Leitch (1986),

and Shor (1992,1996).2 Extended student quotes are used frequently throughout Gabriel and

Smithson (1990), especiaUy in essays by Kramarae andTreichler and by Gabriel. Zak

andWeaver (1998) intersperse "student voices" among the articles by teachers, and

Shor (1996) quotes and paraphrases at length from student commentary. C Mark

Hurlbert cowrites an

essay

with his

undergraduate coUeague,

Ann Marie Bodnar

(1994).In most of these, student voices are enlisted to recreate and relive bad class

roomexperiences

in their ownunjudged

or evenanonymous words.

3 See the study by Hoffman and Stake (1998).4Despite

amost-confused assessment of the virtues of "voice" and"writing"

in

the freshman writing class, EUzabeth A. Fay seems to come down finaUy in favor of

a voice-oriented emphasis, as promoted by Peter Elbow. At first Fay seems to take

the standard Derridian Une, crediting writing with reveaUng its own discursive and

recursive character, reading postmodern attributes like "interrupt[s] logical con

structs" and "aUow[s] thought to fold back on itself" in positive light (1992,13). Fayascribes voice to "the humanist tradition" and questions

itsuniversaUzing concept of

the "univocal" which masks individual differences. Introducing her student Minnie,

however, Fay dismisses theemphasis

onstrong writing skUls this student

sought after

and asserts that "What Minnie's attack revealed was, first, that the notion of self-rev

elation through the search for voice made for an insupportable vulnerability" (14).

Here, "voice" is what Fay determines students like Minnie need togain

a sense of

self, more valuable than the financial independence and professionalsuccess that

strong writing skUlsmight bring them.While Fay's later statement?"She wanted

armor and safety, masking and loss of Elbowian voice, with a concomitant adoption

of a new pubUc voice" (14)-?confuses things further by making "(pubUc) voice" an

analogyfor

"writing,"her ultimate

preferencefor voice over

writing positions her in

a traditional feminist-pedagogic line.

5Derrida's interest in the "gram," the "grapheme," and the

anti-metaphysical

properties of writing coincides with his rationalist/EnUghtenment (i.e.,mascuUnist)

emphasisin some

commentaryon the university. Describing

"the vision" of a univer

sityin a commencement address to CorneU students, Derrida focuses on the "site" of

the institution, the "sights" itsmountain-top site affords, and his claim that in learning

"we give preference to sight just as we give preference to the uncovering of difference"

(1983,4). Hardly championing feminist pedagogic practice here, Derrida sees the uni

versity professoras he who "submits to reason" and is thus

empoweredto lead a class:

"He commands?he is the premieror the

prince?becausehe knows causes and prin

ciples, the 'whys' and thus also the 'wherefores' of things" (18).

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6 See essays by Hoffman and Stake (1998), Myers and Tronto (1998), Rand

(1999), and Sikes Scering (1997).7 I refer here to the collection edited by Carmen Luke and Jennifer Gore (1992),

especially essays byWalkerdine, Gore, Orner, Ellsworth, and Lather.While I

developedthis paper before encountering the work of these theorists, I gladly acknowledge its

relevance tomy project and its contribution to feminist pedagogical theory.8

JenniferGore points

out that to understand teachers as"empowering" students

is to first understand them as able to do so, to act as holders of power, as if itwere

property, then give or withhold it atwill. Reading Foucault, Gore reminds us of the

way power never restswith any individual but instead freely, constantly, and invisibly

circulates among individuals (1992, 58-59).9Gore writes, "I want to look for [critical and feminist discourses'] dangers,

theirnormalizing tendencies,

for howthey might

serve as instruments of domina

tion despite the intentions of their creators ..." (1992, 54). Elsewhere, Mimi Orner

warns that "'liberatory' pedagoguesare not

preparedto deal with the oppressive

moments in their ownteaching" (1992, 84).

10Despite our many points of agreement, I am here arguing against Luke and

Gore's assertion that "we are inscribed as either student orprofessor" and that "[s]uch

inscriptions are key in the production of subjectivity, identity, and knowledge in ped

agogical encounters" (1992, 2).11

Diann L. Baecker touches on this issue when she notes in herstudy

of class syl

labi the slender line separating the student and the teacher: "The syllabus is also, for the

newTA, one of the first placeswe assert our

authorityas teachers. Brown and Gilman

. . . cite inparticular

theplight

of the new PH.D. who has, with the conveyance of a

single piece of paper, become transformed from student to colleague" (1998, 3).12

Archived discussion of "student evaluations" on the women's studies listgroup

WMST-L includes multiplestatements from tenure-track faculty

who have sensed

the danger posed to their tenure bids by even one negative student evaluation. One

participant described a single complaint, amongst a wealth of positive student

reviews, resultingin a

negativeassessment

bya

faculty evaluation committee. Several

contributors to the discussion also alleged that evaluations were used politically, to

tip the scale against unwanted colleaguesat tenure determination time, to

tipit in

favor of someonepopular among fellow-faculty. Several contributors cited studies

showing that female faculty members consistently faced lower student evaluations

than male faculty; and interestingly, among nearly45 entries from a random selec

tion from this archive, those four or five submitted bymale list contributors consis

tently maintained a neutral orpositive

stance toward student evaluations, while

female contributors' attitudes wereconsistently negative.

13 This terminology is borrowed from Gore's helpful formulation:

"[Empowerment]could mean ... the exercise of power in an

attempt (that might

not be successful) to help others to exercise power" (1992, 59).14

Shakespeare's works seem to lend themselves particularly well to this sort of

extra-textual invention.Describing her teaching

ofShakespeare

in "the centrifugal

classroom," Linda Woodbridge requiresher students to

perform"theatricals" of var

ious scenes and dialogues for which students create elaborate costumes, props and

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sets.Although Woodbridge insistsmore than once that she does not force students to

embelUsh productions this way, her group-based class structure?which she sets up

unUateraUy in the first days of the term and which she uses to engage groups in head

to head "debate"?fosters a

competitive atmosphere

which sets students about the out

doing of each other.WhUe Woodbridge acknowledges that the "conflictive, agonistic

mode" she employs smacks of the "pernicious competition"out of line with her fem

inist viewpoint, her only effort to curb students' competitive energy seems to be in her

insistence that "we do not take a vote on who won the debate" (or, Ukely,on who

staged the best theatrical). StiU, her unwilUngness to acknowledge theway the com

petitive spirit is in large part responsible formaking Shakespeare "fun" for her students

needs to be addressed here. Elsewhere, Woodbridge describes encouraging her students

to compare Shakespearian plays toTV shows and The National Enquirer.The question

ability ofWoodbridges

summing analogy indicates my objection here: "helping theexterior discourses of TV and tabloid to penetrate (and even tomake sense of) the

inner sanctums of academic Uterary study is an inteUectualmind bender towhich [stu

dents] take Uke dolphins to a fake lagoon" (1994,143).15This problem is replicated to a certain degree in an oft-quoted essay by

Elizabeth EUsworth where she argues that feminist-generated abstractions about

"empowerment,""human betterment," and the "capacity

to acteffectively"

must be

traded in for context-specificreasons and methods to

helpstudents to

authority and

power (1992). But in fact the context EUsworth describes was one more easUy

defined and universaUy attention-getting than those many of us teaching Uteraturehave the

opportunity (and/or misfortune)to

experience?a particularracial (anti

African-American) incident at a campus fraternity, and a course mountedspeciaUy

to deal with it. Significantly, students from multiple ethnic and international back

grounds participatein this course

(95), but no African-American students do, caus

ing readers to wonder howcontext-specific

EUsworth and her students were ever

able to be.

16 In Graff's phrasing,"I take it as a

postulate that, in order to be meaningful,

the distinction between teachers and students requiresan

assumptionof hierarchy,

an

assumption that the teacher possesses some knowledge, competence, or skUl that the

student lacks" (1994,184).17For a psychoanalytic reading of the feminist teacher, see Finke (1993).18For an original description of this device, see Foucault (1977,147). I am here

moving beyond Orner's association of the panopticon with "the hidden curriculum

of the talking circle" (1992, 83) by positing that in fact this curriculum is neither

hidden nor in any need of being hidden. The poUcing of students is not the "dirty

underside" (clearly defined opposite) of good feminist teaching but instead one of its

constituting elements.

19 In a reversal of termsapplied

toprimary and secondary

asopposed

to adult

(coUege) students that we might caU the "Ritalin effect" of pedagogic argument,

recently published education theories demonstrate forthrightly methods of obtain

ing and securing total control of the classroom. Seemingly from another era, these

contemporary education texts (withnames Uke Classroom Power Relations and Power

in the Classroom) describe techniquesUke "politeness," "affinity," and "immediacy"

to

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coerce and control students, without pausingfor amoment to

questionor

challenge

these manipulative actions. Claimingno

expertisewhatever in the areas of child

developmentor

elementary education, I am nonetheless struck by the diametric

opposition between ideas across this disciplinary divide. See for instance Manke

(1997), and Richmond andMcCroskey (1992).20 In a discussion of attendance policies on theWMST-L listgroup, Lenora

Smith enunciated their coercive effects: "Are wecreating

a power struggle based on

some students' revoltagainst

the 'authority' vested in usby

an educational system in

the expectation that we willhelp mold the students into

good little on-time ever

present female workers who feel guilty taking a sick day?... I think that for a stu

dent to (learn to) be a feminist, shemight well need to say at some point *Idispute

this policy'or 'I think I have reason for an exception'" (1998).

21Again,

Iappreciate

Orner sinvestigation

of thedisempowering emphasis,

even

insistence, on students' speechin class yet again disagree

with her singularly negative

assessment of this insistence as"oppressive

construct" (1992, 75).

22In these final remarks, I am once more close to Graff's essay. Describing

his

own efforts to back away from his role as classroom authority,"it turned out that few

students wereequipped

to take over the burden ofauthority from the teacher, and

those who wereequipped

to do so wereprecisely

the ones who were least in need

of being taught" (1994, 182).

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