Annotation+3+-+Psychoanalysis+and+Education


 * EcoEd **
 * Reading Annotation Template **
 * Kelley Fischbach – March 18, 2014 **
 * Annotation 3 – Psychoanalysis and Education **


 * 1) 1. Full citation?

Felman, S. (1982). Psychoanalysis and Education: Teaching Terminable and Interminable. //Yale French Studies, No. 63, The Pedagogical Imperative: Teaching as a Literary Genre//, 21-44.


 * 1) 2. Where are the author/s located, what are their backgrounds and what kinds of expertise do they have?

Currently, Shoshana Felman is a Woodruff Professor of Comparative Literature and French at Emory University. Prior to this position, she served as a professor at Yale University (1970 to 2004) where she received the Thomas E. Donnelly Professorship of French and Comparative Literature. Felman received her Ph.D. at the University of Grenoble in France in 1970. Her expertise is in 19th and 20th century French literature, psychoanalysis, trauma and testimony, and law and literature. She is well-regarded as a literary critic and theorist, and is influential in the field of psychoanalytical literary criticism. ( []  and [] )


 * 1) 3. List at least three details or examples from the text that point to something important about culture, education and/or the challenge of environmental sustainability in the United States.


 * Felman notes that education is an “impossible” profession – while also being one of our most important ones, in terms of shaping future generations (pages 21-22).
 * Felman also stresses the importance of seeing her discussion as a lesson about implications of psychoanalysis in pedagogy, and vice versa (page 26).
 * <span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">An interesting aspect of this text is the discussion of Western pedagogy as intent on “absolute knowledge” – finding concrete yes-or-no answers to “exhaust” the learning process, when in fact learning is never complete (page 28).


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">4. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?


 * <span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">“If teaching is impossible – as Freud and Socrates both point out – what are we teachers doing? How should we understand-and carry out-our task? And why is it precisely two of the most effective teachers ever to appear in the intellectual history of mankind, who regard the task of teaching as impossible?” (page 22)
 * <span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">“Invariably, all existing psychoanalytically-inspired theories of pedagogy fail to address the question of the pedagogical speech-act of Freud himself, or of Lacan himself: what can be learnt about pedagogy not just from their theories (which only fragmentarily and indirectly deal with the issue of education) but from their way of teaching it, from their own practice as teachers, from their own pedagogical performance” (page 24).
 * <span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">“Pedagogy in psychoanalysis is thus not just a theme: it is a rhetoric. It is not just a statement: it is an utterance. It is not just a meaning: it is action; an action which itself may very well, at times, belie the stated meaning, the didactic thesis, the theoretical assertion” (page 26).


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">5. What is the main argument of the text?

<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">The main argument here is based upon the crucial relationship between psychoanalysis and education – what it is/should be, how it is perceived, etc. Felman stresses the need to critique pedagogy and education in psychoanalytical ways. She defines psychoanalysis itself as a critique of pedagogy and goes into detail explaining Freudian concepts to support this claim, as well as to explain how this critique has been “misconstrued and greatly oversimplified” (page 23) throughout time.


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">6. Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.


 * <span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Felman’s main argument can perhaps best be described by this statement that she makes: “It is essential to become aware of this complexity of the relationship of pedagogy and psychoanalysis, in order to begin to think out what the psychoanalytic teaching about teaching might well be” (page 26).
 * <span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Felman further supports her argument in discussing how psychoanalysis is a “pedagogical experience” in that, through psychoanalysis, we are given access to new information – or “lessons in cognition” (page 27).
 * <span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Ultimate, Felman proves her argument with the discussion of the difference between teacher and student – expressing the fact that neither is completely a teacher nor student – it is an “interminable line” (page 38).


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">7. What parts of the argument did you find most and least persuasive, and why?

<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">I found Felman’s analysis of Freud and Lacan to be very sound, and tended to agree on many facets. I do, however, think that Freudian concepts are fairly outdated in this day, and was a bit confused as to why Felman put so much stock into the words of Freud and his “best” student. However, I found myself agreeing with her logic for the most part.


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">8. What kinds of corrective action are suggested by the text (either overt or implied)?

<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Essentially, Felman is suggesting that teachers should spend more time learning from their students and allowing for a bit of a role-reversal. She suggests that there is no such thing as an absolute teacher or an absolute student and then education itself works best when there is a give-and-take between the two parties.


 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">9. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text relates to our effort to conceptualize, design and deliver EcoEd?

<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">I see a correlation between what we do in EcoEd and what Felman is suggesting, in that we often allow for this suggested give-and-take between instructor and student and allow for learning to progress among both groups throughout our lessons.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">10.What additional information has this text compelled you to seek out? (Describe what you learned in a couple of sentences, providing at least two supporting references).

<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">I was trying to find a bit more information about Lacan, and randomly enough came upon a website dedicated to the connections between the works of Freud and Lacan (called “Freud 2 Lacan”) which serves as a giant database of their works, as well as other comparable pieces of literature ( [] ). I also learned a bit more about Jacques Lacan himself from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( [] ). From this source I learned about Lacan’s role in psychoanalysis and his nickname – “the French Freud”.