daiello 2010 knot an impasse lacanian theory as research methodology(1)

Visual Arts Research Volume 36, Number 2 Winter 2010 83

(K)not an Impasse:WorkingThrough Lacanian Theoryas Research Methodology

Vicki Daiello

University of Cincinnati

This essay illuminates key points in the development of a psychoanalytic theory-informed case study of student writing in Criticizing Television, an undergraduate,writing-intensive art education course. The discussion describes the research context,including a select group of concepts that structure the inquiry: subjectivity and desite,tbe Otber, thick intetptetation, ctitical consciousness, and resistance. In addition,Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and methodology are briefiy explicated and problema-tized, providing a foundation for an exploration of Ellie-Ragland Sullivan's LacanianPoetics and Carol Gilligan's Listening Guide, followed by discussion of an impassemetbod of reflexive data analysis. The impasse, first perceived as an obstacle in theresearch, is linked with the concept of critical (un)consciousness, becoming the meta-phorical, methodological (k)not upon which the case study and its data pivot.

You tie yourself to what comes untied—to what unties you within your ties.

You are a knot of correspondences.— Edmond Jabès (içço)

In bet teseatcb of psychoanalytic bistories of learning, Deborah Btitzman (2003,

p. 75) contemplates tbe tole of complexity and uncettainty in education, ask-

ing, "What happens when our pedagogy is caught somewhere between ignorance and

knowledge, between not knowing what to do but still having to act, and between not

seeing and seeing too much?" Considered tbtougb a psycboanalytic petspective

on pedagogy, Britzman's questions sound tbe depths of an education discoutse,

© 20i0 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

84 I Visual Arts Research Winter 2010

going directly to the murky, ambivalent nature of teaching and learning—thespaces and gaps where knowledge unravels, exposing uncertain origins, fragilesuppositions, and unruly affects. The case-study research of student ctiticismwriting described in this essay emerged within spaces of not knowing what todo but still having to act, and between acts of not seeing and seeing too much(Daiello, 2010). Like most efffbtts to signify unformulated expetiences (Stern,1997), the research did not begin with logic, but emerged from a place of un-knowing; a place of evocation, resonance, and questioning; and a desire to writethe impossible.'

Conceptualizing this study's research methodology through a Lacanian the-ory perspective is an approach that by tutns both motivated and undermined thewriting of the research. This essay illuminates some key points in the trajectory ofthe psychoanalytic theory-informed approach used in the case study, identifyingand explicating the shapes and textures of impasse as method. To this end, I discussfirst the research context and significant concepts in the case study. Next, Lacanianpsychoanalytic theory and related methodologies ate briefly explicated and prob-lematized, followed by discussion of impasse, the metaphorical, methodologicalknot upon which the case study and its data pivot.

Contextualizing the Research: Desire for/as Disruptive Methodology

Lauren Berlant (2007) wtites "patience . . . is something to teach: it's related topacing, and to taking the time to acknowledge being overwhelmed by, and tobecome scholats of the complexity of, the distillate that appears as the satisfyingobject" (p. 437). Like Berlant, I am drawn to, and take seriously, the impatience,anxieties, and uncertainties inherent in symbolizing an impossible-to-express"satisfying object." Not unlike the teaching expetiences that led me to developthe case study of students' ctiticism writing, the case study's methodology pre-sented some significant challenges for my understanding and articulation of whatcounts as data: the satisfying object. The research methodology, then, is difficultknowledge,^ an impasse wherein significations are knotted with desire and twistedinto the shape of a researcher's subject position that I could locate only retrospec-tively, and pattially, in the Symbolic register.^ This essay is not a definitive ot staticpicture of a psychoanalytic teseatch methodology,'* but is a glimpse of methodol-ogy as process of (k) not knowing—an opening into spaces that are amenable tomethodologies to come. These are methodologies that, in their attempts to feeland articulate the contours of their limitations, gesture toward thicker, more tex-tured awarenesses than ate possible in the present.'

The decision to use a psychoanalytic approach in the research originatedseveral years ago in my experiences with students' criticism writing while teach-

Vicki Daiello Lacanian Theory as Research Methodology | 85

ing the Criticizing Television course."̂ During that time, I encountered criticismessays that affected me deeply, making the process of grading and giving feedbackstrangely unnerving. I sometimes felt uncomfortably uncertain about how torespond to texts that were deeply personal in content, or that triggered in me un-namable resistances or unruly, ambiguous passions. Eventually, I began to wonderwhether my pedagogical desire for coherence, logic, clarity, and objectivity in rela-tion to students' television criticism was at odds with the unconscious, emotionalresistances around the notion of writing toward critical consciousness. I began toquestion how unconscious aspects of subjectivity were implicated in the develop-ment ofthe students' and my own critically conscious perspectives toward televi-sion and in relation to criticism writing. Further, I began to question how my ownsubjectivity and desire, and, indirectly, the circulation of unconscious desires forparticular pedagogical experiences within the discipline of art education, might beimplicated in the flows of engagement and resistance within and around students'criticism texts.

Although I sensed disruption in my interactions with students' criticismwritings, I couldn't express with any precision where these feelings originated orwhat they meant. I could only perceive an uncomfortable excess that seemed tooverflow and cloud my presumptions about the writing assignment objectives,the meaning of critical consciousness, and my role in facilitating a criticallyconscious writing pedagogy. As philosopher Mark C. Taylor (1997) observes,"[T]he puzzle is not the lack of meaning, but its excess" (p. 38). As a result ofmy encounters with excess and disruption around the writing created in thecourse, the concept of critical consciousness became overdetermined and con-flictive for me. While the signifier critical consciousness represented particularlearning objectives for the writing, it also pointed to an unnamable resonance,an evocative resistance. Eventually, then, my perception of critical consciousnessshifted from assumptions about its conscious cultivation to a belief in its exis-tence as a knot of unconscious subjectivity comprised of unnamable, evocativestrands of desire and resistance.

Referring to postmodern research as an evocative discourse, anthropologistSteven A. Tyler (1986) makes a distinction between acts of representation and sig-nification and the phenomenon of evocation. Evocation does not contain a partic-ular meaning, nor does it bind meaning tightly to any signifier. Instead, evocationis a gesturing toward the ineffable, "a coming to be of what was neither presentnor absent" and a way of "making present what can be conceived but not pre-sented" (p. 123). Tyler's conceptualization of evocativeness describes not only myexperience with the study and its data, but also my experience of conceptualizingand articulating the research. Although evocation and resonance are not overtlyvisible in my interactions with the research data, these affects are nonetheless very


real, emerging as feelings of empathy and rapport, intuitions and enthusiasm,withdrawals and resistances, as I interact with the study participants and theirwritings. An intersubjective phenomenon, evocation and resonance are implicatedin what and how participants reveal of themselves in their writing, and also impactthe way in which I consciously and unconsciously perceive and respond to theserevelations. The collisions and collusions of students' writings and my responses tothem are conceptualized in the study as dynamic relational spaces^ that originatein conscious and unconscious efforts to render the world visible for self and oth-ers. Inscribed in a criticism text's repetitions, disruptions, and affective resonances,the invisible practices of the unconscious and the hidden structures of relationalspaces leave traces throughout the writing created in the course and in the textsgenerated through the case study.

When students' critiques of yisual culture phenomena colhde with theirattachments and resistances to visual culture in the relational space of a criti-cism writing assignment, the experience of writing can become charged withsensitivities that engage and motivate or lead to disassociation. These sensitivi-ties are often inexpressible in words—assignments and curricula do not typicallyoffer opportunities for students or teachers to acknowledge and work throughpedagogical attachments and resistances. Therefore, while affects and uncertain-ties may permeate one's experience of an assignment, the very structure of theassignment criteria and the discursive characteristics of the discipline often fore-close the possibility of addressing these sensitivities. In other words, there is aparadox in eliciting a personally situated critique within an educational contextthat may well constrain responses to that critique, especially when confessional-type expressions "display an intimacy that their rhetoric forbids" (Crumet, 2001,p. 175). In the case of a writing assignment that is freighted with expectationsabout demonstration of critical consciousness, both the student writer and theirinstructor may intuitively disassociate from doing work that seems disingenu-ous, written solely to fulfill assignment criteria. Thus, criticism of a personallysituated nature exacts demands of both the writer-critic as well as their reader-audience.

While teaching Criticizing Television, I regularly encountered student criti-cism writing about personal experiences with television as it was situated withinthe dynamics of family relationships, implicated in the development of self-image,and positioned within the physical and metaphorical landscapes of everyday life.I discovered that academic television criticism texts, the primary form of criticismin academic television studies, sometimes missed the subtle, yet remarkable, waysthat television structures relationships among people, as exemplified in the experi-ence of one student whose perpetually angry father could only interact with him


civilly when they watched certain television programs together. Or the experience

of Calvin,^ a student whose reluctant identification with the wickedly sarcastic

mannerisms of Hugh Laurie's physician character originates in the relationship he

and his mother built around their mutual enjoyment of the medical drama. House

(Daiello, 2009).

The experience of gathering up in language the hits and pieces of remem-

hered, mundane moments spent in front of Saturday morning cartoons, or watch-

ing forhidden television programming such as The Simpsons or A/7Vat a friend's

house, was a form of personally resonant writing that most students had not ex-

perienced previously in an academic setting. With the representation of their own

subjectivities and desires at stake, students took the writing seriously, even using

the essays to work through amhivalence and suspicion ahout critical discourse.

While Robert helieves that writing can be a substantive statement of personal

involvement, functioning as an extension of the self, other students experienced

criticism writing as a failure of presence and purpose. Occasionally, nihilism and

cynicism were palpable in students' writings. Alix's essay, "Critical Impenetrabil-

ity," is one of several student papers that caused me to question my motivations

and expectations for the criticism writing assignments, questions that became an

impetus for the case study:

The thesis at the end of this paragraph will prove the inevitable failure of this es-say. I only reveal this so as to eliminate the expectation that what I am trying toachieve with this will in any way expand your worldview, enlighten you to theobvious, or the invisihie. . . . I could write an equally "effective" or "productive"analysis of an empty plastic hag. . . . You see, if capitalism is the ultimate enemyof every young punk in the USA then criticism is only going to help the enemyproceed as planned. Without the rebellious opinions of the "disenfranchised"youth, there would he no youth market. (Daiello, 2009)

The Context of the Research: Seeking Pragmatic Paradox

Relational spaces of criticism writing and their muffled or silent discourses are

conceptualized in the study as sites oí pragmatic paradox where vagaries and fail-

ures of representation might serve as sources of realistic insight and practical peda-

gogical action in regard to the contradictory nature of critical consciousness. In

this perspective, the validity and writerly skill of written criticism is of less inter-

est than the ways in which criticism functions as a manifestation of unconscious

desire, failure of signification, and occasion of conflicted subjectivities. From a

psychoanalytic perspective, the paradox of criticism writing arises from the reality

that, in wording the world for ourselves and for one another through the produc-


tion of critical perspectives, we are inevitably saying and heating mote and lessthan we know. Futthet, the pedagogical spaces we've created fot tbese exchangesoften deny or distract from the absences and excesses tbat circulate witbin lan-guage, yet the unruliness of the unconscious ensures tbat disruptions, sensitivities,and tesistances will tetutn again and again. Pedagogical contexts of uncettainty,distuption, and conttadiction are spaces where a psychoanalytic petspective oncriticism may be of productive use, in patticulat, for facilitating awareness of ctiti-cism wtiting, ot expression in general, as pragmatic paradox. Working within theidea of pragmatic paradox means acknowledging tbat conflictual telationshipsamong language, subjectivity, and ctitical consciousness do exist while creatingconditions within curticulum (and teseatch) for exploring and learning tbtougbthese relational spaces.

(K)nots: Identifying Key Concepts in the Research

The knot of correspondences desctibed by Edmond Jabès (1990, p. 9) is an aptchatactetization of subjectivity and its constitution thtough desite and language.Knots of correspondences ate analogous to "(k)nots" among conscious and un-conscious aspects of subjectivity. (K)nots ate connectors among signifiets tbat, insttaining to secure fixity and clatity of meaning, teveal the points wbete cobetencemay be most tenuous. Thus, the ties that (seemingly) bind subjects into cohetentbeings ate, patadoxically, also "nots" and subversions of cohetence. Lacan's notionoí the points de capiton (Fink, 1995; Lacan, 1973) explains bow tbe knots of teso-nant affect tbat I expetienced in my encountets witb tbe students' texts becamebotb tbe structure and the undoing of coherence in my perceptions of the studydata. Points de capiton translates into English as "quilting point" or "anchoringpoint," literally meaning a button tbat pins down the stuffing in upholstety. As amode of attachment ot sutute, the points de capiton is compatable to Altbusset'sidea oí interpellation, which explains tbe way in wbicb subjects ate bailed ot calledto take up particular subject positions. The points de capiton, a key nodal pointamong signifiets, functions to fteeze tbe play of signifieds to "atticulate the truthof a particular ideological discourse," trace the ptimaty coordinates of a subject'sidentity, or "capture and thereby totalize tbe field of meaning" (Atkinson, 2003,p. 192). Points de capiton tefets to tbe way in wbicb tbe texts in this study attachto patticulat affects, leading to the genetation of key signifiets, such as "impasse"ot the labeling of certain affects as "data." A select group of concepts ftom thestudy—subjectivity and desire, the Other, thick interpretation, critical consciousness,

and resistance—are described in this essay, becoming knots that temporarily haltthe play of signification, allowing a glimpse of this study (and the researcher's sub-jectivity) to emerge.

Vicki Daiello Lacanian Theory as Research Methodology I 89

Subjectivity and Desire

Subjectivity cuts across a variety of disciplines and qualitative tesearch discourses.

In this essay, subject and subjectivity tefer to the human person who acts and is

acted upon in the world, and who generates phenomenological experiences within

particular sociohistorical contexts. Further, subjectivity encompasses the multiple

qualities and manifestations of what is perceived as the subject's self, as an indi-

vidual person and in relation to other subjects. The phenomena of interpersonal

intetactions called intersubjectivity ate knots of correspondences among many oth-

ers, and many selves, woven from threads both conscious and unconscious.

Like subjectivity, desire is not a private affair but a social accomplishment,

constituted in a dialectical relationship with the perceived desires of other subjects.

As Lacanian theory posits, desire is never one's own but is the desire of the other. For

example, the most fundamental desire, and also subjectivity's raison d'êtte, is the de-

site for recognition. Having a sense of one's self as a force that matters in the world

is a form of recognition (Bracher, 2006). Relatedly, the sense of being a "self" is

inseparable from a desire to know what others want, so as to be positioned better to

be the object of their desire. Therefore, when Lacan avers that desire is the desire of

the other, he is referring to the longing that is woven into and is caused by anothet

person's desires.' In other words, we want to know what the other person wants "in

order to best satisfy ot thwart them in their purposes, discover where we fit into

their schemes and plans, and find a niche for ourselves in their desire" (Fink, 1997, p.

54). Problematic, however, is that acknowledgment, recognition, and desire are con-

ceptualized, exptessed, perceived, and lived through language—a symbolic structure

that shapes us as subjects while also shaping our thoughts, needs, and desires. Laca-

nian psychoanalytic theory conceptualizes language as slippery, imprecise, and alien-

ating: Words cannot be fastened securely to meaning(s), because all words can have

multiple meanings—not just among members of a culture, but also across temporal

and spatial contexts. All that is not exptessible in language circulates and percolates

in the unconscious, sometimes sutfacing as feelings of emotional resonance, and

other times emerging through slips of the tongue or inconsistencies of expression.

By inttoducing the unconscious into considerations of language, psychoanalytic

theory opens up an avenue for the exploration of writing, particularly those aspects

of writing that cannot be described or theorized empirically, such as felt expetiences

of evocativeness or inexplicable resistances and desires.

The Other

Lacan's psychoanalytic discourse on the desire of the Other and, by extension,

the Otherness of language and subjectivity (Lacan, 2006) reinforces the relational


nature of critical consciousness. In Lacanian theory, the term Other is a complexconcept, and its meaning has undergone development over time. In the 1930s,Lacan's use ofthe term referred generally to "other people," however, in the 1950s,Lacan began to distinguish between "other" with a small "o" ("little other") andOther with a capital "O" ("big Other") (Evans, 1996). In Lacan's perspective, thelittle "other" is not another person, but is the internalized ego, and thus is a specu-lar image, or a reflection and projection that is inscribed in the imaginary order(Evans, 1996). Thus, the little other is what we know as the self, or self-image. Thebig "Other" is also not a person but refers, metaphorically, to language and theSymbolic order, within which subjectivity and the unconscious are constituted.The big Other, then, is dual: It is the larger socio-Symbolic context that func-tions according to language-like rules and, at the same time, it is a socio-Symbolicpsychic structure that is internalized in the form of the unconscious. My use ofthe term Other invokes Lacan's conceptualization of the socio-Symbolic networkwithin which subjects interact with one another and, with the tools of language,define and understand themselves as individual subjects (Lacan, 1968). The ques-tion What does the Other desire of me? and my struggle to understand what anethical response to this question might look like within the context of teaching theCriticizing Television course became a pivotal focus that not only influenced myconceptualization and assessment of writing assignments, but also sensitized meto the responsibilities inherent in the intersubjective, relational spaces of criticismwriting pedagogies.

Thick Interpretation

In writing the research, I sought ways of conceptualizing the dense stickiness ofperceptions that flooded and stalled my attempts to signify the data. Buildingupon Clifford Geertz's (1973) concept of thick description, the idea of thick in-terpretation is an admission of subjectivity's depth and vastness, its concentratedintensities that gather strength and depth in relationship to others. Thick inter-pretation is difficult, even uncomfortable; it is a reminder that interpretive closureis impossible. For me, this meant relinquishing certainty, loosening my grasp oninterpretive mastery, and allowing knots and wrinkles of perception to emerge inthe process of (de)forming the shape ofthe research. Pushing the study's data upagainst the unruly possibilities of a psychoanalytic unconscious punctured anyillusions I may have harbored about the identification, description, and interpreta-tion of data. Writing, as act and as object, is a dance of thick interpretations. Assuch, it never quite gathers up all ofthe meaning it is meant to express. Like theprocess of writing criticism in the Criticizing Television course, writing the trajee-

Vicki Daiello Lacanian Theory as Research Methodology 91

tory of the case study is a process of stretching toward and grasping for coherence

in the thickness of so many competing texts.

Critical Consciousness

Critical consciousness is a reflexive awareness of the social, historical, political con-

texts that constitute subjectivity and influence perceptions of, responses to, and

expectations for visual culture phenomena. Embraced by educators who pursue

social justice goals through pedagogical action, critical consciousness is usually

conceptualized as a conscious form of agency and perception. In contrast to a pas-

sive education that positions students to adapt to unjust, oppressive realities, Paolo

Freiré (1970) advocates an active, engaged education—one that stimulates the

creative faculties of both students and teachers and stirs the desire to question and

transform realities through the development of critical consciousness. However,

while the pursuit of critical consciousness is usually perceived as a liberatory en-

deavor, it may become yet another form of oppression. In a world flooded with im-

ages, where critical positions on popular culture are often difficult to separate from

designer capitalism's celebrations of cultural phenomena, the potential entwine-

ment of the critical consciousness project with the reproduction of oppressive social

practices cannot be overlooked. As Elizabeth Ellsworth (1989) asked over 20 years

ago, "What diversity do we silence in the name of critical pedagogy?" (p. 299).

Paul Duncum (2009) offers an updated perspective on Ellsworth's query with his

questions about the silence of art education discourse in regard to the transgtessive

pleasures that students sometimes experience with popular culture. As Ellsworth

and Duncum remind us, critical consciousness is not a monolithic concept. It is

fraught with more contradictions, repressions, and resistances than most curricula

are equipped to handle. There is a need for curricula that do not merely transgress

current art education practices and sensibilities (Duncum, 2009), but are capable of

translating the seductiveness of transgression into recursive reflexivity and of moti-

vating sensitive, sustained engagement with others and civic life.

Resistance

Resistance is a familiar concept in liberatory pedagogies that seek to facilitate criti-

cal reflexivity and the development of agency in relation to dominating ideologies.

Stuart Hall conceptualizes resistance as potential and beginning (rather than inevi-

table and the end), whereas Ien Ang views resistance as a moment in an ongoing

struggle (Butsch, 2000). On the other hand, resistance is conceptualized differ-

ently through psychoanalytic theory: As unconscious, repressed affects that are at


odds with a subject's perception of their identity in the Symholic order, resistanceoccurs in situations where the unconscious, core aspects of self are at odds withthe structure and expectations of the Symbolic order. The experience of resistancein an education context can be difficult to detect, in oneself and in the actions ofothers, hecause it must remain hidden to preserve the coherence of one's symbolicidentity. An example is when students act or respond in ways that they believethe Other (the authoritative representative of the Symbolic order—for example, ateacher) expects of them.

Problematizing Psychoanalytic Theory

Theories of sociocultural and individual experience often undergo revision and de-velopment over time, and psychoanalysis is no exception. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), whose theories of the psyche are known today as classical, or traditional,psychoanalysis, developed his now famous concepts over a period of many years,within an intellectual and cultural milieu that prized the rationality and objectiv-ity of scientific method. Science offered a solid framework and a system of controlthrough which the chaos of life might be theorized and explained, ostensiblyleading to deeper understanding, wisdom, and a better life. As a form of scientificknowledge that held the promise of cultivating control over interior and externallife, psychoanalysis appealed to educators who sought ways of understanding stu-dents and their behaviors. Freud's daughter Anna (1895-1982), who was trainedas a teacher hefore studying psychoanalysis, saw the revolutionary potential in anapproach to education that acknowledged the complicated emotional knots con-necting teachers and their students.

Contemporary educators (Cho, 2009; Felman, 1987,1997; Mayes, 2009;Todd, 1997, 2001) have employed psychoanalytic theories in various explorationsof paradoxes and contradictions in pedagogy, particularly those aspects of learningand teaching that aim to transform subjectivities through the learning of criticalperspectives. Shoshana Felman (1997) notes that one of the unique characteristicsof a psychoanalytic orientation to education is its concern with information and ex-periences that are unavailable through any other mode of learning. Indeed, psycho-analysis disrupts the very assumptions of what counts as ignorance or knowledge,bringing a new perspective to "the understanding of what 'to know' and 'not know'may really mean" (p. 23). In addition, hoth students and teachers "bring a host ofidiosyncrasies and unconscious associations that compel them to resist, transformand create symholic attachments which pedagogy cannot predict or control" (Todd,2001, p. 436). As a result, neither students nor their teachers can predict exactlywhat may be of personal significance in a course, or what kinds of evocations, reso-nances, or disturbances might result within the context of an assignment.


Although psychoanalysis offers unique perspectives on human bebaviotsand motivations, some see potential ptoblems in using psycboanalytic metbodsin a nonclinical context. Sociologist Claudia Lapping (2007) points out that, as aclinical practice, psychoanalysis operates under some specific assumptions aboutan analyst-analysand relationship—suppositions that ate not applicable in aneducation setting or other nonclinical contexts: "Psycboanalytic practice consti-tutes a vety particulat conttact between analyst and analysand, one that permitstbe analyst to ask probing personal questions and to offet interpretations of thevety intimate matetial that may emerge" (p. 628). Therefore, while compositionscbolat Mark Bracher (1999) connects the goals of psychoanalytic clinical ptacticeand pedagogical ptactice explicitly witb the assertion that tbe "talking cure" ofpsycboanalysis can be "a basis for constructing a 'writing cure'" (p. 125), questionsof etbics must be considered: Migbt a pedagogy tbat aims to alleviate or "cure" tbeinttapsychic conflicts undetlying students' wtiting problems actually function tocolonize and master students' subjectivities?

Like educators, researcbers must face complexities of method wben using apsycboanalytic approach in nonclinical settings. First, identifying and articulatingthe unconscious components of subjectivity present a cballenge for tbe goals ofvalidity, reliability, and teplicability in researcb. Relatedly, ethical issues can arisefrom the collection and analysis of data, particularly those data otiginating inrelationships among the reseatcber and participants. For example, while one's re-search may be motivated by social justice goals, care must be taken not to analyzereseatcb subjects themselves, nor make therapeutic results a goal of tbe study. Lackof training as a psychoanalyst makes the goal of thetapeutic action impractical atbest and inapptopriate at worst. Mary Thomas (2007) notes that "complicatedpsychic processes and bistories cannot be discetned from brief researcb encountetssttuctured, fot example, by interviews, or perbaps even at all given tbe ttencbantresistances of tbe unconscious" (p. 544). Therefore, instead of bringing analysis tobeat upon a study patticipant, tbe teseatchet's focus should be "ditected towardsher own responses" to tbe study itself and its patticipants, focusing especially on"sttong emotions like botedom, anget, love, or irritation" (Hurst, 2009, para. 5).In so doing, a researcher cultivates conditions for thinking mote deeply and pur-posefully about absences, gaps, silences, conttadictions, and leaps of logic withinthe teseatch telationsbips (Meek, 2003).

Theoretical Foundation of the Methodology: The Impasse

Contrary to the images ot ideas that the wotd impasse may evoke—a stalled pto-cess, an immovable object, ot a silent, stony disagteement—an impasse is notsynonymous with inaction. It is instead a knot of multiple tensions, a site of shim-


mering, restless energy pushing against a limitation. A methodological impasse,then, is an excess—an ettatic growth from roots both conscious and unconsciousthat blocks movement of signification. From anothet petspective, an impasse is"a holding station that doesn't hold but opens out into anxiety, that dog-paddlingaround a space whose contours remain obscure" (Berlant, 2007, p. 434) until,at some later point, its shape becomes visible through rettospection and deferredaction.'" Like Fteud's uncanny, Lacan's tuche, and Roland innhesspunctum, theimpasse is felt as a disturbance in the Symbolic order, a distutbance that disorientsa subject, distupting their perceived mastery of signification. The disruptions arenot perceived as literal representations of objects, ideas, ot events, but are insteadfelt as affects that demarcate ruptures in the coherence of subjectivity. Like evoca-tion, the impasse is a slippery concept, and an even slipperier research method—its existence is predicated on absence, or blankness, yet it also has a palpable pres-ence. Pulling at one's deepest uncertainties about being and nonbeing, logic andittationality, the impasse is comparable to the Lacanian concept of the Real—fotboth can be understood only retroactively and in relation to signification withintbe context of tbe symbolic.

Thick with possibilities, as well as confusions, the methodological impasseexperienced in this research emerged through entangled desires and resistancesaround the role of logic and coherence in the generation and analysis of the casestudy data. Logically, I knew that vatious methods of qualitative discourse analysiscould suffice as tools of intetptetation and explication of the study's data. How-ever, each time I examined the texts with a meaning-seeking intent predicated onthe goal of coherent reasoning and explanation, I felt I was somehow betrayingthe participants, as well as my own desires to protect the messiness of the rela-tional space created through my readings of the texts. I became frustrated with myability to eliminate the friction of my discordant perceptions, unhappy with therealization that most research does indeed smooth out friction in order to suturecoherent nattatives. I also found it difficult, even impossible, to discern betweenthe "data" of the study and the projections and desires of my own subjectivity. AsI studied the writings created by students in the coutse and the e-mail interviewtexts, and reflected on these writings in my research journal, I wondered whethetthe themes I detected were located within the text or within my self.

Locating (K)nots in the Impasse Methodology:

Lacanian Poetics and the Listening Guide

EUie Ragland-SuUivan's essay. The Magnetism Between Reader and Text: Prolegom-ena to a Lacanian Poetics (1984), emphasizes the relational, affective nature ofreaders' experience of a text by attending to magnetic attractions effected through

Vicki Daielio Lacanian Theory as Research Methodology | 95

eruption of unconscious, repressed material. Ragland-SuUivan's idea of magnetismarticulates metaphorically those feelings of inexpressible resonance, evocativeness,or disturbance that I experienced in my encounters with students' writings. Fur-ther, Ragland-Sullivan's/)o/«tó of join are analogous to the concept of (k) nots in thecase study. Specifically, the strange disturbances, magnetic attractions, and evoca-tive resonances experienced in my interactions with the texts in the study are pre-cisely where my subjectivity is and is (k)not most palpably present. The magneticpull of these resonant knots is an "allegory of the psyche's fundamental structure"(Ragland-SuUivan, 1984, p. 381). A Lacanian poetics, then, does not psychoanalyzetexts or people, but instead acknowledges paralinguistic points of join between vis-ible language and invisible affect.

Wording an Impasse: Ragland-Sullivan's Lacanian Poetics

and Gilligan's Listening Guide Method

Along with the Lacanian Poetics approach, Carol Gilligan's Listening Guide (1982)method guided the generation and analysis ofthe data. Attuned to the multiplici-ties and silences inherent in voices, and sensitive to the relational context of adialogue, the Listening Guide differs from grounded theory and other methods ofcontent coding and analysis in that it attends to the intersubjective constitutionof multiple voices. Thus, the contexts and relationships within which an interviewoccurs are interpreted as part of the interview content. Most Listening Guideanalyses employ at least four encounters with the text, building a rich, texturedpicture ofthe figure-ground dynamics of silent and spoken discourse in a particu-lar relational space.

Multiple readings of selected critical essays and interview texts were notedin writings and line drawings that traced my affective responses to the texts. WhatI had first perceived as my reluctance to locating meanings within the contentofthe text was actually the presence of a conflict between what I read—the lit-eral words on the pages—and the affects stirred up by my readings. Unable toreconcile these divergent responses to the data, I felt frustrated and paralyzed.Eventually, however, what I assumed to be the data twisted and changed posi-tion and shape in Möbius strip fashion. This movement shifted what I assumed tobe the data of the study—the essay texts, survey and interview content, and myreflexive writings about the study—to a slightly different position and meaning.For example, the more I attended to my own resistance to assigning meaningsto students' words and motivations, the more I began to see difltrent patterns. Iresisted urges to suture the texts to my own narratives, eventually learning thatmy readings and attempted interpretation were merely scribblings, densely layeredmarks around the edges of a text I couldn't perceive clearly in the first place. These


"scribbles" are the tracings of my ego, the evidence of my subjectivity against (and

because of) these texts. Becoming progressively thicker and denser in places, the

marks made in tracking and recording coherence among the writings of the study

eventually revealed empty spaces, blind spots. In othet words, instead of discov-

ering narratives and meanings in the texts, in the way one might proceed in a

grounded theory approach, I instead found that the texts were actually "reading"

and displaying my own subjectivity. Recalling repeated attempts over the years to

help students find clarity and coherence of expression, I began to wonder whether

my focus on clarity and coherence was itself a constellation of (k)nots that belied

an unconscious pedagogical desire.

As I worked through the case-study texts iteratively, writing and drawing

in response to essays, interview texts, and my own research journal entries, there

were themes, or points of join, that emerged. Recording the affects I experienced

around my interview correspondence with study participant Robert helped me to

visualize a theme oí silence/cacophony. Robert's responses to my e-mail interview

questions always arrived in the early morning, usually a few hours after I'd sent

the questions to him. His replies, a thick torrent of words, usually several pages

long, were comprised of childhood memories of school, detailed reflections on

his writing in the course, recollections of other writing experiences in his life,

and musings on criticism writing as a mode of visual culture critique. Robert's

responses were always sharply articulate and sensitive, but my perception of his

text was that it was a cacophony, an unbearably overwhelming rush of language

straining to contain an excessive noise. My ritual was to read the text once, hur-

riedly, and then close the message. Stunned into silence, I would spend the next

week or more trying to find space in my mind for the excessive affect-noise that

I'd swallowed in the reading. Whenever I finally did respond to Robert, I felt com-

pelled to share not only my responses to and questions about what he wrote, but

also my deep ambivalence and uncertainty about how to respond. I couldn't bear

the thought of removing the friction of these interactions. Robert revealed how he

handled the cacophony of signification: "Rare are the instances where I actually

speak my mind . . . I think that is what people get out of constructing writing—

embodiment of their excess . . . criticism has always been a tourniquet for me . . .

a momentary relief of whatever mental pain" (Daiello, 2009). I winced at Robert's

disclosure, yet I felt an immediate connection to his sensitive observation. I real-

ized that I am deeply familiar with the pressures and pleasures of writing-as-tour-

niquet.

A Lacanian analysis seeks not to identify literal meanings in a text, but trac-

es what is perceived to be "irreducible, nonsensical—composed of non-meanings—

signifying elements" because, "for each subject there is a signifier that is 'irreduc-

ible, traumatic, non-meaning' to which they are 'as a subject, subjected" (Parker,


2005, p. 168). Therefore, in an analysis of my interactions with Robert, it was

not the literal content of the interviews and critical essays themselves that were

"data," rather, it was the affective residue that clung to the (k)notted signifiers that

emerged in the relational spaces and interactions with the texts and participants in

the research. Violence/Nonmeaningvfzs a recurrent signifier pair in the study. For

example, at the time it was submitted for an assignment, Riley's written rationale

for a criticism sculpture project troubled me. I felt challenged hy the words in the

essay, hut even more uneasy ahout the suhject positions implied hy the voice of

the television that addresses the reader:

We hoth know that I am more to you than just some passing fancy. Because Iknow you. I know what you want. I know your intimate desires. And I knowthat you get bored with me, hut that's OK. I'm glad that you get bored with me.Use me; it just keeps me on my toes. You know that I'm just thinking up mynext surprise for you. And you know it's going to he good; you just pretend thatyou don't find me attractive anymore. That's just part of our game. Keep talkingtrash to me; call me a whore, I LIKE it. (Daiello, 2009)

The strangely amorphous violence of voice that I intuited in Riley's text

is something I intuited in other student criticism texts over the years. What has

emerged in my analysis of affect patterns around these texts is the possibility of

my collusion (in my assignment criteria and in my communicated and unspo-

ken responses to the essays) with desires to subvert and resist clarity and civility

of expression.

As my work with the research progressed, I began to think of critical con-

sciousness not as a pedagogical goal, assignment outcome, or a coherent narrative,

hut instead as an entanglement of conscious and unconscious aspects of subjectiv-

ity within the indeterminate messiness of intersuhjective relationships. Thinking

hack to my teaching experiences in Criticizing Television, I wondered whether

the resistance and impasse I was currently experiencing in relation to the data of

the study was similar to the resistance and impasses that I suspected students ex-

perienced and acted out in their criticism writing assignments. Based on my work

with Lacanian theory, I suspected that one of the most critical, and crucial, aspects

of critical consciousness was the role of the unconscious, which, in being the locus

of the irrational, sometimes contradictory desires of the suhject, meant that criti-

cal consciousness might he felt as an impasse. An impasse of critical consciousness,

and the accompanying discomfort, confusion, annoyance, or frustration, could

he expressed hy students in a variety of ways, such as resistance, dissociation, and

apathy. As Paul Duncum (2008), Rehekka Herrmann (2005), and jan jagodzinski

(2004) have pointed out, critical consciousness may have little to do with a stu-

dent's growth and awareness, becoming instead a strategy of playing along with a


teacbet's ctitical pedagogy agenda to achieve a pardcular grade." Howevet, whatis not addtessed by Duncum, Hettmann, and othet educatots ate tbe collusivesttategies of tbe unconscious (botb insttuctots' and students')—^wbicb ate fotevetpushing at, and breaking down, cohetent nattatives of ctitical consciousness,whethet we ate paying attention ot not. Wbat might it mean for pedagogy if wedo pay attention to such bteakages and impasses?

Ctitical consciousness, wben teatticulated witb an acknowledgment of theunconscious otigins of subjectivity, is a sticky and messy failute of the illusions ofa cobetent, rational self tatber tban an enlightened understanding of self, othet, otvisual cultute. Viewed in this light, the uncomfortable impasses I experienced inteaching ctiticism wtiting and latet encounteted in my wotk with the case studyseemed somehow less of an obstacle and mote of a putposeful, tealistic, and neces-saty messiness—a pragmatic patadox.

Conclusion

Tbe metbodological impasse in this case study exists because of tbe ptoblem ofidentifying and atticulating tbat wbich must be suppressed and unnamed tomaintain one's unified, coherent sense of self. This is a methodology that unravelsmethod and vice versa, for those aspects of data that appear as evidence or intel-ligibility are merely repetitive movements and scribblings around tbe edges ofwbat cannot be named, in the service of holding subjectivity togethet. Impasses,relational spaces, tensioning points, and evocations are symbolic placeholders thatgesture towatd the crucial wotk of the unconscious in out telationships with oneanothet and in out pedagogy and teseatch endeavots. As I have expetienced it,an impasse is not a concession to defeat, nihilism, or meaninglessness. Nor is it atoutniquet tbat stops the flow and slippage of signification. Rather, it is a remind-er of whete insights might be perceived, out beyond tbe centtality and smootbnessof literalness and rationality. As Harriet Meek (2003) teminds,

[M]any of the difficulties and blockages we encounter wbile doing researcb takeplace because we are not listening to information available to us. We tend notto recognize tbis information as messages from ourselves wbich have arrived ina disguised way and need to be decipheted. . . . We wotty about giving up con-scious control, even for a little while, but it seems likely tbat tbis may be exactlywhat is needed, (para. 17)

Working from Meeks's viewpoint, an impasse is a call to rethink, and perhaps en-large, tbe meaning and means of pursuing ctitical consciousness.

The use of a psychoanalytic theotetical petspective in research subverts tepli-cability and generalizability of a data analysis. Yet, it is this certainty of uncettainty


and conflict—the impasse—that is the most realistic and pragmatic perspective

on the paradox of wording the wotld for one another. Uncertainty and its con-

comitant slippage of signifiers and signifieds keep the questions moving and keep

possibility in play while engaging desire to keep the movement going. The impos-

sibility of writing, of wording the wotld fot one another, are the (k)nots that keep

critical consciousness in perpetual impasse, necessitating that educators constantly

negotiate the challenges of a changing tetrain of irresolvable difference. If criti-

cal consciousness is a tensioning space "between ignorance and knowledge, between

not knowing what to do but still having to act, and between not seeing and seeing too

much" {^úamzn, 2003, p. 75), then we must learn to live in the middle of things.

We must learn to live in the

tension of conflict and confusion and possibility . . . we must become adept at

making do with the messiness ofthat condition and at finding agency within

rathet than assuming it in advance. . . . We can never get off the hook by ap-

pealing to a transcendental Ethics. We are always on the hook, responsible,

everywhere, all the time. (St. Pierre, 1997, pp. 176—177)

Notes

1. From Researcher's Journal (Daiello, 2009):

I sense such (im)possibilities in writing—a leap beyond the sense of signification ...the beyond of identity where distinctions of self and other break down and whatis familiar twists and slips into the unfamiliar I seek these leaps and breaking pointsin myself and in others—in my teaching, in my classroom, in the assignments. I wantfor students and for myself the experience of encountering the rough edges, solidground, ephemeral motion, and dizzying contradiction of intersecting discourses. Iwant something in and through writing that is more than writing.

2. The concept "difficult knowledge" (Pitt & Britzman, 2003) refers to affects and experi-ences in the education process that resist expression, or ruptures in education narra-tives that reveal traces of inconsistency fragmentation, and incoherence. In other words,difficult knowledge is a bit of the subject's register of Real that exists in dynamic, some-times disruptive, relationship to the Symbolic ordering of subjectivity.

3. The Symbolic register is Lacan's term for the way in which a subject's needs and desiresare expressed through symbols/language.

4. Although psychoanalytic theories emerge from the therapeutic practices originating inthe work of Sigmund Freud, nonclinical uses of psychoanalysis are found in literary stud-ies, the arts, and the social sciences. Psychoanalytic theories are also employed in cur-riculum and pedagogy studies (Brachen 2006; Britzman, 1998,2003: Cho, 2009: Mayes,2009: Midgley 2008:Todd, 1997,2001 ) and research of writing (Alcorn, 2002: Brooke,1987). Jan Jagodzinski's study of teaching as sinthome (2004) and discussion of the ethicalimplications of complex, intersubjective relationships in education (2006), and SydneyWalker's (2009) research of subjectivity and artmaking are strongly supportive to re-search of uncertainties and impasses around writing and critical consciousness.

5. Well before the advent of contemporary qualitative research conceptualizations oftriangulation, Freud was suspicious of building any theory on the findings of his investiga-tions in only one field. Instead, he compared and triangulated findings from one area of

100 I Visual Arts Research Winter 201 o

study, such as research on jokes and dreams, with research from other areas, such asneuroses.Thus, theory models could be built gradually provisionally, and with a cautiouseye toward the validity ofthe findings (Midgley 2008).

6. The study population consists of undergraduate students from my Criticizing Televisioncourse (2005-2009), Second Level Writing and Social Diversity General Education Cur-riculum (CEC) credit offered in the Department of Art Education at a large Midwesternuniversity

7. Post-structuralist geographers derive the concept of relational space from the sociospa-tial relationships among people, practices, and knowledge.

Powen knowledge, and space mutually compose one another... they co-evolve incomplex ways, coiling around one another until some kind of stability emergesKnowledge is materialized in practice, practice is materialized in the body and thebody is immersed in modes of spatial organization that in turn 'perform' systems ofknowledge. (Murdoch, 2005, p. 56)

The concept of relational space provides a way of thinking through and talking aboutthe sensitivities and nuances ofthe dynamic, contingent, and emergent qualities ofconscious and unconscious relationships with television phenomena and criticismwriting.

8. All students are identified by pseudonyms throughout this essay and in the case study

9. "(lnter)acting justly," then, necessitates that we develop a "fuller realization of our mutu-ally constituted selves" and, in the process, learn to speak and listen with an attentive-ness to the responsibilities inherent in our interactions with others; "[w]e, therefore,have a responsibility to respond to others by virtue ofthe reality that they like us, de-mand the recognition of their needs, desires, and perspectives" (North, 2006, p. 526).

10. Deferred action, a psychoanalytic concept that refers to the way in which "emotional sig-nificance and new ideas are made from past and present experiences" (Pitt & Britzman,2003, p. 758), explains why the assignment of significance to an experience is delayed.First, the force or emotional resonance of an experience must be felt before it can beunderstood or expressed in language, and, second, these understandings are always sub-ject to affects, forces, or revisions from earlier experiences.

I I. Participants in the case study have admitted to this coping mechanism. In an e-mailinterview, Robert describes college essays as the "written language ofthe school," usedto complete a task for a grade; "[the standard form of a critical essay] covers up the factthat nothing happened, no learning occurred, no enjoyment was felt" (Daiello, 2009).

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TITLE: (K)not an Impasse: Working Through Lacanian Theoryas Research Methodology

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