Jane Austen on love and pedagogical power.
This essay notes initially recent prominence of theories of pedagogy that attempt to "de-mystify" it and reveal troubling power relations, and their subsequent contention that love is impossible in the student-teacher relationship. "Pedagogical" interpretations of Jane Austen's fiction, however, see pedagogy as essential to love. I argue that this is so precisely because of the power dynamics involved; drawing on Jessica Benjamin's psychoanalytic interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel's analysis of the "Lord-Bondsman," I suggest that Austen portrays the loving relationship as inherently involving the occupation and subsequent exchange of roles as superior and inferior, incarnated as "teacher" and "student."
Patrick
P
Fessenbecker
D005178:Faculty / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D007398:Interpersonal Relations / Q000266:history; D008091:Literature / Q000266:history; D008149:Love; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D013334:Students / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology; D013663:Teaching / Q000266:history; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000208:ethnology