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Abstract
Beautiful vs. ugly; smart vs. stupid — these are the coordinates for both contemporary pedagogical discourse and its attempted analysis/psychoanalysis in this article. Jacques Lacan's unknowing relation to his own psychoanalysis frames particular ideological conflicts in academic and teacherly subjectivity. The embodiment of these conflicts is The Body Shop's plus-sized poster woman, Ruby, who figures the popular/academic/pedagogical doctrine of self-esteem as the counter-Barbie for socially progressive corporations and social critics alike. The ethics of education has made the teaching of self-esteem to students central to the curricular mission in a cultural context of perilous relationships to beauty, fat and intelligence, but the results have been fraught with multiple unacknowledged failures.