ABSTRACT
Many have attempted to tell the story of debate education in America in a variety of ways. These accounts do more than provide the story, they create the reasons and the nature of debate. In this paper, I consider debate as a discourse that is productive of particular results in both students and understanding of debate by the way we frame and discuss debate education. To do this I rely on Jacques Lacan’s theory of the four discourses in his twenty-third seminar. Through this analysis I find three traditions of teaching debate in America and a suggestion of what a fourth, revolutionary debate pedagogy might look like, one that would meet the results of what most debate teachers and coaches claim they want.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.