The jouissance of learning: evolutionary musings on the pleasures of learning in higher education

Abstract

This paper presents a philosophy and method for an ongoing investigation into the cause and effect of student emotions in higher education. In particular, it presents the possibilities for exploring students’ positive emotions as ‘jouissance’ experiences linked to the transgression of power relations and social structures. The paper takes the form of ‘evolutionary musings’ that guide the reader through a confessional account of the research programme, the epistemological and methodological challenges, the limits of data already produced, and suggestions for a future approach. The musings maintain that descriptions of causal relationships of pedagogic action and the phenomenology of students’ feelings of gratification are not enough to plausibly interpret the locatedness and meaning of emotions, and that the emotional nexus is shaped by and continues to inform social relationships.

Keywords:

• higher education
• learning
• positive emotions
• jouissance
• musings

Notes

1. McWilliam (1996) draws attention to the erotic in teaching and learning focusing on the emotions that are inhibited between lecturers and students.

2. McWilliam (1996) draws upon literary criticism to conceptualise the ‘erotics of pedagogy’, we are concerned to consider the students and their emotional experiences.

3. Sociology, to a large degree, also relies on artefacts of language and presents them as evidence of social phenomena.

4. For social psychologists, intrinsic motivation refers to the personal gratification and pleasures that an activity can provide. What is removed from the term is the cultural determinants that define an activity and consequently define the limits of personal gratification.

5. The codes we give to individual quotations of students are comprised of four elements. The first digit indicates the year of study (i.e. 1 or 2) and the letter the student's gender (i.e. M or F). The next three digits simply indicate the respondent number and the final letter the generic course area in which the student studies (sport, S; tourism and hospitality, T; music, M; countryside recreation, C; and business, B).