“Passionate Ignorance”: Literary and Pedagogical Implications of Lacan’s Style

OpenAlex İngilizce

Departing from Jacques Lacan’s influence on literary and pedagogical studies, this article explores how his conceptualization of “style” informs literature and pedagogy in addition to psychoanalysis. The article suggests that Lacan’s theorization of the human subject as the “letter” of psychoanalysis shows the interminability of reading and teaching due to his description of the “letter” as the literality of the human subject. This literality points to the construction of the humans as social subjects in the symbolic register and thus marks language an indispensable element of style. Dwelling in the function of language in style, the article traces the paths Lacan takes in order to disrupt the idea of the psychoanalytic connection based on the analyst’s mastery. It concentrates on transference and what Lacan calls “passionate ignorance” in a transferential relation for the purpose of explaining how this disruption is realized. Moreover, Lacan’s own style of learning from Freud as well as his own style of teaching is discussed to further emphasize that education, like psychoanalysis and literature, should alternatively open a space for “passionate ignorance” to create the possibility of dialogic interaction.