Abstract :
This paper explores two questions in relation to the authors’ project, “Difficult Knowledge
in Teaching and Learning: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry.” They describe how their original
question, “What makes knowledge difficult?,” transformed into “What is it to represent
‘difficult’ knowledge?” They speculate on the resonances that this crisis of representation
leaves in narration by way of three psychoanalytic concepts: deferred action, transference,
and symbolization. They consider constructions of difficulties in teaching and learning from
the vantage of psychoanalytic writing and their own attempts to interview university teachers
and students on how they think about difficult knowledge. They offer a conceptual
archeology of their project that highlights the shift from the first to the second research
question, some clinical discussion on the difficulties of narrating teaching and learning,
some constructions of difficulty proposed in their research protocol, and constructions of
difficulty in their interviews. They conclude by discussing how the very design of their
research enacted the crisis of representing teaching and learning.
