ABSTRACT
This essay engages the question of conservatism in academia as one of affective investments that implicate individuals at the bodily level of sensations and desires. It attempts to shift attention from an ideological critique of education based on identity relations to considerations of the multiplicity of relations possible between teachers and students, and the potential that fluidity creates for manifesting powerful affective connections and disconnections to their respective communities of belonging. The essay considers a (conservative) student’s response essay to tease out the tension that arises in the classroom encounter: a student’s refusal to participate in the academic discourse of the classroom opens up another movement, as yet unauthorized, that invites non-confrontational, open-ended responses from both teacher and student that in the end (productively) invite unexpected, difficult, and creative work. By refusing to meet students in a confrontational stance, teachers can subvert the power of identity construction and strike new modes of connectivity and learning.
