In essence, this book is an exploration of the links between knowledge and power. The refusal to separate knowledge from power may well be apotheosized in the French poststructural philosopher, Michael Foucault. But Foucault's focus on the power/knowledge nexus has precedents, parallels and interruptions in work that ranges across that of sociologists of knowledge to the more overtly politicized work of feminists, neoMarxists and the increasing number of those committed to what Spanos calls "a forwarding, a postmodern critical practice" (1987:12). I bring these three critical discourses together to focus on my primary concern: the possibilities and limits of liberatory theory and practice regarding approaches to research and pedagogy. Within this project, I frame the varied critical discourses as differing practices and impulses that both weave together and interrupt one another rather than as fixed, contrasting positions.