ABSTRACT
Maurice Blanchot's notion of conversation (‘entretien’) is, in this chapter, presented as a form of intentional but non-oppressive and non-authoritarian educational relation. Putting into question conceptions and practices of dialogue and dialectic in education, a practice of conservation as education and as educational research is developed. Conversation is a means to thinking serious and purposive educational endeavours outside the strictures of the humanist legacy and the dominant educational economy. Unreliant on linear progress or the growth of a stable subject, Blanchot's conversation opens up a path to thinking an education devoid of what he calls ‘imperious monologues.’
