Queer pedagogy and the limits of thought: teaching sexualities at university

Abstract

What are the limits of queer pedagogy's thought [Britzman, D. (1995). Is there a queer pedagogy or stop reading straight. Educational Theory, 45(2), 151–165]? This question is considered in relation to how queer pedagogy unfolds in a first-year university course entitled Learning Sexualities. Examples of how queer pedagogy might operate in university courses on sexuality within the discipline of education are non-existent. This discussion subsequently illuminates one example, not as a template to follow, but as a means of glimpsing something which is characteristically elusive and unrecognisable. Here, the paper joins a conversation about queer research, initiated by Talburt and Rasmussen [(2010). ‘After queer’ tendencies in queer research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(1), 1–14] about ‘after-queer’ tendencies, extending it to teaching in higher education. This is an examination concerned with interrogating queer theory's limits. It attempts a queering of queer pedagogy itself. Not only in terms of what is possible for it to achieve in heteronormative [Warner, M. (1993). Fear of a queer planet: Queer politics and social theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press] institutions like universities, but also, in relation to deciphering the edges of how queer pedagogy comes to know itself. The author's experiences of teaching the Learning Sexualities course are employed as a way of illuminating some of these boundaries. One of these is identified as student ‘discomfort', a feeling that is antithetical to an institutional setting which demands and rewards student ‘satisfaction’ and ‘happiness’ in courses. This work is undertaken in the spirit of Kumashiro's [(2002). Troubling education: Queer activism and antioppressive pedagogy. New York: RoutledgeFalmer] project of ‘rethinking practices’ and ‘looking for new insights’ in our teaching in higher education.