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134 jac depending as it does on a failure to recognize both the complex of power relations operating in any given historical site and the overdetermination of their effects (301). As Jennifer Gore argues, if power is viewed relationally-as something one "exercises" rather than as an entity one possesses and can give to or share with others-then ''we confront the unforeseeable and contradictory effects of the exercise of power and must be more humble and reflexive in our claims," recognizing that "no matter what our aims or how we go about 'empowering', our efforts will be partial and inconsistent" (62, 63). From this perspective, the indeterminate effects of Ellsworth's "pedagogy of the unknowable" is an attribute to be granted any pedagogy, given the operation of such complexes in any site. We cannot expect the exercise of power to be simply either empowering or repressive. This crucial recognition of power as relational and of the consequent indeterminacy ofits effects can thus help in resisting the commodification of pedagogy. But to further such resistance, the application of this recognition cannot be restricted to relations within the course but must also be applied to relations between the changing positionalities of students before, during, and after a course; relations between one's students and others outside the course; and relations between the course and the specific institutional and more general material conditions in which it is located. Ellsworth effectively differentiates among students in her course (by race, sex, sexual orientation, class, and so forth) but fails to make differentiations diachronically and synchronically between student positions before, during, and after the course, and between her students and others. Ellsworth does note that both she and her students experienced contradictory and shifting positionalities, a possibility she admits critical pedagogy recognizes. She complains, however, about the "pain, confusion, and difficulty" this posed for her and her students (311- 12). A non-commodified notion of pedagogy would understand that students' difficulty in speaking, however painful, is inescapable, something to be directly confronted, rather than as ajustification for dismissing the pedagogy. Unlike the view of pedagogy as commodity, in which teaching and learning must be pain-free and must feel "good" to all, treating pedagogy as the site for doing work on a project would give students and teacher the perspective, context, and direction to understand and work through such difficulties (see Giroux 176; hooks 52-53, 102-103; and Bizzell, "Power" 64-65). A relational view of power would aid in thinking through the difficulties of confronting the different positionalities that such students
Bruce Horner 135 experience, and when and how to exercise what sort of power to help move the students as a whole toward the project of the course. For example, Ellsworth and her students might have negotiated where and how they, in all their partialities, would direct all their materiallylimited energies to investigate and counter racist structures and practices at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (the initial topic of and impetus for the course, after all). They might have used what expertise, authority, and resources they possessed to work toward such ends rather than attempting the inevitably doomed project of achieving a critical utopia in classroom relations. Indeed, it appears that the students themselves came to abandon Ellsworth's commitment to achieving an ideal classroom environment when they transformed the course into what they termed "Coalition 607" (317). That is, rather than imagining the work of the course outside material exigencies, they relocated it within a particular time and place, reoriented their efforts toward achieving more reachable goals, and treated their contradictions and partialities in relation to those exigencies rather than letting them serve as obstacles to their work. That they were successful in doing so demonstrates the need to couple attention to differences within and among students in a course over time with attention to differences between the students within a course and students and others outside the course. Ellsworth is attentive to the differences among her students, but she says little about the relation of those students to other students, to their institutional position vis-a-vis those other students, the university, herself, and the course-all of which might provide a useful perspective and context from which to understand the difficulties and successes that she and they experienced. Gore, noting that many accounts offeminist and critical pedagogies "pay little attention to the location oftheir practices in educational institutions," argues that we need to define the contexts for such pedagogical work "historically and politically" while acknowledging "the unique struggles that characterize the exercise of power at the micro levels" (61). Otherwise, the problem of "empowerment" remains trapped in the dualisms of power/ powerlessness and domination/subordination, understood as "purely oppositional stances" rather than as a problem of "multiplicity and contradiction." In the case of Ellsworth 's course, differentiating between her students and others by attending to the fact that the course was a "special topics" graduate education course rather than, say, a required first-year writing course would surely be significant to any understanding of the work of that course. By contrast, her failure to investigate the implications of the specific institutional, curricular location of the course
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Page 5 and 6: Bruce Horner 125 "critical" pedagog
Page 7 and 8: Bruce Horner 127 spectrum of discur
Page 9 and 10: Bruce Horner 129 The Politics of Pe
Page 11 and 12: Bruce Horner 131 "emancipatory auth
Page 13: Bruce Horner 133 to classify discre
Page 17 and 18: Bruce Homer 137 Ellsworth's questio
Page 19 and 20: Bruce Horner 139 Luke 327). However
Page 21 and 22: Bruce Horner 141 admissions standar
Page 23 and 24: Bruce Horner 143 While the pedagogy
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