Writing, subject and knowing: the case of university teaching

Abstract

Writing, as an intimate and singular gesture, evidences a peculiar relationship between subject and knowing. In the teaching situations, it works as the remains of the unrepeatable event. In the dynamics of knowing-knowledge, what is wrote is situated on the side of re-signification, which is always provisional, and writing would be in the path from de-signification towards re-signification. In this movement, the function of writing is unique: there is something that can only be learnt by writing and not reading. At university, through the academic texts, it is built – or, better said, acquired – the position of the researcher, though the academic text drives to the functioning of science. Writing convokes certain knowing and leaves a testimony of that knowing; but knowing is always unknown, or lack of knowledge.Writing is an act of implication that always confronts with castration.

Keywords

• Writing
• Subject
• University teaching.