The 'I' of the Text: A Psychoanalytic Theory Perspective on Students' Television Criticism Writing, Subjectivity, and Critical Consciousness in Visual Culture Art Education

This qualitative, interpretive case study uses a psychoanalytically informed theory base to examine students' perceptions of television criticism essays and writing processes created in the undergraduate course Criticizing Television, which was developed and taught by the researcher from 2005---2009. The impetus for this research emerges from gaps in the art education literature on the issue of visual culture criticism writing pedagogies. In this case study, the focal concepts critical consciousness and subjectivity guide consideration of multiple data sources, including students' criticism essays, E-mail correspondence, online survey, researcher's teaching journal, and literature from art education, composition studies, and psychoanalytic studies in education. Resulting from this research of students' criticism writing is the development of an impasse methodology, a psychoanalytically informed perspective on reflexive readings of, and responses to, students' criticism writing. The case study conceptualizes the research results as consequences, within which are embedded suggestions for future research and practice. By problematizing visual culture criticism writing within existing, traditional art criticism paradigms, the research addresses a significant gap in art education theory and practice in regard to student writing and subjectivity in contemporary visual culture art education.