Is it Safe?: Exposing the Ethical Dimensions in Combating Student Resistances

In Teaching the Rhetoric of Resistance , Robert Samuels exposes how instructors of writing can use both popular culture and students’ resistances to combat intolerance. Samuels fuses psychoanalytic and rhetorical theory to argue that students’ defenses are culturally informed rhetorical strategies. He maintains a commitment to the material realities of the classroom and the real world spaces that affect it, as many critical pedagogues like Friere and Giroux have discussed. Yet Samuels distinguishes his project by mobilizing our thinking about social justice pedagogy as he creates four psychoanalytic modes categorizing students’ defenses to learning. He uses these modes to identify students’ negative cultural attitudes and beliefs, and reveals that creating a safe environment through which students can work through resistances—resistances that are solidified through popular culture—can bring critical pedagogues closer to their intended outcomes.