This paper argues that Badiou's and Lacan's theorizations of ethics offer a way to formulate an ethics of teaching and to explore what such an ethics might look like when teachers encounter events that disrupt their quotidian lives. Relying on the work of Badiou and Lacan, the paper critiques mainstream approaches to the ethics of teaching and sketches an alternative pedagogical ethics.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Badiou's Ethics Three Concerns about Badiou's Ethics Mainstream Approaches to the Ethics of Teaching The Ethics of Teaching Note References.

In this response essay, Peter Taubman considers the relationship between melancholia and Freud's notion of a death drive. Taubman explores how audit culture sustains melancholia and intensifies the death drive, ultimately deadening our psyches by erasing memory, disparaging feelings, shutting down thought, and ignoring history. Taubman concludes with a suggestion that educators once again integrate discussions of Eros, or love, in their approaches to curriculum and teaching.