The jouissance of learning: evolutionary musings on the pleasures of learning in higher education

This paper presents a philosophy and method for an ongoing investigation into the cause and effect of student emotions in higher education. In particular, it presents the possibilities for exploring students’ positive emotions as ‘jouissance’ experiences linked to the transgression of power relations and social structures. The paper takes the form of ‘evolutionary musings’ that guide the reader through a confessional account of the research programme, the epistemological and methodological challenges, the limits of data already produced, and suggestions for a future approach. The musings maintain that descriptions of causal relationships of pedagogic action and the phenomenology of students’ feelings of gratification are not enough to plausibly interpret the locatedness and meaning of emotions, and that the emotional nexus is shaped by and continues to inform social relationships.