"It makes you realize, really, just how deep your subtext is": Literature,subjectivity, and curriculum change

This paper draws on the notion of discourse to explore complex relationship s between teachers and curriculum change. It uses poststructuralist views o f discourse to explore ways in which school subjects, such as Literature, a re discursively constructed across time, while teachers too are positioned within discourses that shape the ways they understand the subject and thems elves as teachers of it. This paper reports on the experience of a small gr oup of teachers Of a neu, literature course in the Australian state of Vict oria. Nine teachers were interviewed over 3 years, and the interview transc ripts read for traces of discourses formative in shaping their response to the new course. I identified three discourses: Leavisite and Neu, Critical formations of the subject Literature; charismatic pedagogy; and critical th eory, which was embodied in the neu, subject's study design. These 3 discou rses, together with the traditions and culture of the school, form the fram ework for analysis of the interviews. The paper explores ways in which the teachers' positioning within this mix of discourses and settings variously supported or undermined their preparedness to accept neu, configurations of the subject Literature as well as the implications of curriculum change no t just for constructions of the subject but also for teacher subjectivity.