Dr Nicholas Stock

Dr Nicholas Stock

School of Education
British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Contact details

Email
n.j.stock@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@89stock
Address
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Nick Stock is a British Academy funded postdoctoral researcher exploring the unconscious desires of teachers through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. He is interested in the phenomenon of people entering teaching amidst a challenging educational landscape. Extended, unstructured interviews are being conducted with trainee teachers to delve into the reasons they choose to enter the profession. This three-year project raises serious questions about the symbolic structure of education and the fantasies it generates. It also problematises the reasons that some might believe they enter into education for. 

Ultimately, the project raises the question: what are we really doing when we think we are educating?

Feedback and office hours

Office hours available in person in room 520.

Wednesdays, 11am-1pm.

Zoom appointments available on request.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Philosophy of Education, University of Birmingham, 2021
  • MEd in Teaching Studies, University of Birmingham, 2014
  • PGDipEd (QTS) in Secondary English, University of Birmingham, 2011
  • BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing, Aberystwyth University, 2010

Biography

Nick was an English teacher for thirteen years, first in a Secondary School, then in a Sixth Form College. It is through this experience that many of his research interests arose. He completed his PhD part time alongside teaching. After completion, he was awarded a British Academy postdoctoral research fellowship which he is now researching for.

Teaching

  • Identity, Politics and Everyday Life. 3rd Year Education BA Module, Module Tutor
  • Children as Citizens. 3rd year Education BA Module Tutor

Research

Research interests 

Poststructuralism, psychoanalysis and critical theory

Subject of teachers and their subjectivation

Critical Pedagogy, deschooling and other educational alternatives

Radical political theory

Literature in and as research

Education and mental health 

Current projects

 BA Fellowship Becoming Teacher. Desires, Drives, and Formations.

Publications

Stock, N. and Peim, N. (2024). The Lacanian Teacher. Rethinking the Enjoyment of the Educator. Palgrave, Lacan Series [forthcoming]

Stock, N. (2023). My Teaching. Lacanian Reflections from the Classroom, British Psychoanalytic Council’s New Associations, Summer Issue

Stock, N. (2023). The weird, eerie, exit pedagogy of Mark Fisher, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 31:4, 775-791

Stock, N. (2022). “Cloud Strife’s Ghost: Hauntology, Curriculum and Final Fantasy VII”, in J. Corson, D. Friedrich and D. Hollman. (Eds.). Pop Culture and Curriculum, Assemble! Exploring the Limits of Curricular Humanism Through Pop Culture. DIO Press

Peim, N. and Stock, N. (2022). Education after the end of the world. How can education be considered a hyperobject?, Educational Philosophy and Theory. Special Issue: Education for Sustainable Development in the “Capitalocene”, 54:3, pp.251-262

Stock, N. (2021). Darkness and Light. The Archetypal Metaphor for Education, Educational Philosophy and Theory. 53:2, pp.151-159. DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2020.1750363