Reading Lolita: A Dialogic Encounter with Self and Others

This paper represents a conversation between two individuals, a blending the tales of two literacy researchers: one who is interested in problems of subjectivity found in reading and in moral learning; one a researcher who is oriented toward understanding self and subjectivity with regard to the role of the researcher and underlying beliefs and assumptions about research. Bernstein (1983) tells us that “only in a dialogic encounter with what is not understood, with what is alien, with what makes a claim upon us, can we open ourselves to risking and testing our preconceptions and prejudices” (p. 195). The paper is a dialogic encounter between two individuals open to understanding, testing, and resolving the ultimate act of war within ourselves.