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It further contends that the encounter’s artistic and political failures mark bodies by sedimenting apartheid pedagogically, refusing knowledge and emancipative politics while working with desire.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/on-madness-and-eros-thoughts-on-an-arrested-present/582215/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/on-madness-and-eros-thoughts-on-an-arrested-present/582215.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Ophelia","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-08","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",6,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What type of abuse does the article focus on in music pedagogy?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"It focuses on emotional abuse described within a music-pedagogical account.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How does the article connect emotional abuse to knowledge and communication?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It argues that the abuse enacts a foreclosure of the erotics of knowledge and communication central to pedagogy and political emancipation.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What broader social effect does the article claim the pedagogical encounter produces?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It claims the failure sedimented pedagogically renews an affront that assigns places to bodies by apartheid, refusing knowledge and emancipative politics.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},582215,1792209677,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",{"doc_id":79,"user_id":84,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":85,"doc_module":4,"category_id":86,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":87,"file_id":88,"file_url":89,"file_type":90,"file_size":91,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":92,"language":93,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":94,"faqs":95,"seo_title":96,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":97,"read_time":98,"preview_page_count":4},7971461741311,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/74000253aff267980c6?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779345379180704826",8,"Transformation in Higher Education  \nISSN: (Online) 2519-5638,(Print) 2415-0991  \n~~ ~~ Page 1 of 11  \nOrigina~~l Research ~~  \nOn madness and eros: Thoughts on an arrested present  \nAuthor:  \nCarina Venter1   \nAffiliation:  \n1Department of Music, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa  \nCorresponding author:  \nCarina Venter, [cvent@sun.ac.za](cvent@sun.ac.za)  \nDates:  \nReceived: 16 Feb. 2025  \nAccepted: 18 July 2025  \nPublished: 10 Dec. 2025  \nHow to cite this article:  \nVenter, C., 2025, ‘On madness and eros: Thoughts on an arrested present’, Transformation in Higher Education 10(0), a536 . [https://](https://)[ ](https://)[doi.org/10.4102/the.v10i0.536](doi.org/10.4102/the.v10i0.536)  \nCopyright:  \n© 2025. The Author. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4 .0) license ([https://](https://)[ ](https://)[creativecommons.org/](creativecommons.org/)[ ](creativecommons.org/)[licenses/by/4.0/](licenses/by/4.0/)) .  \nRead online:  \nScan this QR code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online.  \nThis article listens through an account given by a participant interviewed as part of an ongoing project on abuse in music-pedagogical and music-professional spaces in South Africa. It follows two trajectories in this account, which narrates the relationship between the participant, music and the master pedagogue: one that narrates the potential held in the relation between master and disciple in the language of freedom and self-realisation, the other in the language of madness and the asylum. How might this account be heard in the arrested present of post-apartheid South Africa? This article offers two responses. First, it argues that the emotional abuse described in the music-pedagogical account at the centre of this article enacts a foreclosure of the erotics of knowledge and communication some have seen as fundamental both to pedagogy and political emancipation. Second, the failure, artistically and politically, to which this pedagogical encounter leads – a failure at the practice of Western art music which, in apartheid South Africa, marked out the cultural preserve of whiteness – constitutes a very particular kind of failure that puts bodies in those places assigned to them by apartheid. Taken together, the account and these responses show how apartheid is sedimented pedagogically as a renewed affront that plays with desire as it refuses knowledge and emancipative politics.  \nContribution: This article is the first to consider abuse in classical music pedagogy in South Africa and suggests new theoretical ground by theorising ‘the pornographic in pedagogy’.  \nKeywords: music pedagogy; emotional abuse; race; emancipation; post-apartheid education; desire and knowledge; eros and pedagogy.  \nIt is Madness  \nit is madness this building  \nwith its windows Cold and closed  \nso that not even the stale air can escape with its stark and bare corridors  \nsunken below the ground  \nthe sterile fluorescent lighting overwhelming everything with its countless doors  \ntheir iron locks and tiny square portholes piercing the white at regular intervals  \nlike the screeches and moans and shudders continuously cutting through the stifling dank smell  \nit is madness  \nthese lunatics sealed in their padded cells  \nnot permitted to leave their rooms but for a few minutes a day if they’re good  \nthey might occasionally be allowed an exit  \neven sit in the sun their arms jerking  \nfeet kicking  \nfingers spasming  \n[http://thejournal.org.za](http://thejournal.org.za)  Open Access ~~ ~~  \n~~ ~~ Page 2 of 11  \nfaces convulsing  \nin time to music that only they can hear it is madness  \nthose people in the coats  \nwho take the demented  \nto the examination rooms  \nand probe and poke at brains  \nand emotions  \nand sanity  \nand souls  \nwith terrifying fingers  \nand smiles on faces  \nand then send them back to their cells an hour later howling","cbCaigXKYVaVXNEx","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaigXKYVaVXNEx","pdf",396684,11,"English","# OriginaI Research\n## Introduction","[{\"question\":\"What type of abuse does the article focus on in music pedagogy?\",\"answer\":\"It focuses on emotional abuse described within a music-pedagogical account.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article connect emotional abuse to knowledge and communication?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that the abuse enacts a foreclosure of the erotics of knowledge and communication central to pedagogy and political emancipation.\"},{\"question\":\"What broader social effect does the article claim the pedagogical encounter produces?\",\"answer\":\"It claims the failure sedimented pedagogically renews an affront that assigns places to bodies by apartheid, refusing knowledge and emancipative politics.\"}]","On madness and eros: Thoughts on an arrested present | PDF",1792042839,28,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":100},[101,105,109,113,118,122,127,130,135,138,142],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":110,"show_sort_weight":111,"slug":112},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":114,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":115,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":117},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":119,"show_sort_weight":120,"slug":121},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":126},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":86,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":128,"slug":129},30,"research-report",{"id":131,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":132,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":134},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":133,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":136,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":137},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":139,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":140,"show_sort_weight":139,"slug":141},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":143,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":144,"show_sort_weight":114,"slug":145},19,"General","general"]