This article suggests that a critical pedagogy meets students where they are and recognizes the ideological conditions of existence of both teachers and students as subjects. Using a set of examples that range from the author’s own experiences both inside and outside of the classroom, an Emile Zola novel (The Ladies Paradise) and Timothy Mitchell’s world-as-exhibition, the article suggests that critical pedagogies expose, and potentially disrupt, contemporary knowledge practices. They are experi- ments in intimacy designed to unseat practices that yield to processes of thingification.