Pedagogies of Desire

I like this quote from Smith:

The description [of the mall as a religious site] is meant to shift our attention and perspective in order for us to be recognize the charged, religious nature of cultural institutions that we all tend to inhabit as if they were neutral sites. . . . we can at once appreciate that the mall is a religious institution because it is a liturgical institution, and that it is a pedagogical institution because it is a formative institution. (23)

His point is that the mall deals not with ideas, but rather, through practice, with notions of the heart: ways of living. This is due to what he calls "quasi-liturgical practices" (he calls "formative practices" "liturgies" here) which take place at the mall. (24) What he ultimately wants, it seems, if for Christian education (or the Christian academy) to be a counter-formation to the mall, to provide a liturgy as formative practice (formative of our imagination) that works against what the mall is doing: "What would be the shape of an alternate pedagogy of desire?" (25)

By the way, I want a Lego Wall-E.