Describing what cultural studies or what pedagogy is all about is very complex, because there are many contradictory perspectives and paradigms in both disciplines. There is no single object of study, no unified body of theory, no one-and-only methodology that defines cultural studies or pedagogy completely. In this article, the authors focus on their work in teacher education. Their student-teachers are studying or have a degree in history, literature, linguistics, or the arts. So they do no come innocent or illiterate in their teacher training department. They all come with a wealth of previous knowledge and experience in their particular discipline. Each bring a mixture of personal, social, educational and disciplinary perspectives to the teacher education department. Their course can be described as a site where different disciplinary traditions are confronted with each other. It is also a site where theory and practice intersect, because they are forced to address not only the theory of teacher preparation, but also teacher practice, as well as the issues that confront their current teachers. The following is how the authors would describe themselves: one is in his fifties (the writer), one is in his forties (the teacher or the do-er), one is in his thirties (the researcher) and the others--their names are not mentioned--are the younger assistants in their twenties (researchers, but also film-musicians and especially computer-geeks/specialists). In this article, they describe and problematize a few central concepts in teacher education: cultural literacy, representation in general, and disciplines as representations in particular. They focus on the curriculum as a representation or as a contact zone. They illustrate the theory with some practical vignettes on the representation of teachers and literacy, environmental literacy, and the literary canon. As a result of this confrontation of theory and practice in teacher education, they try to describe new roles for teachers inspired by cultural studies.