This article is based upon a belief that the ways in which we engage with knowledge in higher education is linked directly to the possibilities for greater social justice. I explore the importance of students being able to engage with disciplinary knowledge that is as rich, lively and vibrant as that which academics hopefully encounter within their own research, and yet still clearly retain their rights as students to not yet know. I discuss the limitations of certainty, predictability and transparency and critique the prevailing trend towards what I call the standardisation of higher education. I then turn to the ways in which students, as students, might engage fully with this complex knowledge. I introduce the idea of disciplinary knowledge as a series of palimpsests and discuss the ways in which students should be given opportunities to leave their marks upon these.