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Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges
The essays in Rethinking Extensions and Challenges extend Bakhtin's concepts in important new directions and challenge Bakhtin's own use of his most cherished ideas. Four sets of paired essays explore the theory of parody, the relation of de Man's poetics to Bakhtin's dialogics, Bakhtin's approach to Tolstoy and ideological literature generally, and the dangers of dialogue, not only in practice but also as an ideal.
330 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1989
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About the author
Gary Saul Morson
42 books34 followersGary Saul Morson is an American literary critic and Slavist. He is particularly known for his scholarly work on the great Russian novelists Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. He is Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 25, 2020
Not bad at all.
An older volume, assembled during the time prior to the translation of Toward a Philosophy of the Act into English.
Includes very useful contributions on the bakhtinian theory of parody, a confrontation between post-structuralism & Bakhtin (including an essay by de Man), and a debate about coerced speech.
Other items include a lengthy introduction by Emerson & Morson, in part summarizing TPA, as well as some writings about Bakhtin's recently-noticed prefaces to a collection of Tolstoy. (The "Tolstoy Prefaces" are in the appendix.) E&M comes out in the introduction as proponents of the thesis that Voloshinov and Medvedev really did write the books on which their signatures appear, incidentally, and engage in a moderate polemic with Holquist & Clark on this issue.
The sections on parody, post-structuralism, and coercion are top-notch--the latter is a fairly heavy-hitting critique of dialogism, relegating it essentially to the same position in which Habermas' ideal speech situation commences.
Usefulness of the volume will be limited for those who haven't read much Dostoevesky and Tolstoy; the coercion section is reliant on an extended reading of Conrad, and the parody section looks at the history of utopian/dystopian writings. So, some knowledge required just to slip through the door on this one.
An older volume, assembled during the time prior to the translation of Toward a Philosophy of the Act into English.
Includes very useful contributions on the bakhtinian theory of parody, a confrontation between post-structuralism & Bakhtin (including an essay by de Man), and a debate about coerced speech.
Other items include a lengthy introduction by Emerson & Morson, in part summarizing TPA, as well as some writings about Bakhtin's recently-noticed prefaces to a collection of Tolstoy. (The "Tolstoy Prefaces" are in the appendix.) E&M comes out in the introduction as proponents of the thesis that Voloshinov and Medvedev really did write the books on which their signatures appear, incidentally, and engage in a moderate polemic with Holquist & Clark on this issue.
The sections on parody, post-structuralism, and coercion are top-notch--the latter is a fairly heavy-hitting critique of dialogism, relegating it essentially to the same position in which Habermas' ideal speech situation commences.
Usefulness of the volume will be limited for those who haven't read much Dostoevesky and Tolstoy; the coercion section is reliant on an extended reading of Conrad, and the parody section looks at the history of utopian/dystopian writings. So, some knowledge required just to slip through the door on this one.
August 10, 2018
Not as earthshattering as I expected. It is about Bakhtin, which rescues it, and provides a helpful thematic chronolgy of his work and an intriguiging and convincing discussion of the authorship dispute surrounding "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language" in the Intro but the essays did not break new ground. I dragged myself through the last several.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews