Mikhail Bakhtin : a critical introduction / E. V. Ramakrishnan

incl. bibliographical references

Preface -- Mikhail Bakhtin: an introduction -- Mikhail Bakhtin: contexts and concepts -- From answerability to unfinalisability: Bakhtin's philosophical ideas on the artistic process -- Dostoevsky's polyphonic novel: concepts and categories -- Carnival and its ethos: implications for literature and culture -- A theory of the novel: dialogic imagination, heteroglossia, chronotope, and discourse in the novel -- Bakhtin and beyond: implications of Bakhtin's theories and concepts for humanities and literary theory -- Glossary of select terms -- Suggested reading

"This volume is a critical introduction to the life and works of Mikhail Bakhtin and his theoretical oeuvre. It outlines his major ideas such as dialogism, the dialogic imagination, heteroglossia, polyphony, carnival, chronotope and answerability, and their continued relevance in contemporary studies in literature and culture studies, and folk and popular cultures. Mikhail Bakhtin analyses the therorist's major contributions to literary criticism and the study of the novelistic genre, and examines Bakhtin's legacy for the humanities as a whole. The volume is a nuanced study of the ethical perspective in Bakhtin's work that locates literature at the intersection of various disciplines such as philosophy, sociology and political science."-- Back cover