The life and work of M.M. Bakhtin through the eyes of a Canadian researcher

Hirschkop K. The Cambridge introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin. — Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. — 250 p. — ISBN 9781107521094.

UDC 929Bakhtin(02)

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.4-22.176   

Osovskii Oleg E.,

Doctor of Philology, Professor,

Chief Researcher

Evseviev Mordovian State Pedagogical University

e-mail: osovskiy_oleg@mail.ru

Dubrovskaya Svetlana A.,

Doctor of Philology, Associate Professor,

Professor of the Russian as a Foreign Language Department

Ogarev Mordovian State University

e-mail: s.dubrovskaya@bk.ru

A review of K. Hirschkop’s book “The Cambridge introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin” is presented. The book by the renowned Canadian literary and cultural studies scholar Professor K. Hirschkop aims to give a systematic description of M.M. Bakhtin’s scientific heritage for the English-speaking reader, especially for a philology students’ audience. According to the reviewers, the author solves in this book both traditional tasks of a textbook, performed in the genre of «Introduction» as well as purely research tasks. For the first time in English-language Bakhtin Studies an analysis of the theory and practice of the Russian thinker is presented on the basis of the texts of his collected works, which Hirshkop is convinced forms the image of the “new” Bakhtin. The proven scheme of the Cambridge Introductions series allows the author to consistently present a compact sketch of the scholar’s life, the main sources and contexts of his philosophical and philological pursuits, an analysis of key ideas and works, and the process of reception in the English-speaking world of the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Keywords: K. Hirshkop, M.M. Bakhtin, “the Bakhtin Circle”, Bakhtin studies, biographical reconstruction, reception of scientific legacy.

References

1.         Hirschkop K. The Cambridge introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 250p.

2.         Makhlin V.L., Morson G. S. Perepiska iz dvukh mirov // Bakhtinskii sbornik. Vyp. 2. Moscow, 1992. P. 31–43. (In Rus.)

3.         Osovskii O.E., Kirzhaeva V.P. “…Mne, tak skazat’, pripisyvaiut…”: “spornye teksty” v bahtinovedenii konca 1980–90-h // Filologiia: nauchnye issledovaniia. 2018. No. 3. S. 156–168.

4.         Osovskii O.E., Dubrovskaya S.A. Bahtin, Rossiia i mir: recepciia idei i trudov uchenogo v issledovaniiah 1996–2020 godov // Nauchnyi dialog. 2021. No. 7. S. 227–265.

5.         Averintsev S.S. Mihail Bahtin: retrospektiva i perspektiva // Druzhba narodov. 1988. No. 3. S. 256–259.

6.         Emerson K. Bahtin, poniatyi. Pravo, no vlevo // Mihail Mihailovich Bahtin / pod red. V.L. Mahlina. Moscow, 2010. S. 264–296.