Understanding Bakhtin, Understanding Modernism

Explores and illuminates the impact of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin on our understanding of literary modernism.

This volume explores the subject of modernism as seen through the lens of Bakhtinian criticism and in doing so offers a rounded and up-to-date example of the application of Bakhtinian theory to a field of research. The contributors consider the global spread of modernism and the variety of its manifestations as well as modernism’s relationship to popular culture and its collective elaboration, which are dominant concerns in Bakhtin’s thinking.

As with other volumes in the Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism series, the volume is divided into three parts. Part 1 provides readings of Bakhtin’s work in the context of literary modernism. Part 2 features case studies of modernist art and artists and their relation to Bakhtinian theory. The final part provides a glossary of key terms in Bakhtin’s work.

Author Biography

Philippe Birgy is a Professor at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaures, France, where he teaches critical methodology and literary theory in the English Department and English and American philosophy in the Philosophy Department. He is the author of “Une terrible beauté” : les modernistes anglais à l’épreuve de la critique girardienne (2005) and the editor of Revoir 14 : images après tout (2017) and Samuel Beckett: Drama as Philosophical Endgame? (2011).