Introducing Bakhtin [Paperback]

Sue Vice (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 1998 | ISBN-10: 071904328X | ISBN-13: 978-0719043284

The Russian critic and theorist Mikhail Bakhtin is once again in favor, his influence spreading across many discourses including literature, film, cultural and gender studies. This book provides the most comprehensive introduction to Bakhtin’s central concepts and terms. Sue Vice illustrates what is meant by such ideas as carnival, the grotesque body, dialogism and heteroglossia. These concepts are then placed in a contemporary context by drawing out the implications of Bakhtin’s writings, for current issues such as feminism and sexuality. Vice’s examples are always practically based on specific texts such as the film Thelma and Louise, Helen Zahavi’s Dirty Weekend and James Kelman's How late it was, how late.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sue Vice is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Sheffield.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Manchester University Press (February 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 071904328X
• ISBN-13: 978-0719043284
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,340,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Accomplishes its Objective, August 27, 1998

By 

"careful_reader" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Introducing Bakhtin (Paperback)

Sue Vice's "Introducting Bakhtin" does just that. As a relative newcomer to the field of literary theory (by way of cultural studies), I found the book to be a lucid introduction to Bakhtin and his concepts of heteroglossia, dialogism, polyphony, carnival, and the chronotope. Lit-crit discourse is a challenge to grasp as first, especially if one's background is in the social sciences, as mine is. But if the reader brings some patience and a true interest in Bakhtin and his ideas, he or she will be rewarded. My objective was be able to understand Bakhtian references in the cultural studies pieces I read as a doctoral student in consumer behavior. I am happy to report that, not only was this objective achieved, but I was further spurred to go directly to the source and read Bakhtin myself. Sue Vice does a fine job explaining and applying these complex ideas. I highly recommend this book.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Introduction to derivative Bakhtin Scholarship, February 10, 2001

By 

Walter O. Koenig "Amoxtli" (San Diego, California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Introducing Bakhtin (Paperback)

This book is most misleading, and at best only an introduction to Bakhtin from Ms. Vice's viewpoint. It is an example of some of the "scholarship" currently riding the Bakhtin wave, heavily influenced by personalized interpretations of current trendy concepts and secondary scholarship. Her "alibi" (p.2) taken from Wall and Thomson, is that no study can function "from within Bakhtin's thought", and this presumably gives her justification to go entirely her own way, which is not bad, but is not supposed to be the intent of the book, and does very little for Bakhtin scholarship.

Vice chooses five different Bakhtinian "Concepts", Heteroglossia, Dialogism, Polyphony, Carnivalesque and Chronotope, and builds a chapter around each, illustrating them in every case with Novels or Films, mostly from the 1990's, chosen by her, none of which occur in Bakhtin's work. An example is the "Chronotope Chapter", which uses the Film "Thelma and Louise" as the central example. The reader will search in vain in the chapter and index for authors such as Goethe, Stendhal, Flaubert, Sterne, Hippel, Wezel, Jean Paul and others repeatedly mentioned as examples in Bakhtin's Essay: "Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel". This chapter is so far removed from Bakhtin's work, that it is impossible for the reader to get an understanding of his work, which was according to the definition of the Chronotope given by Bakhtin to show: "..the intinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature," (Bakhtin - p.84). It becomes questionable to what extent Vice understands the concepts discussed, and unlikely that she has read the examples used by Bakhtin.

It is difficult to understand how students, the supposed target audience of this book, according to the introduction, are supposed to come away with an understanding and appreciation of Bakhtin's work, when practically none of the many excellent examples he uses are even mentioned. Instead the book relies heavily on secondary Literature and current Bakhtin "Scholarship".

I can only recommend this book to readers who are fammilar with both Bahktin's work and subsequesnt studies. I instead highly recommend Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson: "Creation of a Prosaics", a much more worthwhile introduction.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Decent Intro to Some Fascinating Ideas, February 7, 2001

By 

Rick Terpstra (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Introducing Bakhtin (Paperback)

Sue Vice's book certainly achieves its stated goal of introducing the increasingly popular ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin to the general public. This books greatest aspect, perhaps, is that it manages separate out Bakhtin's major ideas from his many books. However, Vice's prose is sometimes a bit muddled and I occasionally found myself turning to the source material (Bakhtin) to clarify a point that she had made. Also, while no problem for me, someone not in the lit or philosophy field might have some trouble with the lit-crit terminology Vice throws at you. Overall a good book but could be a bit better.