Bakhtin and the Human Sciences demonstrates the abundance of ideas Bakhtin′s thought offers to the human sciences, and reconsiders him as a social thinker, not just a literary theorist. The contributors hail from many disciplines and their essays′ implications extend into other fields in the human sciences. The volume emphasizes Bakhtin′s work on dialogue, carnival, ethics and everyday life, as well as the relationship between Bakhtin′s ideas and those of other important social theorists. In a lively introduction Gardiner and Bell discuss Bakhtin′s significance as a major intellectual figure and situate his ideas within current trends and developments in social theory.

Bakhtin and the Human Sciences demonstrates the abundance of ideas Bakhtin′s thought offers to the human sciences, and reconsiders him as a social thinker, not just a literary theorist. The contributors hail from many disciplines and their essays′ implications extend into other fields in the human sciences. The volume emphasizes Bakhtin′s work on dialogue, carnival, ethics and everyday life, as well as the relationship between Bakhtin′s ideas and those of other important social theorists. In a lively introduction Gardiner and Bell discuss Bakhtin′s significance as a major intellectual figure and situate his ideas within current trends and developments in social theory.

This book investigates the process of translation in light of the dialogical principles proposed by the Russian literary theorist and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. It problematizes interlingual translations by questioning the two extreme tendencies in translation; namely, complete target-orientedness on the one hand, and close imitation of the source-text on the other. In the field of cultural encounters, it envisages a Bakhtinian model which is proposed as an alternative to the existing interpretations that discuss the cultural subtleties when two different cultures encounter each other. The overall framework of the book is Bakhtinian, that is, it adopts a dialogic approach, and its main focus is the examination of a Western theoretical formulation through examples from Indian literatures and cultural situations. Such an extension of Bakhtin’s ideas, especially to explore examples from Indian literary, cultural and translational fields, has not yet received sufficient attention. The study is not only a unique endeavour in filling up the lacunae, but also draws Bakhtin closer to the Indian literary condition.

This classic work by the Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) examines popular humor and folk culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. One of the essential texts of a theorist who is rapidly becoming a major reference in contemporary thought, Rabelais and His World is essential reading for anyone interested in problems of language and text and in cultural interpretation.

The Russian critic M. M. Bakhtin has recently become a major figure in contemporary theory beyond his traditional influence in Slavic literary studies. Bakhtin in Contexts explores the revolutionary impact Bakhtin's ideas have carried in contemporary discussion of language, art, culture, and social science in recent years. The contributors represent a broad range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, epitomizing the views of Russian and American specialists in those fields Bakhtin often referred to as "the human sciences." The diversity of perspective and flexibility of approach make this a unique contribution to Bakhtin studies and to the ongoing dialogue between Western and Russian theorists.

Ali Zaidi discloses a largely unnoticed dialogue between Muslim and Western social thought on the search for meaning and transcendence in the human sciences. This disclosure is accomplished by a comparative reading of Muslim debates on secular knowledge on the one hand and of Western debates on the putative death of metaphysics in the human sciences on the other hand. The analysis is grounded in dialogical hermeneutics; that is, a hermeneutic approach to texts and cultural traditions that draws upon the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer and upon the insights of inter-religious dialogue.