[xmca] Bakhtin/Volosinov

[Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com>]

Apologies for cross posting: thought this might be of interest to some folks here.

Phil

Just a note, for those of you who read a bit of French, to alert you to an important new book by our colleague Jean-Paul Bronkart (whose work I was belatedly introduced to through his participation in ISFC 38 in Lisbon in July). 

The book argues convincingly that Bakhtin lied about being the author of Voloshinov’s Marxism and the Philosophy of Language and Medvedev’s The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship, calls into serious question his authorship of Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, and shows that the key concepts in famous papers such as ‘The problem of speech genres’ were plagiarised from Voloshinov.

I am embarrassed to have been caught up myself in this scandal, having quoted over and over again in talks and publications a couple of passages from ‘The problem of speech genres’, wrongly crediting them to Bakhtin. 
I guess it is time for us all to read Marxism and the Philosophy of Language carefully again, give credit where credit is due, and start winding back this longstanding intellectual charade.

Bronckart, J-P & C Bota 2011 Bakhtine démasqué: histoire d’un menteur, d’une escroquerie et d’un délire collectif. Geneve: Librairie Droz.

Our thanks for Jean-Paul for this wonderful piece of scholarship.

Jim (Martin)__________________________________________
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