2410548 Twentieth-Century Philosophy and Literature

Instructor: Halil Turan

Description/Themes
The philosophy and literary theory of Mikhail Bakhtin; polyphony; the hero and the imagination of the author;
novel as a genre; ethics and aesthetics; dialogic imagination; axiology; character as a form; discourse in the
novel; I and the other; aesthetic activity and ethics (philosophy of the act); Bakhtin and the early 20th century
political philosophy; Bakhtin and Hegelianism.
Content
Bakhtin conceived of being in terms of relations of “I” and the “other”, illustrating this view by his
philological and historical analyses of novel as a genre. The literary theory of Bakhtin thus served as a ground
to unify ethics and aesthetics and has been a source of inspiration for political philosophy. We will study some
of Bakhtin’s major works on aesthetics and some texts on the relation between Bakhtin’s aesthetics and
political philosophy.
Background Requirements
Contact the instructor.
Texts:
Bakhtin, M.M (2011) “Discourse in the Novel”, in The Dialogic Imagination, ed. M. Holquist, trans.
C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.
—— (2010) “From Notes Made in 1970-1” in Speech Genres and other Late Essays, eds.
C. Emerson and M. Holquist, trans.V. W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press.
—— (2010) “The Problem of Speech Genres” in Speech Genres and other Late Essays, eds. C. Emerson
and M. Holquist, trans.V. W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press.
——“The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology and Human sciences: An Experiment in
Philosophical Analysis”, in Speech Genres and other Late Essays, eds. C. Emerson and
M. Holquist, trans.V. W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Brandist, Craig (1997) “Bakhtin, Cassirer and Symbolic Forms”, Radical Philosophy, 85.
 (1993) Dialectics and Dialogue: the Politics of Ideological Struggles in the Works of the
Bakhtin School, PhD. Thesis. University of Sussex.
Dop, E. (2001) Bakhtin and the Hegelian Tradition, PhD. Thesis. The University of Sheffield.
Pechey, Graham (1990) “Boundaries Versus Binaries: Bakhtin in/against the History
of Ideas”, Radical Philosophy 54.
Outline:
Week 1: Introduction to the themes, topics, and texts to be covered in this course.
Weeks 2-7: “Discourse in the Novel”.
Weeks 8-11: “The Problem of Speech Genres”, The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology and
Human sciences”, “From Notes Made in 1970-1”.
Weeks 12-4: Review of works on Bakhtin.
Course Conduct:
Formal lectures, presentations.
Grading:
Presentations, working paper (mid-term), term paper.
Schedule: Thursday: 14:00-17:00, B103.