The Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin began his theoretical work in the 1920s. In those days, Bakhtin's work strayed from the classic philological-historical approach dominant in the studies of literature in his day, while rejecting the positivist method of Russian formalism that emerged in parallel. Rather than linguistic and philological concerns, Bakhtin presented philosophical-ethical problems to literary discussion, addressing the epistemic and social grounds of the representation of reality in literature. When Bakhtin’s work was discovered by Western thinkers in the 1960s, it gained a key status as the precursor of the new Post-Structuralist school which than made its first steps. Today, Bakhtinian key terms such as “polyphony” and “chronotop,” are used even by those who do not know their origin in Bakhtin’s writings. Through the study of selected chapters from the eminent works of Bakhtin, “Forms of Time and the Chronotop in the Novel,” “Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics” and “Rabelais and his World” the students will be introduced to the foundations of Bakhtinian theory and discuss the hermeneutical keys he offered to the study of literature.

The students are expected to prepare for the class, to attend it regularly, to participate actively and to submit a final exam.