Books about thinkers require a kind of unity that their thought may not possess. This cautionary statement is especially applicable to Mikhail Bakhtin, whose intellectual development displays a diversity of insights that cannot be easily integrated or accurately described in terms of a single overriding concern. Indeed, in a career spanning some sixty years, he experienced both dramatic and gradual changes in his thinking, returned to abandoned insights that he then developed in unexpected ways, and worked through new ideas only loosely related to his earlier concerns Small wonder, then, that...

The essays in "Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges" extend Bakhtin's concepts in important new directions and challenge Bakhtin's own use of his most cherished ideas. Four sets of paired essays explore the theory of parody, the relation of de Man's poetics to Bakhtin's dialogics, Bakhtin's approach to Tolstoy and ideological literature generally, and the dangers of dialogue, not only in practice but also as an ideal.

Robert Louis Jackson has long been recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the foremost Dostoevsky scholars in the world. "Freedom and Responsibility in Russian Literature" collects twenty essays by distinguished scholars (many former students of Jackson's) and admiring colleagues on some of the foremost questions in Russian studies. Whatever the specific topic, these essays manifest a determination to exercise the critical independence and integrity exemplified by Jackson throughout his long career.