Although metafiction has been the subject of much critical and theoretical writing, this is the first full-length study of its place in Soviet literature. Focusing on metafictional works by Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Konstantin Vaginov, and Veniamin Kaverin, it examines, within a broadly Bakhtinian theoretical framework, the relationship between their self-consciousness and their cultural and political context. The texts are shown to challenge notions about the nature and function of literature fundamental to both Soviet and Anglo-American criticism. In particular, although...

This collection offers a pioneering new account of the relationship between literature and other cultural forms in Late Imperial Russia and Revolutionary Russia. The contributors here recontextualize Russian literature, and rethink the relations between literature and other cultural forms. The book examines a number of, in Bourdieu's term, "cultural fields" in late Imperial Russia: science and objectivity, national and personal identity, and consumerism and commercial culture. Including contributions from leading specialists in Russian literature, cultural history, and cultural theory, this...

It has seemed at times that there is no neutral territory between those who see Bakhtin as the practitioner of a kind of neo-Marxist, or at least materialist, deconstruction and those who look at the same texts and see a defender of traditional, liberal humanist values and classical conceptions of order, a conservative in the true sense of the term. Arising from a conference under the same title held at Texas Tech University, Carnivalizing Difference seeks to explore the actual and possible relationships between Bakhtinian theory and cultural practice. The introduction explores the changing...

This book is a collection of essays on the most important figures associated with the Bakhtin Circle. It offers new biographical material, valuable translations of important Russian texts, a timeline and extensive bibliographical references.