The book offers a lot of information varying from cultures, families, teachers, learners, researchers, and thinkers surrounding Bilingual Education. The Bakhtinian circle, as Moraes calls, is the ideas and thoughts derived not only from him but also for him. That is to say Moraes' collage of ideas and arguments are based on people thinking like Bakhtin: Language as a socially negotiated, what is more, socially constructed medium. That view is expressed through what Chomsky described in the opposite sense. As Chomsky argues: Acquisition of language is something that happens to you; it's not something that you do. Learning language is something like undergoing puberty. You don't learn to do it; you don't do it because you see other people doing it; you are just designed to do it at a certain time...There are social factors that determine rate and timing and so forth, but overwhelmingly what is happening is that biological process is proceeding in the way and in which it is determined to proceed. (79)

On the contrary, there is the view of Bakhtin puts: When a member of a speaking collective comes upon a word, it is not a neutral word of language, not as a word free from the aspirations and evaluations of others, uninhabited by others' voices...The word enters his context from another context, permeated with the interpretations of others.

I believe any one with common sense, without the need for an adequate academic degree can see the difference between the two and can evaluate these thoughts individually in a correct manner. That is to say, language is definitely a social phenomenon that is almost free from biological factors. Language learning-teaching, therefore, should be taken in that socio-cultural context, in the context that one sees and feels all around her learning context. This book, an academic yet a very simple one for those who enjoy reading about language and culture connection will gain a lot of insight from the way she puts the connection in its place. It can also be read by parents who would like to learn more about how a child learns a language- from the vantage point of some recent academic discussions. That makes the book complete.

This study of one of the twentieth century's most respected and influential thinkers offers both a comprehensive overview of his work, and a valuable starting point for further inquiry into the burgeoning arena of Bakhtin Studies.

The works of Mikhail Bakhtin which are presently available in English are quite uneven because of subject matter, different translators and translations, and because only some were meant to be published by Bakhtin himself. Also Bakhtin's focus and interpretation changed from his early writing to late in his career, thus creating conflicts. The whole of Bakhtin's work is well analyzed by Morson and Emerson in this coherent and comprehensive study. This is not an easy task. The Key Concepts are interpreted as being: Prosaics, Unfinalizabilty and Dialogue and are discussed in Part One. Part Two deals with the Problems of Authorship. Part Three, is in my opinion the most important, and is the Discussion of Theories of the Novel. Of particular interest here is the discussion of the Chronotope and its relation to the Bildungsroman and sense of becoming. As Bakhtin himself never defined the term "Chronotope", the authors here explore its relationship to Bakhtin's Bildngsroman fragment, and the concept of Time in the development of the Bildungsroman. They are correct in this assessment, but do not carry the idea far enough. In order to really understand Bakhtin one must read the books he cites from this genre. No study of Bakhtin seems to have done so thus far.

This book is useful to both readers fammilar with Bakhtin's work, or to those who want to use it as an introduction. Highly recommended.

Here is an academic book that anyone interested in language, literature, and cinema should love. Beautifully written (as few academic books are), it applies the cultural criticism of Russian writer Mikhail Bakhtin to a diverse selection of novels and films, but most notably to those from Brazil. It is a match made in heaven, because both Bakhtin and Brazil believe in carnival (the joyful festivities that take place just before Lent, known in the States as Mardi Gras) and the carnivalesque (where rules are suspended, the oppressed take center stage, the powerful are mocked, and the body is celebrated). Stam begins by providing a clear and thorough overview of Bakhtin's precepts and terminology (dialogism, chronotope, heteroglossia), showing how his writing can fill in the gaps left by other theories and illuminate both artistic texts and everyday life. He then moves on to discuss the conjunction between Bakhtin and film theory specifically, providing elegant analyses of Bunuel's "Exterminating Angel," Godard's "Two or Three Things I Know About Her," Welles's unfinished "It's All True" (much of which was shot in Brazil), Brazilian classics such as "Macunaima," and "Mar das Rosas/Sea of Roses." and several others. Along the way, he takes in such issues as the grotesque and magical body, the subversive as well as the pleasurable potential of carnival, the uses of cannibalism, and cinematic eroticism. This wide-ranging study takes in everything from music (by Brazilian composers Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque, plus rap) to the influence of the Yiddish theater on Woody Allen's "Zelig." An outstanding book that's a delight to read.

No better book has been written on the subject.

Bakhtin's "Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics" remains an essential critical writing to understand the complex and eclectic critical imagery of Bakhtin. The plurality of consciousness within a novel (polyphony) together with the idea of simultaneity in the relationships among characters confine to this work an extremely contemporary view of what literary creation is like or must be conceived of.
Bakhtin's defense of the independency of the hero from the author stands not only as a strong critique to those critical trends which regard biographical information as the only source to fully capture the essence of a literary work, but also it enables a new kind of open criticism which embraces the role of the reader in the process of authoring a text, that is, providing the text with a meaning. Bakhtin's interest on physiology to capture the real insight of human perception and, hence, of human understanding of a literary work is, in my opinion, a great advance for the reader to become an undisputed element in the literary chain formed by the author, the text and the reader.
Bakhtin's work has rapidly become a cornerstone in the current flow of literary criticism and his "Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics" stands as one of his finest achievements.

Bakhtin's critique of Dostoevsky's work has revealed so much more to me about the form of this great author's novels than I would have ever been able to understand for myself. What makes Bakhtin such a masterful theorist is his methodical approach to understanding an author's work discussing the historical influence of form and the critical misinterpretations that have preceded the work. He is so attentive to levels of narration that he is able to identify voices in relation to the author and the other characters. This helps to clarify the structure of the narrative and the many ways we can interpret it. Many people have marvelled at the brilliance of Doestoevsky's work but haven't been able to put their finger on why it is so great. Bahktin not only names the reason, but also gives an incredible amount of thorough evidence as to why this is so in a comprehensible way. The technical theory is easy to understand as he is very careful to define his terms and the reasons he uses them. His survey of the development of literary forms, particularly the carnavelesque is informed and inspiring, but be careful as it is slightly idealistic and, though perfectly relevant, you feel that he is assimilating it a little too easy to his critique of Doestoevsky. The narrative techniques he identifies are not only useful in understanding Doestoevskys work but are incredibly useful in thinking about current authors. This is a very important piece of critical work I have come back to again and again.

Bakhtin's seminal work owes a lot to thinkers like Nietzsche, buy by gum, does he stand on his own. The most brilliant exposition I've read on Dostoevsky (with Rozanov in second place) and perhaps the most perceptive and insightful comments on the literary process and theory this century.

I can really only recommend this book to those who have read all of Bakhtin's translated work and are seeking more information. For those seeking an introduction and interpretation "Creation of Prosaics", also by Caryl Emerson, together with Gary Saul Morson, is much better. Indeed, Emerson assumes that the reader is familiar with Bakhtin's work. These points aside, she does provide some interesting information about the current (1997) state of Bakhtin Studies in Russia, and Bakhtin's reception in his lifetime. I found this of particular interest. In the second part Emerson tackles a "reworking (of) three problematic areas". Mainly the subjects of: 1.) Dostoevsky, Polyphony and Dialogism 2.) Carnivalism 3.) "Outsideness" This makes for interesting reading, but nothing really new or groundbreaking is offered. It is merely another look back by a leading Bakhtin Scholar on twenty years or so of Study. The book is undoubtedly well written, and Emerson surely knows her subject, but I can only recommend this to Bakhtin scholars.

Bakhtin has some great, clear ideas on fiction; and Caryl Emerson is wonderful.

I have not read Christianity in Bakhtin, but the advertising blurb that represents it as "the first full-length work to approach Bakhtin from a religious perspective" might be overstating the case. Another book, Corporeal Words: Mikhail Bakhtin's Theology of Discourse, by Alexandar Mihailovic (Studies in Russian Literature and Theory, Northwestern, 1997), has already addressed some of the same ideas suggested by the title of the other book.

I'm not sure how Mr. Kowal can review a book, much less give it three stars, without having read it. His complaint that this book is not the only book to deal with Christianity in Bakhtin could have been eliminated had he read Coates' work. At the time her book went to press "Corporeal Worlds" had not been published. In a footnote on page 177, she mentions "Corporeal Worlds" and acknowledges that, from what she has heard, Mihailovic's view of Bakhtin seems to be similar to her own. She goes on to write that she was unable to obtain a copy before submitting her manuscript to the publisher. Of course, one would have to read it in order to know this information. As for the book itself, it is a clear, well-written work that adds to the growing Bakhtin literature here in the west. Coates has explored a much neglected and important aspect of Bakhtin's work. The fact that she was unable to read the at-that-time unpublished "Corporeal Worlds" is hardly a criticism. (Just because a copyright date is one year earlier doesn't mean that the work was available at the time the more recent book had to go to press.)

This is the only Biography of Mikhail Bakhtin available in English. Published in 1984, it is now outdated, but it is still worth reading for those interested in Bakhtin and his work. The Biography more or less follows the chronological order of his life, and therefore is helpful in placing his work in a particular time. This is important because the English Translations, especially the Essay compilations, "Dialogic Imagination" and "Speech Genres and other Late Essays", tend to mix work from diferent periods in his life. Bakhtin's thought changed and developed in his life, and this Biography helps make sense of this. Actual details and anecdotes of Bakhtin's life, that help putting a "man behind the work", are disappointingly scant. The reader will not learn much about what Bakhtin actually did outside his work in this Literary Biography. Most of all, I would have been interested in his reading likes, as well as dislikes, and his opinions of Authors and Literary Theorists. Otherwise, this Biogrpahy is well written and researched, but now out of date. For Bakhtin studies a new Biography is neded, and even more importantly a Critical Edition of his work.

This book is most misleading, and at best only an introduction to Bakhtin from Ms. Vice's viewpoint. It is an example of some of the "scholarship" currently riding the Bakhtin wave, heavily influenced by personalized interpretations of current trendy concepts and secondary scholarship. Her "alibi" (p.2) taken from Wall and Thomson, is that no study can function "from within Bakhtin's thought", and this presumably gives her justification to go entirely her own way, which is not bad, but is not supposed to be the intent of the book, and does very little for Bakhtin scholarship.

Vice chooses five different Bakhtinian "Concepts", Heteroglossia, Dialogism, Polyphony, Carnivalesque and Chronotope, and builds a chapter around each, illustrating them in every case with Novels or Films, mostly from the 1990's, chosen by her, none of which occur in Bakhtin's work. An example is the "Chronotope Chapter", which uses the Film "Thelma and Louise" as the central example. The reader will search in vain in the chapter and index for authors such as Goethe, Stendhal, Flaubert, Sterne, Hippel, Wezel, Jean Paul and others repeatedly mentioned as examples in Bakhtin's Essay: "Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel". This chapter is so far removed from Bakhtin's work, that it is impossible for the reader to get an understanding of his work, which was according to the definition of the Chronotope given by Bakhtin to show: "..the intinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature," (Bakhtin - p.84). It becomes questionable to what extent Vice understands the concepts discussed, and unlikely that she has read the examples used by Bakhtin.

It is difficult to understand how students, the supposed target audience of this book, according to the introduction, are supposed to come away with an understanding and appreciation of Bakhtin's work, when practically none of the many excellent examples he uses are even mentioned. Instead the book relies heavily on secondary Literature and current Bakhtin "Scholarship".

I can only recommend this book to readers who are fammilar with both Bahktin's work and subsequesnt studies. I instead highly recommend Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson: "Creation of a Prosaics", a much more worthwhile introduction.

Sue Vice's book certainly achieves its stated goal of introducing the increasingly popular ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin to the general public. This books greatest aspect, perhaps, is that it manages separate out Bakhtin's major ideas from his many books. However, Vice's prose is sometimes a bit muddled and I occasionally found myself turning to the source material (Bakhtin) to clarify a point that she had made. Also, while no problem for me, someone not in the lit or philosophy field might have some trouble with the lit-crit terminology Vice throws at you. Overall a good book but could be a bit better.

Sue Vice's "Introducting Bakhtin" does just that. As a relative newcomer to the field of literary theory (by way of cultural studies), I found the book to be a lucid introduction to Bakhtin and his concepts of heteroglossia, dialogism, polyphony, carnival, and the chronotope. Lit-crit discourse is a challenge to grasp as first, especially if one's background is in the social sciences, as mine is. But if the reader brings some patience and a true interest in Bakhtin and his ideas, he or she will be rewarded. My objective was be able to understand Bakhtian references in the cultural studies pieces I read as a doctoral student in consumer behavior. I am happy to report that, not only was this objective achieved, but I was further spurred to go directly to the source and read Bakhtin myself. Sue Vice does a fine job explaining and applying these complex ideas. I highly recommend this book.