Twentieth-Century Russian Literary Theory: Bakhtin and the Formalists

In this seminar, we examine three schools of literary theory that emerged in Russia after the Revolution: in the twenties, Formalism, which is often credited for inventing literary theory as a distinctive scholarly discipline; Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) and his circle of philosopher critics; and the Tartu School of Cultural Semiotics (1960-90s). We will learn how to apply these theories to a diverse range of literary texts (some chosen by students themselves, from their own areas of interest), and will also take into consideration their international influence on the work of critics such as Homi Bhabha, Elaine Scarry and Slavoj Žižek.