Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society Bakhtin and the Human Sciences

This text considers Bakhtin as a social theorist, discussing him as a major intellectual figure and relating his ideas to theoretical trends and developments. The book is organized around the four main themes of Bakhtin's work: dialogics, carnivals, conversations and ethics and everyday life. Bakhtin and the Human Sciences demonstrates the abundance of ideas Bakhtin′s thought offers to the human sciences, and reconsiders him as a social thinker, not just a literary theorist. The contributors hail from many disciplines and their essays′ implications extend into other fields in the human sciences. The volume emphasizes Bakhtin′s work on dialogue, carnival, ethics and everyday life, as well as the relationship between Bakhtin′s ideas and those of other important social theorists. In a lively introduction Gardiner and Bell discuss Bakhtin′s significance as a major intellectual figure and situate his ideas within current trends and developments in social theory.