Each of us is uniquely addressed in our particular place in the world. Everything ‘addresses’ us in a certain sense. We are always in dialogue, not only with other people, but also with everything in the world. A person also cannot be fully revealed to or known in the world, because of constant change and ‘unfinalisability’. As the site of an event, the self cannot tolerate fixity: what it “is”, is undefinable. Each of us exists as relations between particular coordinates in time and space, differentiating and relating to other coordinates. Each of us makes our existence into a particular ‘task’ or ‘project’ by assigning it meaning. This uniqueness is ‘given’ (we’re unique whether we want to be or not), but also has to be actualised by each of us through our life. In his early philosophical work, Bakhtin also insists that each person is unique and irreplaceable.
Being is always ‘event’ or ‘co-being’, simultaneous with other beings. Bakhtin sees being as a ‘unique and unified event’. As a literary analyst, Bakhtin emphasises the location of particular authors in the speech-genres they deploy, and in their spatial and temporal context. Things don’t exist ‘in themselves’, but only in their relations. Phenomena should be composited, theorised and understood, not simply seen as single instances. He also emphasises that particular themes cannot be separated from their place in genres and structures of texts. Texts should not be read through a modern gaze, but through their context. They emphasise historical, cultural and social specificity in texts and practices. His works tend to be ‘allusive’ and ‘repetitive’, irritating those who seek an economical and logical presentation. Nevertheless, he seeks to conceptualise general tendencies, in contrast to the untheorised collections often found in folklorism. Rather, his system consists of open-ended connections, and refuses to view issues in isolation. According to Michael Holquist, Bakhtin is a system-builder, but not in the sense of methodological closure. Bakhtin’s works also include detailed typologies of discourses, classified according to their structure and construction. Sometimes associated with Russian formalism, Bakhtin operates somewhere between a structural and constructivist approach to discourse. He also had a disability for much of his life, and while he does not write directly on disability issues, his concern with embodiment is apparent. He was refused his doctorate because of the controversial nature of his work on Rabelais, and subsequently sentenced to internal exile in Kazakhstan during Stalin’s purges. Working under the shadow of Stalinism, he was certainly a controversial figure. His work also has substantial importance for issues of political resistance. He is sometimes termed the most important Soviet thinker in the social sciences.
Mikhail Bakhtin was one of the most important theorists of discourse in the twentieth century.
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