As interest in the work of Bakhtin grows there is an increasing demand for a well organized, readable text which explains his main ideas and relates them to current social and cultural theory. This book is designed to supply this demand. Elegantly written with the needs of the student coming to Bakhtin for the first time in mind, it provides the essential guide to this important and neglected thinker.

Preface. Introduction. 1: The 1920s Writings. 2: The 1930s and 1940s Writings. 3: The Bakhtin Circle and the Theory of Ideology. 4: Bakhtin's Critical Hermeneutics. 5: Bakhtin, Ideology and Neo-Structuralism. 6: Towards a Dialogical Ideological Criticism. Bibliography.