Bakhtin between East and West: Cross-Cultural Transmission by Karine Zbinden (review)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
344 SEER, 87, 2, APRIL 200g émigré writers and theliterary worldofFrance,themeetings had atleasttwo important results. One is of a moreabstractand conceptualnature.On a number ofoccasions, during heateddebates,Russianand Frenchparticipants discovered fundamental differences in their respective evaluation ofthesame culturalphenomena,fromSymbolism to theverynatureand spiritof the Frenchliterary canon. Thus theRussiansweresurprised to findthattheir impression ofFrenchliterature as beingaestheticist and cerebralwas notat all sharedbytheir Frenchcounterparts. As a result, theyturned a critical eye to theirnativetradition withrespectto thereception of Frenchliterature. Therewerefurther divisions in theaudience,whichat timescutacrossthe basicdistinction betweentheFrenchand Russiancamps.Forexample,there was a clearopposition betweenthemoreconservative writers, setagainstthe younger adherents oftheavant-garde. One ofthehighest dramatic pointsof allthedebateswastheconfrontation between themajority ofRussianémigrés, who held stronganti-Bolshevik convictions, on the one hand, and Ilia Zdanevichand Vladimir Pozner,whowereaccusedofsympathizing withthe Soviets, on theother. The other consequence oftheStudio'swork wasofa morepractical nature, and concernsthedissemination of theworksof Russianémigréauthorsin French.In 1929-30thejournalFrance etmonde publishedFrenchtranslations of the worksof such authorsas Aldanov,Gorodetzkii, Kuznetsova,Teffi, Tsvetaetvaand Zaitsev.Another journal, Cahiers Mil NeufCentVingt Neuf editedby one oftheStudioparticipants, Jean Maxence,offered to publish translations ofworks bysomeyounger émigrés. Moreover, texts byGorodetzkii ,Sazonova,Teffi and Zaitsevwereprinted in theRevue française, againon theinitiative ofMaxence.Although perhapsinsufficient in viewofthehigh density ofRussianwriters concentrated in inter-war France,thesedevelopmentsare nonetheless obvioussignsoftheStudio'scontribution to a certain integration ofémigréintellectuals intotheFrenchartistic milieu,creationof direct contacts, as wellas theelimination ofcertain stereotypes in themutual (mis)interpretation of Frenchand Russian literature. Le Studio Franco-Russe brings all thesepointsintofocusin a clearand balancedway,and promises tobecomean important reference sourceforspecialists in thefields ofSlavic and exilestudies, Franco-Russian cultural relations, and Frenchliterature and thought ofthelate 1920sand early1930s.As theinaugural volumein a new seriesofliterary and cultural studies, TorontoSlavicLibrary, createdbythe Toronto Slavic Quarterly, itsetsa highstandard forpublications to come. UCL SSEES Maria Rubins Zbinden, Karine. Bakhtinbetween East and West: CrossCulturalTransmission . Legenda,Oxford, 2006.xii+ 185pp.Tables.Notes.Bibliography. Index.£45.00:$69.00. With thisbook Bakhtinstudiescomes fullcircleand, like the Uroboros, seizesitsowntail.In thecourseofpreparing itKarineZbindenhas assimilatedan impressive amountofcritical material whichis suretocontainmuch reviews 345 of interest forthoseforwhom the dynamicsof Bakhtinreceptionare, as Zbindenarguestheymustbe, inseparable from theworkofBakhtin himself. Zbindenexhibits considerable theoretical insight and a capacityfornuanced analysisthroughout the work.Nevertheless, a structural flawruns like a fault-line through almosteverychapter, a flawderiving fromtheattempt to synthesize twodifferent, iftangentially related, approachesto thesubject.As she candidlyadmitsin her Introduction, an originalprojectto analysethe impactoftheearlyFrenchreception ofBakhtin, in thepersonsofKristeva and Todorov, on Bakhtinstudiesworldwideis made to dovetailwithan assessment of Bakhtinreceptiongenerally witha focuson the themeof 'sociality' (pp. 2-3). Asa result, though certain sections oftheargument pertaining tobothtasks are strong, itmustbe saidthatneither is carriedoutwholly satisfactorily. For one, the attemptat integration resultsin a ratherdisjointedcomposition, one effect ofwhichis thatTodorov (chapterfour)becomesdivorcedfrom Kristeva(chapterone), and thusalso fromtheFrenchCanadian reception (chapter two).Whilst inZbinden'sreading Todorovishelpful tothethemeof sociality in Bakhtin reception (shecredits himwithreintroducing thisin the wakeofKristeva's fateful suppression), he complicates theoriginal hypothesis thatthetwotogether influenced thegeneralreception ofBakhtin intheWest, sincetheyare notseenbyZbindenas theoretically homogeneous. RegardingtheearlyFrenchreception, thecritiqueof Kristeva'soriginal (mis)appropriation ofdialogism (as intertextuality) withitsstructuralist repressionofthesubjectand exclusion ofthesocial,is effective, as is thedistinction Zbindenelaborates betweenappropriation and distortion (pp.5-18).Chapter threeincludespowerful and revelatory analysis oftheshocking distortions of Bakhtin'sRussiantextat the hands of his earlyFrenchtranslators, which similarly repressed thesocialdimension as conveyed in theterm'heterology', thoughthisis allied to the sociality themeratherthanto FrenchBakhtin reception. (Zbinden'sinsistence on the superiority of Todorov's translation ofraznorechie overthe'heteroglossia' ofBakhtin's Englishtranslators is principled ,butdoes createanotherhurdleforthereaderin an alreadycomplex terminological environment.) Zbindendoes not examinein any depththe consequencesof thesetwo distortions fortheongoingFrenchreception ofBakhtin(she earlierimplies thiswas in factdeath, pp. 10-11),insteadapparently following the trail acrosstheAtlantic to Francophone Canada. Yet thistrailleads to a curious dead-end: Québécois sociocriticism is presentedas something of a lame duck,an ultimately unsuccessful riposteto structuralism/post-structuralism. The trailis then abandoned,along withthe originalconceptionforthe book,at theverypointat whichBakhtinstudiesbecomesan international phenomenon and a boomindustry intheUnitedStates.No argument ismade fortheongoinginfluence ofKristevain theAnglophone reception, or even foranyhistorical moment ofFrancophoneAnglophone transmission: thebook shifts uneasily ontotheterritory ofsociality. In thefinalchapter theFrenchconnection lineofargument is resuscitated in orderto die againwitha whimper in theenvironment ofRussianBakhtin 346 SEER, 87, 2, APRIL 200g studies, withan acknowledgement oftheoutright hostility ofone commentator (Vitalii Makhlin, uponwhoseworkZbindenrelies almost exclusively inher accountoftheRussianresponse to Western reception ofBakhtin - in itself a significant weakness in heranalysis), againsta background ofgeneralindifference (p. 133).Hence Zbindendoes notrealizeherstatedaim ofverifying 'theexistence ofa "Frenchconnection" in Bakhtin studies'(p. 4). Probablythestrongest sustained sectionofthebook is thethirdchapter, whichis devotedentirely to the'sociality' themeand...
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".