Bakhtin in the fullness of time: Bakhtinian theory and the process of social education

This special issue takes the works of Mikhail Bakhtin as its inspiration in the contemplation of the potential of dialogic scholarship for philosophy of education. Although a handful of recent EPAT articles have already begun to explore such potential in education concerning learning dialogues over the past 5 years (see for instance: Chen Johnsson, 2013; Rule, 2011; White, 2014a) and the learning potential of humour specifically (see for instance: Vlieghe, 2014; White, 2014b), this issue takes Bakhtin’s work to central stage in a targetted and critical manner by exploring central philosophical ideas in contemplation of their potential for education today. The sources for such endeavours are complex and draw from a much wider philosophical and disciplinary base than Bakhtin alone. This is necessary for at least two key reasons: Firstly, because Bakhtin was influenced by a range of philosophical sources throughout his long life of writing and his works are sourced from fragments over time. Secondly, it is important to recognise that Bakhtin was not known first and foremost as an educationalist in a contemporary sense, and his work does not seek to specifically impose pedagogical instruction or commentary. Nonetheless, as the articles in this issue attest, dialogic philosophy has much to offer in the consideration of learning, relationships and what these aspects mean for contemporary society.

While Bakhtin’s work has been widely received in educational studies in recent years, there is only one existing article on classroom practice that seems to have survived, and this does not really convey the sophistication of his cultural-historical works. This is probably because Bakhtin was steeped not in institutionally positioned pedagogical practice (though he taught in a pedagogical institute in the post-war period), but in a more general philosophy of culture in which the educational process was embedded. Bakhtin’s theoretical perspective was fundamentally shaped by post-Hegelian German philosophy, especially as developed by the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and by the Humboldtian trend in German philology and pedagogy. Education was one of the fundamental dimensions of the process of becoming in Hegelian philosophy, generally known as Bildung (education or formation). This remained embedded in post-Hegelian idealist philosophy, and indeed in Marxism. In the former, however, philosophy, pedagogy and philology were combined into a general philosophy of the Geisteswissenschaften or human sciences, with their own distinct methodology, while the latter rejected the compartmentalisation of science. Bakhtin inherits the aims of post-Hegelian idealism and indeed seeks to develop a distinctive ‘dialogic’ methodology of the human sciences that consigns considerations of economics to the allegedly ‘monological’ natural sciences. However, he does so within a distinct intellectual environment in which phenomenological and sociological considerations have supplanted the psychologistic or abstract-logistic perspectives that dominated late nineteenth-century German philosophy. This renders Bakhtin’s perspective an anti-psychologistic humanism that resists the abstractness of most contemporary neo-Kantianism, while at the same time avoiding the individualistic excesses of much contemporary phenomenology. Bakhtin’s insistence on the concrete act therefore does not abstract the acting subject from the social milieu in which he or she exists, but emphasises the social location of each individual.

Bakhtin could not remain untouched by the relatively brief period of radical experimentation in education that followed the Russian Revolution, nor by the important advances in sociological perspectives on language in the USSR in the 1920s. While some of his colleagues in what is now called the ‘Bakhtin Circle’ had greater expertise in these areas than Bakhtin himself, he was able to integrate these perspectives into a general philosophical whole during his long career that others were unable to do. Education remains an important dimension of Bakhtin’s work on the novel, for it takes on aspects of Hegel’s vision of philosophy and Humboldt’s visions for education and philology, but in a new way. The study of the novel reveals a genre that participates in the coming to self-consciousness of languages and of culture more generally, in the general process of human Bildung. Education is therefore something that remains integrated into a much more comprehensive and integral philosophical perspective than many of those who employ Bakhtinian concepts in educational studies tend to appreciate. There are no educational concepts that can be extracted from Bakhtin’s work without either distorting those concepts, or acknowledging and engaging a much more holistic perspective than today’s ‘educational studies’ commonly involves.

Selected works from the New Zealand Conference on the Limits and Perspectives of Mikhail Bakhtin held in 2014, themed ‘At the boundaries’, are presented in the special issue that follows. In doing so, we seek to interpret the work of the Bakhtin Circle in a complex contemporary world. Layering and drawing from the many ideas explored by the Circle during their collective lifetimes (some shorter than others) and those that influenced their work, each chapter offers a different dimension of thought concerning issues facing societies remote (or perhaps not so remote?) from the world of post-revolutionary Russia. And yet there are echoes of relevant themes from a distant past in contemplating current or future events in education. These are concerned with aspects of culturalism, creativity and becoming—both as individuals and societies. What becomes increasingly clear in educational circles is the relevance of these ideas in considering the nature of learning and its relationship to values, ideologies and subjectivities at play within and between societies in a world that, due to multifaceted socio-economic and political factors, is being rapidly ‘deterritorialized’. Here, many familiar borders and boundaries are dissolved, whilst others coalesce. This process generates new and unexpected juxtapositions, realignments and confrontations between previously isolated groups, cultures and social forces. As a result, educational theory and practice, especially as inspired by Bakhtinian principles, arguably acquire heightened significance in understanding and mediating such conflicts, both potential and real. In the post-2008 era, during which financial crises have morphed into global recession and which characterise growing social inequities, widespread political instabilities and further environmental decline and resource depletion, what is needed more than ever is a twenty-first century Bakhtin, one that is occupied with the distinct challenges our times present to all of us. The individual contributors to Bakhtin in the Fullness of Time aim to contribute to just such a revisioning and reassessment of Bakhtin, through a diverse series of engagements with both his legacy and future promise.

In contemplating Bakhtin in the fullness of time, historical perspectives and contributions must be encountered in a contemporary understanding that will contribute to philosophy of education today. To this end, Craig Brandist provides a thorough and thought-provoking exploration of these in relation to the overarching concept of ‘Bildung’. Here, Bakhtin’s dialogic tenets are traced through the orienting traditions of Hegel, von Humboldt and the Marburg neo-Kantian Paul Natorp. Through such means Craig reveals the ways in which Bakhtin’s central essays on the novel are filled with ideas about education. However, he offers a cautionary note by stressing that the ideas can be understood only by paying attention to their philosophical sources. The corresponding need to root Bakhtin’s dialogic principles on the relationship between language, world view and the educative role played by the novel offers not only consideration for the classroom but, in fact, an account of the institutional structure of the society itself.

Bakhtin’s ideas would be influential for the works of certain subsequent scholars—yet, importantly he also acknowledges the influence of those before him. Norman Franke draws particular attention to the relationship between Bakhtin’s thinking and the emergence of the chronotope in Goethe’s Bildung. Goethe was formative for Bakhtin; the former showed more clearly than others how the chronotope manifested at times of change. The Bakhtinian literary genius, however, is neither strictly realised, to use Norman’s phrase, nor aimed towards critique; it is both at once, and we are thus immediately introduced to a complexity of Bakhtin’s thinking. These sorts of apparent inconsistences, according to Norman, can be enacted fruitfully within the chronotope—fruitful, because they reflect the very intricacies necessary to destabilise totalising thought.

Jayne White and Michael Peters take a different turn in their paper which explores the ‘creative collective’—deriving inspiration from the activities of a 1917–1921 ‘Bakhtin Circle’ in dialogue with Chagall’s art school, Malevich’s experiments and the artistic group UNOVIS—which they describe as an artistic crucible in the early twentieth century. Jayne and Michael argue that this ‘interdisciplinary’ collective transformed creative energies of Russian drama, music, theatre, art and philosophy in a distinctive contribution to modernism, structuralism and formalism that contributes richly to the social understanding of creativity itself. This paper argues that a consideration of such interplay has much potential for twenty-first century educational philosophy by highlighting the collective, dialogic nature of creativity in contemporary ‘open’ society. The authors suggest that such creative potential is evident in Bakhtin’s works when viewed through this historical lens, with important implications for educational philosophy in the contemplation of social learning in an increasingly visual age.

In this contemporary era there are new issues to contemplate—as several of the contributors to this issue attest. For example, Sonja Arndt brings Bakhtin to bear on the plight of ‘the foreigner’ in education, and bases her approach on the central and contradictory idea that utterances can both connect (as a kind of bridge), and alienate (as a fissure). In exploring this contradiction, Sonja argues for the ethical imperative of rupturing common expectations of smoothness in dialogue, advocating for a shift towards increased openness to the complex nature and implications of dialogic engagements. Her paper culminates in an argument for a renewed and meticulous ethics of care and sensitive engagements with teachers as dialogic partners.

Carl Mika and Sarah Jane Tiakiwai engage with a simultaneously contemporary and traditional issue. Reading the Maori King Tawhiao’s proverbs through Bakhtin’s propositions about poetry, they aver that Bakhtin is both directly and incidentally productive for a Maori philosophy of metaphysics. Bakhtin’s warnings against the poetic voice can be taken literally for a Maori philosophical reality, but at other times he acts as a cautionary in another way—that one should not simply read Tawhiao’s sayings as if they are simply poetic. The sayings are also political and at-once imbued with other aspects of the world. Bakhtin is hence both limited and useful when his philosophies are brought to bear on Maori (and possibly other indigenous) thought.

Our final paper, that of Michael E. Gardiner’s, explores Bakhtin’s contribution to education in relation to the ‘general intellect’. Aligning Bakhtin to his Marxist heritage, Michael summons the automated system to consider the influence of affective, desiring and cognitive capabilities on production itself. His route to such an alignment is based on Bakhtin’s view of dialogism as a collective, with all parties contributing to the continuous flow of language, which recognises that the product of such interaction can never by unified beyond a pragmatist stance. Exploring the intersections between Bakhtin and autonomism, Michael poses a much more ‘dangerous’ dialogic proposition for twenty-first century education in an era of promise, and threat.

And it is at this risky precipice that our special issue deliberately concludes since, in a Bakhtinian sense, there are no certain conclusions to be drawn from such engagement, only provocation and possibility. It is our hope that this special issue paves the way for further exploration accordingly, and we look forward to further contemplations of Bakhtin and his colleagues ‘in the fullness of time’. One of the enchantments (yet instabilities) of these diverse encounters with Bakhtin’s work is the potential for a fresh manifestation of education itself. Indeed, teaching and learning in their most fundamental essence may well become the central focus and source of concern in a conversation between twenty-first century writers and Bakhtin. In an era in which calls for a renewed approach to education are highly relevant, education moulded jointly between current authors and Bakhtin transcends merely a new pedagogy; instead, as the contributors show, some of the more foundational supports of education are illuminated and taken to task. In an indirect way, Bakhtin challenges thinkers to engage in a specific critique as much as a more proactive assertion and thus to destabilise long-held assumptions. Education seen in this light may digress from its usual form and, through Bakhtin’s medium, emphasise a creatively discerning engagement with the world. Yet, in deliberately placing their own individual themes within Bakhtin’s philosophical influence, the contributors show that teaching and learning as modes of critical orientation are not to be foreclosed into one model. They aim instead to highlight the many possibilities that can take place in a meeting of their own concerns with Bakhtin’s works—possibilities that recognise current assumptions in education but that also attempt to reconfigure them and re-contemplate their connections in the fullness of time that represents our contemporary world some 40 years after Bakhtin’s death.

Craig Brandist
Michael E. Gardiner
Jayne White
Carl Mika
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