MIKHAIL M. BAKHTIN (1895-1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, semiotician and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language.

His writings, on a variety of subjects, inspired scholars working in a number of different traditions (Marxism, semiotics, structuralism, religious criticism) and in disciplines as diverse as literary criticism, history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and psychology. Although Bakhtin was active in the debates on aesthetics and literature that took place in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, his distinctive position did not become well known until he was rediscovered by Russian scholars in the 1960s.

See the Wikipedia entry on Bakhtin's life and thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin


The following books are in PDF format:

* THE DIALOGIC IMAGINATION: FOUR ESSAYS (University of Texas Press, 1981).  Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist; edited by Michael Holquist.

* PROBLEMS OF DOSTOEVSKY'S POETICS (University of Minnesota Press, 1984).  Edited and translated by Caryl Emerson.

* SPEECH GENRES & OTHER LATE ESSAYS (University of Texas Press, 1986).  Translated by Vern W. McGee; edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist.

* TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY OF THE ACT (University of Texas Press, 1993).  Translation and notes by Vadim Liapunov; edited by Vadim Liapunov and Michael Holquist.