20th century · Literary theory, philosophy of language
Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic, and semiotician whose work profoundly influenced twentieth-century thought in literary theory, linguistics, and cultural studies. Despite facing political persecution and exile under Stalin, he developed a complex body of work centered on dialogism, the carnivalesque, and the novel as a polyphonic form. His ideas on heteroglossia, chronotope, and the unfinalizability of consciousness continue to shape interdisciplinary scholarship.