Trashing Caryl Emerson's recent book on Bakhtin?

[Dmitry Khanin]

    I was a little surprised today by Helena Goscillos' letter. Well, not by
the letter itself but rather by the fact that she was referring to me as
Dima. I did talk to Helena once at some party. It is entirely possible, of
course, that I introduced myself to her as Dima at that merry juncture. But
it makes no sense to call me that in this vituperative debate.
    Most Russians I know would not refer to me as Dima even if they did
adress me as Dima in an informal situation. Some Russians living abroad slip
to such short names (Sasha instead of Alexander) but I never liked it. In
Russia we use the full name (Dmitry or even more appropriately Dmitry
Mikhailovich) in official contexts and reserve short names for friends and
family. It is funny that many Western Slavists just do not get it.
Particularly Helena who likes brandishing her fluency in Russian. I remember
when I lived in Russia I got a letter from an American Slavist addressed to
Dima Mikhailovich. What a bummer!
  Now, I don't want to be tough on good Western Slavists making language
mistakes and cultural mistakes in Russian. I certainly make mistakes in
English and, really, I am well aware of it. Well, friendly American Slavists
just wouldn't let you forget it. I thought for a moment that maybe I should
also call Helena by a short but expressive Lena. Alas, Lena Goscillo just
doesn't sound right to me in a polemic. Well, maybe Caryl Emerson is right
after all and Russians are in fact "old-fashioned cultists," immersed in
their mesmerizing rituals?
    Anyway, back to "trashing Caryl Emerson's recent book on Bakhtin?"  I am
not surprised that Helena applauded Caryl Emerson's rediscovery of Bakhtin.
In Helena's book, Caryl did the right thing when she joined the jolly ranks
of happy-go-lucky postmodernists who believe that "all readings are
misreadings," all opinions should be periodically altered just for the fun
of it and the heck with consistency. Helena even implicitly argues that
Emerson's conversion is not really a conversion, and Bakhtin was never
Emerson's mentor. Simply, one day Emerson should say one thing and on the
next day quite the opposite thing and everyone will be happy, Paul de Man
more than anybody. That would really be a splendid idea, Helena, but there
is a hitch. Emerson is not really a postmodernist as of yet. Would Emerson
fully embrace the "all readings are misreadings" dogma? I beg to differ. If
you want to find a parallel for her belligerent discourse all you have to do
is to listen to Madam Albright. Well, Albright's severity is quite
appropriate in dealing with recalcitrant foes.  When Caryl Emerson applies
the same approach toward Russian scholars it strikes me as being a little
misguided.
    First, she lays down the law: laws of infinalizability jointly
discovered
    by Morson - Emerson are just as inescapable as the laws of gravity.
Second, she wants respect, respect and eshe raz respect.  Those who do not
respect will be penalized. And some people say that Russian culture is based
on authority. In fact, Russians are quite iconoclastic. I thought everyone
knew that.
    Referring back to Amy Mandelker's letter. I never said that Emerson was
opportunistic in joining the Bakhtin cult in the West. That's not the point.
The point is that her whole discourse became so antithetical to Bakhtin's
sensibilities that her latest transformation was simply  inevitable.


Dmitry Khanin

----- Original Message -----
From: Amy Mandelker <AMandelker at aol.com>
To: <SEELANGS at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 1999 9:12 PM
Subject: Re: Trashing Caryl Emerson's recent book on Bakhtin?


> With all due respect to those who have written on this topic, I think it
is
> important to set the record straight in at least one particular.  Dmitry
> Khanin alleges that Caryl Emerson built her career by exploiting an
existing
> trend in Western scholarship, insinuating that her work on Bakhtin has
been
> motivated throughout by an opportunistic careerism.  In fact, Caryl
Emerson
> is largely responsible for the fact that Western non-specialists can read
> Bakhtin at all.  Early in her career, before the vogue in Bakhtin had
caught
> on, she devoted herself to translation work which, as most American
scholars
> are aware, involves some professional risk for a junior scholar (as
> translations do not "count" for tenure).  Producing translations and
editions
> is, in any case, a somewhat thankless task, as Pushkin reminds us, carried
> out by the "cart-horses of civilization."  While I agree with Andrew
> Wachtel's irenic observation that critiques of scholarship are certainly
> appropriate and, indeed, necessary to the profession, I would like to
> interject advice given to me as a graduate student:  Professor Victor
Terras
> trained us to think rigorously and critique ruthlessly, but always to
evince
> respect for the scholar as a person and an individual.  Dmitry Khanin
> attributes base personal motives to a revisionist scholarly interpretation
> ("now when it is no longer cool to be a Bakhtin scholar, she `gleefully'
gave
> a kick to her old master") without exploring in any depth the theoretical
> complexities of Emerson's argument.  On a professional forum, such
derogatory
> and unscholarly remarks must surely be out of place.
>
> Amy Mandelker
> Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
> The Graduate School of the City University of New York