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Throughout this work I have tried hard not to categorize Bakhtin under one heading. I believe that Bakhtin's neo-Kantian roots fed his interest in religion, ethics, literature, and science. Such a combination is sometimes hard to recognize. What I want to propose is not a new Bakhtin, but a way of conceptualizing Bakhtin's theory on a larger scale. I feel that Bakhtin's theory can be best categorized as a theory of becoming. There are numerous examples of this idea throughout Bakhtin's work, including many from his later writings. I believe that this characterization of Bakhtin's theory is fair as it remains within the general focus of Bakhtin's work and remains consistent with what Holquist feels, and I agree, is Bakhtin's philosophical point of departure, Neo-Kantianism.
According to Pam Morris, who has compiled a volume on the work of the Bakhtin Circle, becoming is described by Bakhtin in the following manner: "Being must be a process of becoming, a discovery and generation of meaning to be attained in the absolute future" (1994, 246). Bakhtinian scholars Ken Hirschkop and David Shepherd give alternative definitions for the word that Bakhtin uses for becoming (stanovlenie): coming-to-be, development, emergence, evolution, formation, generation, generative process, psychological evolution, spirit of process (1989, 192). All of these terms carry some pointer towards the future, some as-yet unfulfilled potentiality. They show that being, as Morris frames her definition, is not static but a continuing process--"a discovery and generation of meaning," not conformity of existing meaning. Because of this, and because of Bakhtin's insistence that individuals are always free to change, it makes it hard for a researcher to say anything definite about a person or event and, even when a definitive statement has been made, to be completely sure of that statement.
Becoming ties together the architectonic approach and the subject. Both point to the future, to the ability to change, to the right to do so. Each of the chapters in this dissertation, while emphasizing the architectonic and the subject, are undergirded by this idea of becoming. In this conclusion, I will emphasize how genre, parody and chronotope further the idea of becoming and how they contribute to the cultural studies project.
Genre is an open-ended discourse. Authors can draw relationships with earlier texts within a genre, thus making genre an architectonic concept. The author assumes "the eyes of the genre" to see his or her contemporary space-time through a specific genre or world view. The author is assuming a position to her/his historical and geographical period. It is only through the relationships that an author forms with the literary/media tradition and with the contemporaneity that any kind of productive work may be allowed.
An author always renews the archaic elements within a genre in her/his own time. Genres can never be closed or completed--they leave themselves open to the future. There can always be one more word said about or one more text added to a genre. The television sitcom is a good example of this--new sitcoms are being planned every day that borrow from the older, more established sitcoms. The genre is renewed by this constant borrowing.
The new Menippea offers another example of this. The new Menippea results from the intersection of a particular time with a particular space (in the case of Oprah, our present time with our present space). These two forces allow what can be said about an issue and how those issues can be raised.
The cultural studies project does not fully recognize the impact of time. John Fiske states that "[t]hinking about television generically requires us to prioritize the similarities between programs rather than their individual differences, The conventions shared between programs or series in a genre are often disparaged by being referred to as �a formula,' and popular art is then labeled �formula art'" (1987, 110). Throughout his discussion of genre, Fiske repeatedly uses spatial metaphors--"network" (111) and "as an agreed code that links" (112). Time is only recent time or the time it takes from production to recpetion. The cultural studies project focuses on contemporaneous texts and does not look at 1) the larger generic context (how the same forms appear in earlier, even ancient, texts) and 2) the way genres are renewed not only in space but also through time. By focusing on the former, the cultural studies project could show the influence of older forms and by focusing on the latter the project could move past a technological critique of television.
The technological critique views television as a medium of reproductions. This claim is so established that its validity cannot be debated. Television is a mass medium--it reproduces ideology, form and images to millions of households in a single night. Looking at how television not only reproduces forms but how it renews the forms will help to expand our knowledge of both television and culture.
Parody is the relationship between discourses. Since parody requires two discourses, it must be considered architectonic in nature. With this view of parody, the act of reading becomes active--one must recognize the tertiary relationship (the relationship between discourses) and then find the "older" discourse. Because parody reaches backward and forward, it is always exists in an open-ended relationship.
While parody may sound like a spatial relationship, it also has an implicit time element. Any parodying text must look backward in time to find a text to parody. In looking back, the parodying text destroys the distance between itself and the object being parodied. Parody, by its very nature, is anachronistic--it always breaks the temporal plane. The cultural studies project does not deal with this type of relationship. The cultural studies project deals more with spatial than temporal relationships. Because of this spatial bias, the project misses some of the commentary as the parodied object is renewed in the present time. Adding the element of time gives a richer understanding of the parody that is taking place.
Chronotopes (the time-space grouping) change, evolve and transform in order to meet the space-time in which they appear. There is always a constant push into the future. Chronotopes are volatile because of their rapid pace of change. They also provide a context for the architectonic. Chronotopes are necessary for all architectonic activity since chronotopes underlie how we can view the world--without the backdrop of space and time (height and width being the other two of the four dimensions), nothing could be perceived. Chronotopes have an active role in shaping and influencing what is perceived within the world. They are both a limiting and expanding factor. For example, the re-Galilean maps of stars and planets are quite different from the current maps of stars and planets. It is only after Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter that a second, non Earth centered system can be imagined. Thoughts, ideas and representations change when the systems of thought change.
In this way, Bakhtin's theories do not differ radically from theorists already used in the cultural studies project. Bakhtin shares much with Gramsci. Gramsci, like Bakhtin, sees multiple ideologies present in a society, but states that one ideology asserts itself, usually in times of crisis. For example, Galileo's "discovering" the moons of Jupiter caused a revolution within the Roman Catholic Church that eventually forced it to change its teachings.
Sometimes ideologies establish enough of a coalition that they are able to become the ruling class. Bakhtin also uses a crisis, the crisis which overthrew the "hierarchical" language of Europe. Crisis destroys both political hegemony and linguistic hegemony, making these systems, at least temporarily, more dialogic.
What, then, does this mean for the cultural studies project? First, that a better conception of the subject is needed. This subject, like Bakhtin's subject, needs to be a concrete individual, not a theoretical entity. Then, and only then, will there be a better grasp on ideology and how it is internalized. Second, there needs to be a better conception of interrelationships, specifically of form, content and material. Individual creativity can only be understood by looking at how these three items always appear together. This will open up the conception of the text as more than simply the re- articulation of ideology.
What Bakhtin brings to the table is a new conception of the ought. Bakhtin's ought is constituted in the particular and specific event and developed socially. Universals present in the ought are articulated through ideologies that an individual has internalized. The ought undergoes the same centripetal and centrifugal forces as language. Without the ought, Bakhtin would run the risk of falling into relativism--each individual would develop a completely different reading of a text based upon his or her life experiences. The ought allows individuals to have a "shared ground" of discourses and ideologies that help interpret the text.
Bakhtin's theories are not incompatible with the cultural studies project. His ideas can add to the methods and knowledge of the project. However, Bakhtin needs to be read on his own terms, as a thinker who was initially influenced by Kant and Cohen and who used an architectonic approach. Attempts to create a "carnival" Bakhtin, a "dialectical" Bakhtin or a "post-modern" Bakhtin will result in a reading that is full of contradictions and problems.
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