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POSSIBILITIES OF LIBERATION IN DIALOGUE:
A CRITICAL INTERPRETATION OF HOOKS AND BAKHTIN

By
Alexandra Lynn Stotts

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Philosophy

1992

ABSTRACT

POSSIBILITIES OF LIBERATION IN DIALOGUE:
A CRITICAL INTERPRETATION OF HOOKS AND BAKHTIN

BY

Alexandra Lynn Stotts

lrhis work examines some of the technical elements of
Mikhail Bakhtin's rather complex theory of language
concentrating on establishing a basic understanding of
Bakhtin's notions of "dialogic', "utterance", and “speech
genres". I offer an account of why bell hooks prescribes
dialogue between women and men as the next important step in
women's liberation including my own responses to hooks'
analysis of the need for and usefulness of this next step.
Fueled by Bakhtin's theory, I contest that hooks has
oversimplified the problem in two important ways. I explore
the tension between the sorts of ideal dialogues Bakhtin has
in mind with actual sample conversations implying that
dialogue itself does not guarantee the kind of recognition of
female subjectivity that hooks wants. Also, I account for
some strategies hooks offers to get dialogue between women and
men off the ground. I find this element of hooks' "solution"
useful because it helps us imagine contexts for critical
dialogue to flourish. I also link up hooks' vision of such

contexts with Bakhtin's concept of speech genre.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the guidance and support of Michigan
State University Department of Philosophy faculty Stephen
Bsquith, Marilyn Frye, Judith Andre and Visiting Professor
Mark Risjord. I also wish to thank Thomas Bailey for his
continued encouragement and patience in producing this work.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2393

IntrOductionOCOCCOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOOOO00.00.00.000...

1

I. Bakhtin's Theory Of mnguagOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 4

A.

C.

D.

How is mkhtin unique? 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O .
utteranceOOOOOIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....00...
Function of utterance in Dialogue.................

speeCh GenreSOOO0.0.00.0.0000...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

II. Bell Hooks' Use of Dialogue..........................

A.

”oaks Next stepOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Responses to HOORSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0000000000000000

III. conCIusorYRemarkBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

iii

5

10

12

15

20

22

23

34

INTRODUCTION

The work in this paper stems from my fascination with how
theories of language allow us to understand the patriarchal
context in which we live. I believe that such theories are
valuable in several ways. It is through our relationship with
language that we give expression to our experience of the
world around us. Hetaphorically understood, language is a
lens with which we toy, adjust, and look through to make sense
of and assign meaning to our experiences. Like the lens of a
camera, there are many variables required in achieving focus.
And when all the variables match up just so in that one split-
second, we occasionally snap that perfect picture. The
picture of the world as we see it.

With this in mind, I have chosen to begin this discussion
with the works of bell hooks, the Black feminist cultural
critic and Mikhail Bakhtin, the Soviet language theorist.
This paper is not a defense of either thinker. Rather, it is
an attempt at understanding communicative acts between women
and men living in a pervading patriarchal state. More
specifically, it is an examination of the possibility of
liberation from male oppression existing in such dialogue. I

must confess that the results of this examination do not

2

inspire optimism. But, I remain convinced that theories of
language give us one way of scrutinizing the inner workings of
dialogue. Beyond any semantic conception of language, we can
get an account of the ways in which we use language and what
that use reveals about ourselves. We can get a glimpse into
what it might mean for dialogue to become a useful and
important means of ending women's oppression. It is in that
glimpse where I find hope.

In NEWER. bell
hooks discusses the importance of speech as a tool for
liberation: liberation from racial and gender oppression.

Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed,

the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and

struggle side by side, a gesture of defiance that heals,
makes new life and new growth possible. (hooks, 1989,

FM”

The acts of speaking about and giving voice to one's own
oppression and liberation are important and personally
familiar to hooks as a black feminist committed to radical
social change. Like many women with similar commitments, bell
hooks does not always receive positive acclaim for giving
voice to her feminist concerns. She notes that as a black
woman she is often regarded by ”black folks” as.being "uppity"
and a "trouble-maker".

In the world of the southern black community I grew

up in, 'back talk' and 'talking back' meant speaking

as an equal to an authority figure. It meant daring to

disagree and sometimes it just meant having an opinion.

(hooks, 1989, p.5)

Some recognize this childhood sanction against talking back,

but may label it "mouthing off", ”giving lip" or "sassing

3
back". In any case, such a negative response is frequently
the first experience or memory we have of disagreeing with
those in power (i.e. , parents or care-givers) . Even as eager
to please as we often are as children, many of us "talk back"
again and again until either we are recognized or we learn to
be quiet.

Once out of the domain of our parents and in school and
other new environments, we are again confronted with sanctions
against challenging authority. This is especially true if you
are female and black. Young girls are conditioned to behave
according to the white patriarchal values of malestream
America. This is reflected in speech in at least two ways.
A young black girl learns when and where to speak proper
English and she learns when to remain silent.

But by observing and partaking in the "women-talk” around
her as a child, hooks learned the value and the power of
speech. Rather than being shut-down or shut-up, she became
fluent in the language of the predominantly white academy
while still retaining the language of ”black folks". She
discovered new ways of expressing her ideas and getting across
her message: ”We will not be silenced." We as women, we as
black people and most specifically for hooks we as black women
will not be made silent and forced to comply with the values

of the hegemonic1 white, patriarchal culture.

 

1Following hooks' lead, I use the terms hegemonic and dominant
as roughly synonymous terms. By both I mean that people in such
structures have restrictions and limitations placed upon them which
work to suppress their agency. Hence, when using the word

4

In this paper, I hope to demonstrate that hooks is onto
something important in her appeal to speech as a means of
liberation although she understates the complexity of this
kind of dialogue. She is also mistaken in her assertion that
it is women who must make such dialogue happen. Women have
tried to carry out conversations addressing male domination
but remain stymied by men who refuse to acknowledge them as
subjects. To carry out this task, I will begin with a brief
discussion of some of the key elements in Bakhtin's theory of
language which I believe can shed considerable light on this
matter.
I. BAKHTIN'S THEORY OF LANGUAGE

Bakhtin's theory of language has enjoyed an increasing
popularity since his death in 1975. His concepts of dialogue
and difference have been applied primarily in comparative
literature. But, beyond its literary applications his
concepts of dialogic speech genres and utterances which
address difference can be used as part of a liberatory
technique for undermining hegemonic discourse. The
fascination Bakhtin had with difference and the dialogic can
enhance our recognition, in others and ourselves, of the
various voices of race, class and gender. While Bakhtin never
specifically addresses issues of race and gender and seems
merely to toy with the idea of class in his works, his

concepts of dialogue, voice and utterance readily lend

 

hegemonic I mean that which has come to be dominant and which
oppresses, exploits, coerces and enslaves.

5
themselves to these concerns. Moreover, his theory of
language seems to be headed in the right direction because he
points out the powerful nature of language in an wide variety
of contexts.

In this section of the paper, I will elucidate some of
the key’ elements of‘ Bakhtin's rather' complex ‘theory' of
language. First, I will explain how his conceptualization of
language sharply breaks with the traditional way in which
language was regarded and analyzed. Then, I will set forth
Bakhtin's notions of utterance and speech genre and how they
are useful in analyzing dialogue between women and men.

a. low is Bakhtin unique?

In part, Bakhtin develops his theory as a response to
nineteenth century linguists such as Saussure, Vossler and von
Humboldt. While unable to deny the idea that language is
communicative action, they all proposed.monological?*views of
language. Over time, two marked camps among the linguists
developed: 1) the abstract objectivists and 2) the individual
subjectivists. Ferdinand de Saussure is an abstract
objectivist and. holds that language is a formal system
comprised of rules that the speaker must follow and does not
have an active part in changing. Linguistic analysis of this
variety focused not on how the individual made use of the
system of language but instead on the system itself and its

formal rules. In contrast, Karl Vossler recommends an

 

2See below, p.6, for a fuller explanation of this term and its
opposite, dialogical.

6

approach which emphasizes the creativity of language rather
than its rules. On this view, speakers are able to manipulate
language to express their thoughts and opinions. Still others
like Wilhelm von Humboldt saw the importance of language in
terms of its ability to enable a person to reflect and
introspect while the communicative function is noted as an
interesting secondary feature or side-effect.

Bakhtin finds his most serious opposition in Saussure.
Put simply, Saussure relies on "...the systematic aspect of a
language as it exists in one moment of time without
considering its history." (Clark.& Holquist, 1984, p.221) For
Saussure, language exists in a kind of timeless vacuum.
Language serves as a differential system of signs which we use
to express our ideas, our feelings and our experiences.
Through language we can comment on our history, our social
context and our reality, but our language remains unaffected
by these elements. It is suspended in time and is cut off
from the reality about which it communicates. No matter how
vivid and expressive the language, it is, by Saussure's
account, dead. From this perspective, language amounts merely
to a complicated system of rules and signs.

Today, this kind of Saussurian approach to language is
regarded as somewhat archaic. Now, most language philosophers
quickly recognize that meaning is not contained exclusively in
‘words and rules of‘ grammatical structure. But, during
Saussure's heyday to analyze a language meant to look at it

from the point of view of a linguist (i.e., to study it in

7
terms of phonemes, syntax and grammar) . Bakhtin was so
resolutely against this approach that he named the subject of
his theoretical investigations "communication” rather than
language. Bakhtin contends that to treat language as a kind
of antiseptic, linguistic exercise unencumbered by the social
context in which it occurs is an artificial and unproductive
way of trying to understand how language works.

Bakhtin convincingly argues that language does not
transcend the experiences of reality but rather is affected by
it as we seek to give expression to that experience.
Historical, social and political contexts are inextricably
bound up in language. The words themselves as symbols or
signs tell us little. But the words imbued with the speaker's
own unique situatedness in the world create meaning for us.

Instead, Bakhtin offers the utterance as the basic
element of dialogue. It is through.the utterance as a unit of
speech communication that Bakhtin demonstrates what he
believes is the true dialogical nature of language. His
emphasis on the utterance and speech genre arises out of his
belief that language is a product of society and not external
to it.

Before I analyze Bakhtin's conception of an utterance,
let me first examine the meaning and ontological assumptions

of dialogue or what is often termed dialogical or dialogism9.

 

3It has been remarked by many Bakhtin scholars that Bakhtin
himself never used the word 'dialogism' although it is often
attributed to him.

8

One way of doing so is to contrast dialogue with its opposite,
monologue. monologue is not just one person talking aloud.
Rather, it expresses a particular kind of perspective on the
world. To engage in a monologue is to see one's self as the
subject and all other agents as relational objects. The self's
identity is thought to be self-defined. Charles Taylor notes
that such a person would be interpreted as an agent who is
understood

...not primarily as the locus of representations, but

as engaged in practices, as a being who acts in and on

the world. (Taylor, 1991, p.308)

Honologism as an approach is one which centers on individual
subjects who apprehend their world and act upon it completely
independently of others as co-speakers. Henologism concen-
trates on a 'pre-packaged' or completely formed self,
generally unaffected by others which understands and interacts
with the world as an integral whole.

Similarly for Bakhtin, dialogue is not just the simple
case of two or more people conversing. More fully understood,
dialogue is

...the extensive set of conditions that are immediate-

ly modeled in any actual exchange between two (or more)

persons but are not exhausted in such an exchange. Ulti-
mately, dialogue means communication between simultaneous

differences. (Clark & Holquist, 1984, p.9)

A dialogical act, then, is one in which the agent's

perceptions and actions simultaneously take into account the

perception and action.of others and.the world around her/him.

9
An.agent exists not as an observer but as an "integrated, non-
individual agent.” The social realms in which we exist are
impacted upon or shaped by us and, reciprocally, impact upon
and. shape us. ‘We influence our spheres of activity and.they,
in turn, influence us.

...[OJur identity is never simply defined in terms of

our individual properties. It also places us in a

social space. We define ourselves partly in terms of

what we come to accept as our appropriate place within

dialogical actions. (Taylor, 1991, p.311)

Moreover, as a self, the agent recognizes other internalized
voices which may express pain, needs, likes or desires. These
other voices shape and define who the agent is.

Reasoning about language dialogically is a way of taking
into account the rich diversity, heterogeneity and possibility
in the world around us. It expresses not one meaning but the
potentiality of there being multiple meanings in an utterance.
Dialogism strips away the assumption that Meaning or Truth is
potentially determined by some authoritative figure even if
that figure monopolizes the exchange. Rather, dialogism
acknowledges and revels in the mmltifarious viewpoints and
interpretations found in all human perspectives. Understood in
this way, Meaning or Truth is contextual and as such, we
"author" each other' 3 Meaning and Truth. We make joint
contributions and each contribution is important, just as each
stroke of paint can be thought of as contributing to the whole
painting. Dialogue also acts as a bridge which links us to

all of our particular pasts and presents and all the

10
possibilities of meanings which exist therein. This exchange
among possibilities is achievable through the utterance.
B. utterance
Bakhtin holds that the utterance is the key concept for
understanding language as a communicative process. To
understand the significance Bakhtin attaches to the utterance
we must first comprehend what it is. It is important to keep
in mind that the utterance is not monological, rather it
...is a link in the chain of speech communication,
and cannot be broken off from the preceding links
that determined it both from ‘within and from
without, giving rise within it to unmediated
responsive re-actions and dialogic reverberations.
(Bakhtin, 1986, p.94)
The Bakhtinian utterance is dialogic precisely
in the degree to which every aspect of it is a
give-and-take... (Bakhtin, 1981, p.60)
It is not the product of an active speaker acting upon a
passive listener. Contrary to the linguistic trends of the
time, Bakhtin conceived of the utterance as a dialogical mode
of communication between the speaker and the listener who are
both astiygly participating in the communicative process.
While it is true that the utterance is a vehicle of
individual expression for the speaker, the listener is vital
in the formation of that utterance. When understanding takes
place, it is through the direct communication of at least two
participants. All true or real understanding is necessarily
actively responsive. Through this give-and—take process a

listener perceives and understands the meaning of what the

speaker says and gives a response. This active response may

11
take on any of’a:number'of'different.degrees and forms such as
simple acknowledgment, vehement dissent, hearty concurrence,
disbelief, etc.

Furthermore, in the communicative dynamic between the
speaker and the listener, the speaker expects the listener to
be, in some way, responsive. An utterance is always a
response to a previous utterance. So that when A gives a
response, B responds and, in turn, then A responds, and so on.

...[A]n utterance is never in itself originary:

an utterance is always an answer. It is always

an answer to another utterance that precedes it...

(Bakhtin, 1981, p.60)
This need for another person to whom to respond takes the
primacy away from the subj ect/ speaker because without the
listener there can be no dialogue. Dialogue establishes a
kind of unity or bond between the participants through their
active communication.‘

Because the utterance is a social phenomenon, it occurs
not in a vacuum but in specific contexts. Utterances take
place among a wide variety of participants involved in richly
diverse areas of life or "human activity”.

...[T]he very individual manipulation of this social

sign in a concrete utterance is wholly determined by

social relations...The immediate social situation and
the broader social milieu wholly determine - and

 

‘Indeed, Bakhtin's writings are themselves dialogical in the
sense that they are his responses to those who have addressed
theories of language before him.

12

determine from within so to speak - the structure of an
utterance. (VOlosino , 1973, p.86)

Utterances as a product or composite of human reality
reflect a particular area or slice of life by its style,
content and composition. What is said and how it is said are
determined by the social factors unique to the participants.
As Clark and Holquist note,

Instead of possessing a Leibnizian timelessness and

a Cartesian logic, Bakhtin insists, language always

partakes of the messiness of history and the vagaries

of individual performance. Language is found not in

a Platonic dream of order but in the hurly-burly, the

give and take of speech in everyday life: 'The actual

reality of language - speech - is not the abstract system
of linguistic norms. . .and not the psychophysiological act
of its implementation, but the social event of verbal
interaction implemented in an utterance.‘ (Clark &

Holquist, 1934, p.221)

C. Function of utterance in dialogue

As noted before, Bakhtin contends that speech analyzed in
traditional linguistic terms such as sentences, syllables or
phonemes is insufficient and leads to confusion in attempts to
understand how communication operates. Alternatively,
Bakhtin argues that utterances and their content and
composition, tell us much.more about communication. Dialogue
is comprised of utterances and they

...have common structural features as units of

speech communication and, above all, quite clear
-cut boundaries. (Bakhtin, 1986, p.71)

 

5Based on the research with which I am familiar, I hold the
opinion that Bakhtin published two of his works under the name of
his colleague, Valetin Volosinov, although this point remains
controversial. In any event, the two often extensively collaborated
and seemed to have shared a profound unity in their ideas.

13

In part, the utterance functions formally as a unit of
speech that designates beginnings and ends in conversation.
It acts as an indicator that allows for a change in the
speaking subjects. The end of one speaker' s utterance marks
the beginning of another speaker's utterance. This
facilitates dialogue by first yielding the floor to one
speaker and then to the next. Each utterance is related to
the next in that they are responses to each other. When the
speaker has concluded all that s/he wishes to say and has
finalized the utterance, there exists the possibility of
response. Without this finalization, the utterance is
incomplete; only to whole utterances can responses be given.
Bakhtin points out that a whole utterance should not be
confused with a grammatically complete sentence. Rather a
whole utterance is one with a beginning and an end that allows
for response.‘

Less formally, yet most importantly, the function of the
utterance in dialogue is as a vehicle of personal expression.
The study of utterances, in turn, is significant because of
what they reveal about the speaker. When analyzing
communication through the utterance we glean expressive
elements that cannot be obtained from the perspective of
language as a system. Personal self-expression of the speaker

comes through in the utterance. Bakhtin points out that, in

 

‘For a more detailed account of what constitutes a ”whole

utterance”. see Bakhtin's s2eesh_Qenres.£_9tner_Late_£§§axs. pp-
75-32

14
sharp contrast to the conception of the utterance as a speech
unit, traditional linguistics erroneously reduces language to
units which. have no» expressive content and. provides no
analysis of expressive intonations beyond semantics.

Through means of intonation, word choice, ”side-long
glances” "loopholes” and the context in which they are spoken,
utterances express the attitudes and disposition of the
speaker. This expressivity is important if ‘we are to
understand the speaker's attitude toward the topic of which
s/he is speaking as well as toward the person/s addressed.
Moreover, analysis of the dialogue through use of the
utterance allows awareness of a person's prejudices, values
and beliefs and recognition of the spheres of human activity
in which s/he is involved politically, socially, and
culturally. It reveals from what point of view a person
speaks and sometimes how s/he should be spoken to. Utterances
provide us with the social and historical content to
understand the speaker and her/his words.

Our utterances are born in response to others'
utterances. The way in which we speak is shaped by the speech
genres available to us and the choices among them we make.
Our expression of our thoughts and ideas cannot help but
reflect their social nature and if we are to understand these
expressions it must be in Bakhtinian terms which uncover'what

traditional linguistics cannot.

15
D. Speech Genres

Within each sphere of life speech genres or ”relatively
stable types of these utterances” develop. (Bakhtin, 1986,
p.60) Some common speech genres include short rejoinders in
daily conversation, military commands, commentaries,
scientific statements and research, business writing and
documents, and literary genres’.

Bakhtin places heavy emphasis on the fact that speech
genres are incredibly heterogeneous. This high degree of
heterogeneity arises from the numerous forms of human activity
and within each sphere of activity lies an entire menu of
speech genres which constantly grow and mutate. In fact,
speech genres appear so dauntingly heterogeneous that they
seem virtually impossible to analyze in any systematic way.
However, Bakhtin argues that it is possible to classify speech
genres into two separate types. It is through the analysis of
these two types and the study of their interrelationship that
we can better understand the utterance. Utterances are chosen
in a sea of virtually unlimited contexts but are still
analyzable in terms of their particular speech genres. Hence,
more important than the words or signs themselves are the
speech genres found in the dialogue. It is the speech genres

that allow for meaning to be conveyed between two or more

people.

 

5It should be noted that literary genres is a sub-category of
the category speech genres which includes both oral and written
forms.

16

Bakhtin divides speech genres into primary (simple) and
secondary(complex). Secondary speech genres are comprised of
”artistic, scientific and sociopolitical" utterances found in
commentaries, scientific research, philosophic journals,
novels and the like. Primary speech genres are utterances
commonly found, for example, in daily conversation and
ordinary correspondence. Commonplace primary speech genres
are more closely grounded in reality on a day-to-day basis and
to the utterances of others in everyday life. The two are
intertwined to the extent that the primary get integrated
during the construction of the secondary. Because of this
process, the primary genres are transformed and in this new
capacity lose their immediacy or direct connection to reality.
Their link to reality diminishes as they get twisted and
mutated in the formation of secondary genres.

As Bakhtin notes, not all genres serve equally well for
individual expression. While utterances can convey the
uniqueness of the speaker, it is possible mainly in the
artistic genres. Some genres work to rule out personal
expression in the name of efficiency or discipline. Two such
genres are military commands and business protocols. Bureau-
cratic institutions, for instance, with their triplicate forms
and procedural hoop-jumping allow ‘very little room for
individual voice or expression. In fact, Bakhtin goes so far
as to say that "...in the vast majority of speech genres...

individual style doesn't enter into the intent of the

17
utterance, . . . but is one of its by-products. " (Bakhtin, 1986,
p.63) (emphasis mine).

Perhaps a conceptual sketch of exchanged utterances
reflecting two different speech genres will serve to provide
clarity on this point. Imagine a man and a woman engaged in
a discussion about pornography.

SHE: " . . .Porno magazines encourage men to rape and

torture women. This hurts all women because it sends
a message to men that it is 0.x. to rape and that
women enjoy it.”

HE: " Those women are paid. They receive economic

compensation for their services...you can't prove

they don't enjoy it."

SHE: " That doesn't mean other women don't suffer because
of men who rape them as the magazine depicts!"

HE: " Where is your empirical data? You can't make such
a claim without giving concrete statistics. Your
whole supposition is fallacious!"

SHE: ” How fallacious is it to assume that the woman who
was brutally beaten and raped on campus last week
because just such a scenario was graphically
portrayed in this month's issue of 'Hot and Now'?”

HE: " YOu can't prove that, your inference is purely
circumstantial...“

This example illustrate two participants in a dialogue
making use of different speech genres. His is a secondary
genre which relies on abstract and antiseptic words that could
be associated with scientific investigation, business or
academia. Hers is a primary genre reflecting ordinary daily
parlance. His demand for "empirical data" and "concrete
statistics” while claiming her argument is ”purely
circumstantial" obscures the very things which she is

attempting to point out - the actual harm and violence done to

18

women. Even though they are talking about the same topic,
their choices of vocabulary indicates their reliance on their
respective genres . His is a dependence upon objective
positivistic scientific categorizations. This suggests
something about him. Namely, he is operating with an
authoritative discourse‘ that presupposes a certain
hierarchical order which subordinates the pain and degradation
of women in favor of data. Data.must first be obtained.before
any consideration can be made of his counterpart's claims
about women's experience.

Bakhtin's notions of authoritative and internally
persuasive discourse provide us with another dimension of
dialogue between women and men where communication, taking
place at the level of subject to subject, can go awry. In
other words, even if dialogue between women and men has
managed to get off the ground, it does not necessarily mean
that it is unproblematic. While Bakhtin asserts that all
exchanges have dialogic overtones or dialogic possibilities,
he points out that within speech genres there are implicit
appeals to authority being made. The upshot of authoritative
discourse is that it closes down the possibility of dialogue.
Authoritative discourse does not allow for the freeplay
exchange of ideas nor does it welcome challenges to or

interpretations of its authority. As Bakhtin writes,

 

9A discussion of authoritative discourse will be brought out
in Section II of this paper.

19

...[A]nthoritative discourse permits no play with

the context framing it, no play with its borders,

no gradual and flexible transitions, no spontaneously

creative stylizing variants on it...one must either

totally affirm it or totally reject it. It is indis-
solubly fused with its authority - with political power,

an institution, a person..." (Bakhtin, 1981, p.343)
Speech genres that bear the stamp of authoritative discourse
include religious doctrine, scientific truth and legal codes.
Such discourse can be thought to be externally compelling. If
one embraces authority or the authoritativeness of those
claiming a particular discourse as such, one does not do so in
virtue of any ”power that it might have to persuade us
internally...”(Bakhtin, 1981, p.342)

Diametrically opposed, to authoritative discourse is
Bakhtin's notion of internally persuasive discourse. The
internally persuasive discourse is characterized by

...its unfinishedness and inexhaustibility of our

further dialogic interaction with it. We have not

yet learned from it all it might tell us: we can take

it into new contexts, attach it to new material, put

it in a new situation in order to wrest new answers

from it, new insights into its meaning...

Internally persuasive discourse allows for new information and
contexts to modify meaning and does not have an unyielding
grip on a single interpretation.

Keep in mind the example of the woman and man in a
conversation about pornography. In this case, the man makes
his claims by appealing to a form of authoritative discourse.
On one level, he rests his argument that pornography has no

negative effects on women on the need for all claims to be

made in keeping with the scientific method. His need for her

20
to prove her argument with "empirical data" , "concrete
statistics" and his contention that her inference is "purely
circumstantial” indicates his unquestioning acceptance of the
scientific tenet that all claims about the world must be
supported empirically. It is important to note here that his
authoritative discourse is not internally persuasive. It does
not give us any new insights into the practice of pornography,
rather, it marks out a limitation of applying the scientific
method. Nevertheless, its authority in uncontestable in the
mind of the speaker who uses it.

Through analyzing a potential subj ect-to-subj ect
dialogue, it is clear that communication can break down on two
levels: 1) by relying on secondary genres which obscure the
topic at hand with abstract language and 2) by framing the
problem in an authoritative discourse that allows for no real
discussion of the topic at hand. The sample dialogue which has
been considered herein sets forth two of the ways Bakhtin
claims that the notion of speech genres help to clarify
exactly what is taking place in communication in ways which an
abstract objectivist's semantical analysis cannot provide.
11. BELL HOOKS' USE OF DIALOGUE

Now let us again turn our attention to bell hooks. In
”Feminist Focus on Men" hooks speaks of the absolute need she
sees for women to use their voices to communicate to and
confront men about the politics of oppression and domination
in the patriarchal society in which we all live. She
acknowledges the degree of difficulty in making oneself heard

21

and the feelings of frustration and powerlessness that are
encountered when trying to do so. Nevertheless, she contends
that this task.is of the utmost importance. It is a necessary
part of the rebellion against male domination. This
vocalization by women must address women's experience of men
as oppressors. Women's voices must be heard, understood and
acknowledged by men.

At first, this may sound counter-intuitive. As hooks
points out, the early wave of feminism.and the consciousness-
raising that occurred therein sought to exclude men so that
women could better hear each other's voices and concerns. The
talk of women. Women's talk. Unbridled and free from the
watchful eye of fathers, husbands, brother' s and lovers, women
created

... a space for women to bear witness to the pain

of exploitation and oppression in male-dominated

society. (hooks, 1989, p.129)

And, as hooks also notes, this initial stage in the feminist
movement was crucial. Crucial because this groundwork allows
for all the ensuing stages of feminist work. This work
provides a touchstone and creates a strong spiritual,
emotional, and intellectual base from which to challenge the
patriarchal world.

Yet, as hooks seems to want to note, it seems as if
feminist women's efforts and work in so many diverse areas
keeps slipping away. Gender discrimination and harassment

still exist, violence by men against women increases, hate

crimes against lesbian women continue, and reproductive

22

freedoms slip further and further away. Men seem content to
plod along in their same old misogynist ways. A few make
superficial concessions about being careful to change their
habitual use of male pronouns, others rally for abortion
rights while still others are convinced that feminists are
nothing but ”a bunch of man-hating dykes'.

A. Eocks' last step

To overcome this, hooks believes that the next step,
which seems to be somehow side-tracked, is the

...confrontation between women and men, the sharing

of this new and radical speech. Women speaking to men

in a liberated voice. (hooks, 1989, p.129)

According to hooks, what this liberated voice requires is
agency and women speaking as subjects instead of from the
point of view of objects. Women refusing to be silent.

But what does this claim mean? Bearing this need to speak
as subjects in mind, let us consider what a subject is as
distinguished from an object. For hooks, silence is the mark
of the object. Silence signifies

...exploitation, oppression, dehumanization. Silence

is the condition of one who has been dominated, made

an object. (hooks, 1989, p.139)

Conversely, a subject is one who speaks. Speech or talk
indicates the free agency of the subject. It is through
speech that we can "resist and rebel" against all forms of

hegemonic thought. hooks contends that through speech, women

give voice to their experiences and are empowered. Those who

23
speak and break the barriers of silence are active as
subjects. Those forced to remain in silence are objects.
B. Responses to Hooks

While this subject-object distinction from hooks'
perspective seems accurate, it is important to note two
things: 1) that silence can be interpreted in other insightful
ways, and 2) as we have already seen, simply voicing one's
thoughts and experiences does not guarantee that subjecthood
will be admitted. First, the issue of women's silence. One
illuminating way of construing silence is in understanding
that women's silence not only marks the woman-as-object but
also acts as a red flag. According to Bakhtin, in a dialogic
exchange such silences can command our attention. They invite
our awareness of their presence. They are responses of a
certain kind. But, to understand.this point we must return to
Bakhtin's notion of the dialogical subject (self).

Broadly understood, the dialogical self is only a self
insofar as it is situated in speech in relation to others. The
existence of self is dependent in a specific sense on the
existence of the other. The self cannot exist independently.

The Bakhtinian self is never whole, since it can

exist only dialogically. It is not a substance or

essence in its own right but exists only in a tensile

relationship with all that is other and most important,

with other selves. (Clark 8 Holquist, 1984, p.65)

In a dialogue, the person engaged in speaking is a subject.
But in order for the dialogue to exist at all, there must be

at least one other person involved - another subject or self.

A speech act between the two subjects is only possible in

24

virtue of there being a speaker and a listener. So, when the
speaker says something it is received by the listener. In
this sense, even if the listener is virtually silent in
response, s/he is still an active subject as listener, as a
person or necessary other with whom the speaker communicates.
Silence is not the passivity of an object, but rather an
active non-response from a subject which itself carries
nuances and implications that can be read or interpreted.

Furthermore, in addressing hook's assertion that speaking
translates to being respected as a subject, I would argue that
there could exist a dialogical object with no subjectivity
whom the speaker-subject addresses. Consider the following
example of a dialogue between a husband and wife seated in a
cafe drinking cups of coffee and reading the local newspaper.
The woman stares at the travel section quietly sipping her
coffee while the man comments on the country's political state
of affairs. She fantasizes about brushing up on her Swedish
and moving, alone, to Stockholm. In her mind, she mentally
notes the money necessary for such a venture and imagines
various aspects of her new life there. Meanwhile, she listens
half-heartedly to her husband prattling on and on while barely
taking notice of her.

HE: " . . .sure, Clinton won the election but what now?. . . "

SHE: ”...hmll..."

HE: "...I mean, do you think he can do any better with
the 0.8. than 01' Bushie boy?...”

SHE: "..."

25
HE: "...of course, I s'pose the Democrats are a better
bet than another four years of Bush's dirty tricks.
At least, Clinton's willing to step up to
bat...seems to know what people want...like health
care, oh,...and abortion..."

SHE: "...mmm..."

At first blush, this lop-sided exchange of utterances
looks like a monologue or even a soliloquy. However, Bakhtin
would consider this communication to have dialogic overtones.
Examined through a Bakhtinian lens as a dialogue, the woman's
virtual silence can be regarded as a "talking back". She is
signifying not simply that she is dissatisfied with her
present life-situation by using fantasy, but her responses to
the man's political observations indicate to us some
possibilities. Namely, it is possible that she is bored to
death and uninterested in taking her’usual part as audience in
her husband's boorish behavior and really couldn't give two
cents about hearing her husband's opinion. Plausibly
understood in this way, her virtual silence does not indicate
passivity and acceptance'but, rather; a.purposive distancing.
This dialogue seems to give us grounds for concluding that the
woman, in this case, is being treated as a dialogical object
with no real subjectivity being acknowledged by the speaker.

This Bakhtinian perspective implies that hooks'
conclusion that women have been treated as objects by their
forced submission to be silent is a gross oversimplification

of the problem. When conceived through Bakhtin's notion of

subject-to—subject encounters, women's silence in dialogue is

26
an active response in the context of their own oppression.
Interpreted as such, women's silence is deafening.

Bakhtin' s stance on a subj ect-to-subj ect exchange enables
a break from the traditional interpretations of women' s
silence as timidity, unresponsiveness or preoccupation. It
allows an understanding of it as an active response to
oppression. We can, on the one hand, accept such an example as
a case of dialogue by Bakhtin's lights. After all, we have
just interpreted the woman's silence as an active non-response
to her husband's remarks. She acts as the respondent to whom
he directs his comments. On the other hand, it is not at all
apparent that the husband is taking his wife seriously as a
subject except, perhaps, in the most rudimentary way (i.e, as
the other to whom he is addressing). That is, it seems that
she could just as easily be the woman behind the counter
pulling down lattes, the anxious youth in the corner nervously
stirring his espresso or the blind woman's seeing-eye dog
lying below the next table.

We can also see that a new understanding of the
impossibility of there being a monological subject, since
dialogue requires another subject, does not preclude the
possibility of uneven or lop-sided dialogues. In fact,
chances are we encounter them on a daily basis.

The implication here is this. hooks prescribes dialogue
as a means for women's emancipatory liberation from
patriarchy. She claims that if women enter into subject-to-

subject dialogue with men there can be an exchange that will

27

benefit women. However, as hooks claims, entering into a
dialogue does not automatically ensure that women's
subj ecthood is respected. In this dramatization, the woman is
theoretically the subject to which the husband speaks, yet, he
does so with no apparent regard for her agency. Hence, hooks
is wrong in blithely assuming that dialogue is the key element
or next step in women's liberation. As in this case, women
involved in dialogue with men often end up as sounding boards
with their status as subjects recognized only to the extent
that it makes it possible to claim conversation occurs. This
does not mean that the speech act is inherently monological.
We know this because when we do recognize the meaning of her
silences, we can see that she is resisting as a subject.

Additionally, hooks suggests that one of the reasons that
this next step of critically addressing the topic of men, and
men themselves, has been avoided is because of a soar in our
collective consciousness as women. Women of all races,
classes, and sexual orientations have been repeatedly punished
into keeping silent. While we are no longer keeping quiet
amongst ourselves about the abuse, the oppression, and the
humiliation and have begun to confront men about these issues,
there is, according to hooks, a strange and eerie silence on
the subject of men. hooks contends that the history of
conditioning that has kept us silent has resulted in a
feminism that reflects that conditioning. Hence, we do not
easily or often voice our thoughts about men and even less

often do we share these thoughts with men. And with good

28
reason. We fear losing the power we have reclaimed for
ourselves. Because the very act of women speaking,
". . .carries embedded in that gesture a challenge, a threat to
male domination." (hooks, 1989, p.128) we have spoken
primarily amongst ourselves.

On this point, I hear many strong, indignant, beautiful
feminist voices of friends, colleagues and past generations
ringing in my head with objections to hooks. They entreat her
to define just what it is we have been doing all along if not
challenging our male oppressors. Haven't women created and
published a wide array of feminist scholarly, literary and
artistic works? Haven't we sought to destroy and re-define
the gender straitj ackets into which women and men have been
stuffed? Hasn't the lesbian-separatist movement proved that
we can and do flourish without men? Hearing these voices
gives comfort and strength in knowing what women have been
able to accomplish under the most grim and perilous social
conditions.

Indeed, contrary to what hooks suggests there has been
much critical discussion and feminist writing which addresses
the experience of being male and the subsequent high cost of
conventional masculinity. In fact, women have critically
called into question issues of patriarchal oppression that
defiantly break with this collective conditioning of which
hooks speaks. Moreover, women have done so in ways which have

sought to encourage men to reflect on their own experiences of

29

masculinity and to take part in critical dialogue about those
experiences.7

Finally, what seems to be the case is not as hooks has
suggested, that women need to dare to engage in critical
discussions with men about male oppression. Rather, what
seems more plausible is that men have not taken such female-
initiated dialogue seriously or that men themselves have not
dared to engage in such dialogue. It is not as if women
haven't made the effort to talk to men and engage them in
dialogue as they do their feminist sisters. In small part,
this effort to reach out to men has been somewhat successful
at times: a point which hooks never acknowledges. What seems
to be the problem is that men are extremely reluctant to take
part in dialogue which forces them to critically examine and
reflect upon their own lives and actions. If the husband in
the previous illustration were concerned about his wife as a
subject, he would try to understand the cause of her silence
rather than just blathering on. But, really investing her
with all the qualities of subjecthood would require him to
change his thinking and behavior.

I do not now wish to deny that hooks is on target when

she states that it is imperative

...that the exploited and oppressed speak to and
among ourselves, but it is equally essential that we

 

7For those interested in this work, I recommend reading Nancy

Chodorow' s U!‘ ;-- u! - ,. ,.- 8 ho . - s .1- ,
geciolegy e; Genger, 1978; John Stoltenberg' s Refusing te bea Men:
E§§e1a_2n_§ex_and_lustice 1939; and Bex2n§_£atriarshxi_fissaxs_hx

Een_2a_2lensurei_zoxer_and_£hsnse. 1987.

30

address without fear those who exploit, oppress and

dominate us. If women remain unable to speak to and

about men in a feminist voice then our challenge to male
domination on other fronts is seriously undermined.

(hooks, 1989, p.130)

It is my contention, and I believe it is also hooks', that it
is possible for women and men to engage in dialogue in which
we can communicate with each other about the ways in which the
politics of the domination of women harms women and is, as a
result, detrimental to both women and men. This is an
important step in men's recognition that by perpetuating the
ideologies and practices that subj ugate women they hurt
themselves as well. When men finally recognize this fact then
they can work to and violence against women as a way of
preserving themselves.

Implicit in this line of argument is how women and men as
subjects define themselves against one another. The feminist
movement came about because women were suffering at the hands
of men in male dominated societies. Women found themselves in
relation to men as the objects of physical and mental violence
of terrifying proportions. Women were and are treated as
objects by men who, through their "arrogant eyes"3, see this
objectification as appropriate and just.

As hooks herself has claimed, the proper role for women
brought up in a patriarchal system of language is one of

silence.

...the punishments for these acts of speech seemed
endless. They were intended to silence me - the child

 

“Phrase due to Marilyn Frye - WM. 1983-

31

and more particularly the girl child...The punishments

I received for 'talking back' were intended to suppress

all possibility that I would create my own speech.

(hooks, 1989, p.6)

Patriarchy as a form of domination is a monological
system. It seeks to have only one subject or authority figure
(man) and insists on the silence and complicity of all others
(woman) .

If men continue to view women from the perspective of a
monological subject, (i.e. , independent from women and the
violence done to them) they are not likely to see any impetus
for change. On an even more profound level, men engaged in a
critical dialogue with women about patriarchal oppression can
come to hear something new. By participating in subject to
subject dialogue, sometimes silently and sometimes vocally,
they begin to hear in their own voices the voices of the women
with whom they talk. To Bakhtin this is only natural.

The speech act by nature is social. The word is not

a tangible object, but an always shifting, always

changing means of social communication. It never rests

with one consciousness, one voice. Its dynamism consists
in movement from speaker to speaker, from one context to
another, from one generation to another. Through it all
the word does not forget its path of transfer and cannot
completely free itself from the power of those concrete
contexts into which it has entered. (Voloshinov, 1973,
p.199)
Women's and men's social realities may be vastly different but
they are defined against and in relation to each other. When
engaged in dialogue men can realize their interconnections
with women. Men's voices name certain perceptions or

experiences of reality. Those perceptions are interdependent

with the experiences of women. As such, women's experiences

32
give definition to men's reality. When this interconnected
subjectivity is had, men can understand that the violence and
humiliation women suffer at the hands of men who rape and
abuse is not done to nameless objects but to real flesh and
blood women like their sisters, daughters, mothers and lovers.

However, I anymore conservative in what I believe can be
achieved by critical dialogue. When we speak to men in a
dialogue between subjects we can achieve at least two goals.
First, we break free from the silence that hooks sees as the
trademark of the objectified. This is important from hooks'
vantage point because it lets men know that women will no
longer tolerate being addressed as objects. Women are ready
to engage in transformations of male-female interactions and
we loudly and defiantly proclaim as much when we reclaim our
own subjectivity. We have also seen the limitations of hooks'
victory on this front.

The second goal is at.a deeper level. When women and.men
and recognize themselves as subjects speaking to other sub-
jects, both can take into account each other's situatedness as
speakers and the 'addressivity" of one's own utterances. That
is, any topic or specific experience we choose to give
expression to through an utterance occurs within overlapping
social contexts resulting from both the speaker-as-subj ect and
the listener-as-subject. Bakhtin puts it this way

...even the most primitive human utterance produced

by the individual organism is, from the point of view

of its content, import, and meaning, organized outside

the organism, in the extra organismic conditions of
social milieu. Utterance as such is wholly a product

33

of social interaction, both of the immediate sort as

determined by the circumstances of the discourse, and

of the more general kind, as determined by the whole

aggregate of conditions under'which any given community

of speakers operates. (Voloshinov, 1973, p.93)

Notice here that this endeavor is not a one-way street.
Men must be willing to acknowledge women as subjects. If this
acknowledgement does not occur, there is, little hope of
forcing such recognition. This is a point which hooks fails
to consider. In fact, feminist women are ready to engage in
critical discussion and have been doing so amongst ourselves
for a long time. Also, we recognize ourselves as subjects
whether men do or not. But no matter how much we boldly
challenge male domination through critical dialogue, we only
partially succeed unless we are taken seriously as subjects
and not as dialogical objects without subjectivity by men.

As Bakhtin realizes, the significance of taking into
account the listener-subject's positionality in the social
world is in interpreting the response. The significance of
taking into account the speaker-subj ect's positionality in the
social world is in interpreting the statement or question. To
put it somewhat colloquially, when women and men can engage in
a dialogue between subjects, each has a better understanding
or comprehension of where the other person is coming from.

By understanding each other's location in the genres of
patriarchy, we better know her/his experience. By
understanding this experience, we can more effectively

communicate our own ideas in a way we feel is understandable.

We can choose our words from the vast repertoire of utterances

34

and speech genres available to us in ways that acknowledge
specific social conditions while simultaneously engaging in
feminist critical thought. Once we are aware of the
particular situatedness of a particular person and of the
conditions in which this location arises, we can speak to it
and to her/him from our own unique vantage point, subject to
subject.

III. CONCLUSORY REMARKS

hooks writes that creating contexts within which to carry
out critical dialogue requires strategy. Women who embrace
feminism are often willing to share their revelations, ideas
and opinions with certain men in their lives. But many women
rightly feel that such sharing can only take place with other
women. The result is a kind of double-life or double-
consciousness: being female-identified, intellectually
nurtured and respected with other feminist women and
simultaneously feeling like these feminist thoughts and ideals
cannot be expressed in the company of men. As a result, many
women fall into silence in the presence of men. Not wanting
to experience the familiar humiliation or frustration brought
about by male disapproval, they keep their feminist
discussions to themselves.

Male domination seeks to suppress women talking
critically about.men. It is true that women do address men in
feminist theory. Women still talk critically about men and
have been for years. Women's talk, speaking out, and finding

a voice all empower women in their realization that they are

35
not alone nor crazy in recognizing the pain attached to their
exploitation and oppression. To that end, scholarly acceptance
and recognition of work on masculinity by women and men is
essential. This recognition by feminist colleagues provides
another arena or genre within which to constructively critique
and confront masculinity.

But, are there spaces outside of academic journals and
colloquium panels for such dialogue to take place? Inspired
by the work of Paulo Friere and his book W
Qppreeeegz, hooks optimistically seeks to create such spaces
for dialogue - critical dialogue about men between women and
men: subject to subject. hooks also notes that men must be
educated about male domination and develop a critical
consciousness even though most in society do not reward them
for doing so. Women too are discouraged by patriarchy from
discovering and examining the often painful reality of their
own manipulated lives. Yet, many, many women embark on such a
journey with an eye toward positive change for all women.
hooks believes that men have the same potential. And this
potential must be developed as long as we live with men in the
capacities of daughter, sister, lover, aunt and mother. By
way of qualification, I would add that men must seek to
actively realize that potential and educate themselves if

relationships between men and women are to be transformed.

 

’This work is Friere's critical text in the philosophy of
education.

36

As hooks notes, we must learn through and by the
experiences that other women have had in trying to initiate
and engage in such dialogues. Lesbian mothers and daughters,
bi-sexual and heterosexual lovers, professional and non-
professional women in the workplace have all struggled at
different times, in different ways and.with different degrees
of success to partake in constructive dialogue which
communicates feminist ideals, ways of thinking and a need for
the end of the politics of male domination. Learning how one
might go about sharing a feminist perspective with a genuinely
interested or receptive or even unsuspecting boy or man is
useful to know. It is helpful for all women who cannot find
the words or the courage to share their feminist perspectives
with the men they care about, work with and interact. While
it is not the job of women to teach men about feminism, for
hooks it is important to approach and partake in dialogue in
ways that foster under-standing of feminism rather than crush
the potential that exists for such dialogue.

One space or genre that hooks envisions for such dialogue
is the classroom. She remarks that many female teachers and
professors have been reticent to express their own feminist
perspective or interpretation among their colleagues, on
committees and, most importantly, among their students.

...[FJeminist women professors are often reluctant to

discuss masculinity critically, or the ways in which

sexism seriously limits men, or we raise these issues
in ways that alienate, that convey ridicule, contempt,

or own uncertainty. Feminist scholars must be a van-
guard, mapping out a terrain where women can speak to

37

and about men in ways that challenge but do not diminish.
(hooks, 1989, p.132)

This "terrain” that hooks advocates can be thought of as
a setting for particular speech genres. The classroom in an
ideal location for an exchange of utterances drawn from a
heterogeneity of genres. It is a special place wherein women
and men can address the topic of male oppression of women in
critically reflective dialogue. As such, neither women nor
men leave behind the life experiences and points of view which
work to comprise their personal identities. Rather, they can
address and listen to each other, subject to subject, about
their perceptions of patriarchal oppression from their own
vantage points.

When invoking the notion of classroom as a setting of
dialogical speech genres, what may leap to mind is a space
within elite ivy covered walls. So conceived, dialogue seems
aimed toward privileged white academia. However, it is
important to remember that classroom sites are not necessarily
confined to prestigious liberal arts schools which can afford
to offer Women's Studies classes. Rather, classroom
environments take on various shapes, sizes and purposes.
Carving out.a space for such.exchange of critical ideas can be
done in a variety of ways across a wide spectrum of classroom
situations. Some such likely sites include elementary and
secondary schools, vocational schools, public universities,
community colleges, community-based language classes,

continuing education programs and the workplace. All of these

38
can serve as contexts within which teachers, professors,
instructors and teaching assistants can initiate and.moderate
dialogue between class participants about men's and women's
experience of patriarchy.

An illustrative sketch of a complex problem and one way
it can be approached dialogically is useful. Many people find
themselves, at some point, in a humanities class, either in
high school or at a higher level of education. There is
considerable work being done to expand the traditional canon
of literature studied in such classes to include works which
represent diverse walks of life. Unfortunately, many schools
make only token gestures toward this aim or place such a goal
on the back burner. One fruitful way of getting around
required texts by “white guys", dead or alive,is to critically
call these works into question. Initiating conversation with
classes about why they are chosen for study, who chooses them,
and. the representation. of 'women in them. can. provide a
touchstone from which to critically explore one dimension of
men's relation to the patriarchy which oppresses women.

What we gain "by a politics that resists domination" is
our fulfillment and our liberation in taking part in subject-
to-subject interaction with all people. Feminists have
resisted and sought to demolish the objectification of women
and have worked to reclaim their own subjectivity. One way of
resisting male domination is through dialogue.

In this paper I have shown that we can gain a useful,

although not fully explanatory, account of problematic

39

communication between women and men by examining the notion of
dialogue. Both hooks and Bakhtin offer illuminating insights
into dialogue which can serve as stepping stones toward the
possibilities of liberation. We have seen limitations of
hooks' account of dialogue. Namely, that when one enters into
a dialogue with men one is not automatically guaranteed of
being respected and addressed as a subject. As Bakhtin, in
fact, notes, one may be put into a position in which one's
subjectivity is acknowledged only in so far as needed by the
speaker. But, even in these cases, Bakhtin urges
consideration of the dialogic overtones at work so that what
is really taking place "behind the scenes" can be brought to
light.

One way of resisting’male domination is through critical
dialogue with each other and with men. Indeed, as hooks
claims, dialogue can be an important liberatory tool.
Bakhtin's theory of language which highlights such dialogue
can serve to provide us with insights in seeing how the
project hooks calls for has specific limitations which must be
taken into consideration and overcome by those seeking to
carry it out. That is, not until men interact in the kind of
dialogue that reflects subject-to-subject interaction, one in
which men acknowledge and seek to diminish their own position
of power as a dominating subject, can it be liberatory in the

ways that both thinkers envision.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bakhtin. Mikhail. W. edited by
Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, translated by Vern McGee,
University of Texas Press, Austin, 1986.

Bakhtin. Mikhail. We.
edited by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson
and Michael Holquist, University of Texas Press, Austin,
1981.

Clark, Katerina & Holquist, Michael, W, W
University Press, Cambridge MA, 1984.

hooks. bell. W.
South End Press, Boston, MA, 1989.

Taylor, Charles, “The Dialogical Self" in
mm, edited by Bohman, James F. a Shusterman, Richard,
Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1991.

Volosinov, V.N. ,

I
translated by Ladislav Matejka and LR. Titunik, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1973.

40

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