Difference, Dialogue, and Development

Dr. Lakshmi Bandlamudi is a Professor of Psychology at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York. She is the author of Dialogics of Self, The Mahabharata and Culture: The History of Understanding and Understanding of History, and several other papers focusing on dialogic consciousness.

"In an ocean of Bakhtiniana, this is a fresh voice. Lakshmi Bandlamudi brings together the disparate works Bakhtin wrote over a long lifetime in a reading that adds ‘Development’ to the usual ‘Ds’ (Dialogue, Difference) in Bakhtin studies. In so doing, she adds another dimension to the heteronomy called ‘Bakhtin.'" – Michael Holquist, Professor Emeritus, Comparative Literature, Yale University"Lakshmi Bandlamudi’s Difference, Dialogue, and Development has to rank among the very best, certainly the clearest, most astute expositions of Bakhtin’s writings. Her aim is not simply to explicate the Russian thinker’s wide-ranging, at times seemingly contradictory, essays but to depict his worldview and the ethical implications that derive from his commitment to the ever-shifting dialogical dimensions of human life—to encounters that resist definition, as definition is demanded. Bandlamudi accepts, indeed elaborates, the challenges to the staid visions of the human sciences that Bakhtin poses. As such, she challenges those same staid assumptions that govern so much of our lives. Her work is transformative." – Vincent Crapanzano, Distinguished Professor, Anthropology and Comparative Literature, Graduate Center, City University of New York"The author probably planned this book as an introduction to Bakhtin’s work that would make sense within both the Western hermeneutic usage and the classical Indian tradition. By the time this intriguing text ends, Bakhtin has gatecrashed into the Indian theories of knowledge and aesthetics and seems to be perfectly at ease in his new environs, showing not the slightest inclination to leave." – Ashis Nandy, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, India

• 1. Introduction: Dialogue = Development 2. The Novel and The Hero: Developmental Narrative and The Developing Subject 3. Creative Living and Aesthetic Vision: Cultivating Finer Sensibilities 4. Carnivalization of Consciousness: A Catalyst for Development 5. Authoring the Self – Answering the Other: Epistemological Necessities and Ethical Obligations 6. Dialogic Method for Human Sciences: Between the Message Giver – Message – Messenger – and Message Receiver 7. Differences as the Will to Power and Freedom to Choose