Galin Tihanov | Queen Mary, University of London (original) (raw)
Papers by Galin Tihanov
De Gruyter eBooks, Nov 21, 2022
Itself a relatively small group of academics brought together by admiration for Nikolai Marr's 'n... more Itself a relatively small group of academics brought together by admiration for Nikolai Marr's 'new theory of language' and his methodology of cultural analysis, semantic paleontology (semanticheskaia paleontologiia) was a current in cultural and literary theory that had a considerable impact on some of its contemporaries (notably Bakhtin) and wider resonance beyond the 1930s. The presence of semantic paleontology in literary studies and its importance for the methodological debates of the 1930s have only recently begun to be examined systematically (see Tihanov 2017, esp. 425-427; Kliger and Maslov 2016; Braginskaya 2016; Martin 2016). I thus begin by outlining the foundations of semantic paleontology and its interventions in the study of literature during the 1930s; as a next step, the analysis focuses on the principal methodological distinctions which semantic paleontology sought to draw in order to assert its own identity vis-à-vis other trends. Attention then turns to the central question: what was the place of semantic paleontology in the 1930s polemics on how and where one should draw the boundaries of modernity. In the final sections I weigh the impact of semantic paleontology on cultural and literary theory. As will become evident, this impact did not follow the channels of official recognition, yet it persisted into the early 1980s, at times paradoxically reinforced by the critique which semantic paleontology attracted. 1 Foundations and Early Work: The Manifesto Volume on Tristan and Isolde The exponents of semantic paleontology came of age as scholars and thinkers in the course of the 1920s and produced their most significant work in the 1930s; by that time Nikolai Marr had reached the apogee of his public influence: in 1930 he was accorded the honour of addressing the sixteenth Party Congress and soon afterward joined the Party as its only member amongst the academicians elected to the Academy of Sciences before 1917 (cf. Tolz 1997, 107). Unlike 'bourgeois', purely 'formal' linguistics (the vast body of primarily historical and comparative research that Marr brushed aside as sterile Indo-Europeanistics), the new theory of language prioritized the exploration of its origins (glottogenesis) and socioeconomically conditioned evolution, mirrored in the transformations of core semantic elements at various historical stages. The new
Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai, Sep 20, 2022
In his paper, Gustav Shpet\u27s Literary and Theatre Theory, Galin Tihanov introduces Shpet\u27s ... more In his paper, Gustav Shpet\u27s Literary and Theatre Theory, Galin Tihanov introduces Shpet\u27s theoretical work on literature and theatre, until recently little studied. Neither has been sufficient attention paid to Shpet\u27s overall presence on the Russian cultural scene in the 1910s-1930s. As a result, our knowledge and appreciation of the scope of his writings and the variety of Russian literary and theatre life in the first third of the twentieth century have remained less rich and well-informed than they could otherwise have been. Tihanov explains that Shpet\u27s participation in contemporary literature and theatre assumed different forms: he wrote both from a theoretical perspective grounded in his overall aesthetics and through personal friendships and affiliations, as well as through his affiliation and activities he played an important part in a number of informal circles or more formally structured groupings such as the Moscow Linguistic Circle (these groups promoted li...
Vernaculars in an Age of World Literatures, 2022
Studies in East European Thought, 2022
Comparative Criticism, 2004
Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cutlural Theory, 2009
A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism
Primerjalna Knjizevnost, 2006
The paper reviews Gustav Shpet’s immersion in Russian Symbolism, his contacts with the Imagists, ... more The paper reviews Gustav Shpet’s immersion in Russian Symbolism, his contacts with the Imagists, his contribution to the work of the Moscow Linguistic Circle and the study of literature at GAKhN. In the final section an analysis of Shpet’s career as a translator is offered.
The article presents an original, innovative and interdisciplinary contribution to intellectual h... more The article presents an original, innovative and interdisciplinary contribution to intellectual history. It examines the intersections between economic and political thought, social philosophy, and aesthetics and literature that inform a pervasive post-romantic discourse on work, wealth and capital spanning the nineteenth century and becoming particularly prominent in the first third of the twentieth century in Germany and Austria
Roman Jakobson, linguistica e poetica, 2018
The publication history of Viktor Shklovsky’s Sentimental Journey in Russia is indicative of the ... more The publication history of Viktor Shklovsky’s Sentimental Journey in Russia is indicative of the turmoil Shklovsky captures in his memoir. Written and published in parts between June 1919 and January 1923, it is a book begun in Russia and completed in emigration. A book about war, revolution, literary theory, and world literature. In its entirety, it first appeared in January 1923 in Berlin; the many Russian editions since 1923 would omit various portions of the book (deemed to be incompatibl..
The Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought, 2021
This article is an attempt to understand how the work of a thinker exists across time, and what j... more This article is an attempt to understand how the work of a thinker exists across time, and what journeying through languages and cultures has to do with these peregrinations. The article examines the principal trajectories of appropriating Bakhtin in the West since the 1960s and revisits the question of Bakhtin’s longevity, and the potential of his work to gain traction in current debates on world literature. Bakhtin’s work can serve as a litmus test of appropriation that involves constant meta-reflexion on what constitutes translation in different cultural zones.
Thesis Eleven, 2020
This paper focuses on Georg Lukács, for it is in his work, and the attendant debates and disagree... more This paper focuses on Georg Lukács, for it is in his work, and the attendant debates and disagreements, that an entire constellation of questions around Realism is first compellingly formulated. The purpose of the paper is to revisit Lukács’ theory of realism as a response to a host of mainstream currents shaping the landscape of Continental philosophy in the first three decades of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to the problem of form and truth at the core of Lukács’ theory of realism.
The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, 1996
Interventions, 2020
The immediate purpose of this essay is to offer a brief reflection on 1968 as a nodal point in th... more The immediate purpose of this essay is to offer a brief reflection on 1968 as a nodal point in the appropriations and deployments of Romanticism, not least as a diagnostic tool. The essay substantiates the case for the continuous afterlife of Romanticism in the various guises of post-romanticism, a process which de-emphasizes the notion of period or indeed event, and constructs instead a complex discursive formation that renegotiates past intellectual agendas and resources by framing them within a discursive longue durée. The essay concentrates on the German scene of theory and the student protests during the second half of the 1960s. It traces the mediated links between them and demonstrates how this intellectual and political constellation is traversed – repurposed and refashioned – by Romantic discursive energies that are mobilized in order to make sense of, and respond to, the new developments. The groundwork and the hypotheses advanced in this essay require a careful differentiation between two understandings (and projects) of “theory.” The impact of May ‘68 on these two different theory projects is discussed in the conclusion.
Estudos Avançados, Dec 1, 2017
De Gruyter eBooks, Nov 21, 2022
Itself a relatively small group of academics brought together by admiration for Nikolai Marr's 'n... more Itself a relatively small group of academics brought together by admiration for Nikolai Marr's 'new theory of language' and his methodology of cultural analysis, semantic paleontology (semanticheskaia paleontologiia) was a current in cultural and literary theory that had a considerable impact on some of its contemporaries (notably Bakhtin) and wider resonance beyond the 1930s. The presence of semantic paleontology in literary studies and its importance for the methodological debates of the 1930s have only recently begun to be examined systematically (see Tihanov 2017, esp. 425-427; Kliger and Maslov 2016; Braginskaya 2016; Martin 2016). I thus begin by outlining the foundations of semantic paleontology and its interventions in the study of literature during the 1930s; as a next step, the analysis focuses on the principal methodological distinctions which semantic paleontology sought to draw in order to assert its own identity vis-à-vis other trends. Attention then turns to the central question: what was the place of semantic paleontology in the 1930s polemics on how and where one should draw the boundaries of modernity. In the final sections I weigh the impact of semantic paleontology on cultural and literary theory. As will become evident, this impact did not follow the channels of official recognition, yet it persisted into the early 1980s, at times paradoxically reinforced by the critique which semantic paleontology attracted. 1 Foundations and Early Work: The Manifesto Volume on Tristan and Isolde The exponents of semantic paleontology came of age as scholars and thinkers in the course of the 1920s and produced their most significant work in the 1930s; by that time Nikolai Marr had reached the apogee of his public influence: in 1930 he was accorded the honour of addressing the sixteenth Party Congress and soon afterward joined the Party as its only member amongst the academicians elected to the Academy of Sciences before 1917 (cf. Tolz 1997, 107). Unlike 'bourgeois', purely 'formal' linguistics (the vast body of primarily historical and comparative research that Marr brushed aside as sterile Indo-Europeanistics), the new theory of language prioritized the exploration of its origins (glottogenesis) and socioeconomically conditioned evolution, mirrored in the transformations of core semantic elements at various historical stages. The new
Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai, Sep 20, 2022
In his paper, Gustav Shpet\u27s Literary and Theatre Theory, Galin Tihanov introduces Shpet\u27s ... more In his paper, Gustav Shpet\u27s Literary and Theatre Theory, Galin Tihanov introduces Shpet\u27s theoretical work on literature and theatre, until recently little studied. Neither has been sufficient attention paid to Shpet\u27s overall presence on the Russian cultural scene in the 1910s-1930s. As a result, our knowledge and appreciation of the scope of his writings and the variety of Russian literary and theatre life in the first third of the twentieth century have remained less rich and well-informed than they could otherwise have been. Tihanov explains that Shpet\u27s participation in contemporary literature and theatre assumed different forms: he wrote both from a theoretical perspective grounded in his overall aesthetics and through personal friendships and affiliations, as well as through his affiliation and activities he played an important part in a number of informal circles or more formally structured groupings such as the Moscow Linguistic Circle (these groups promoted li...
Vernaculars in an Age of World Literatures, 2022
Studies in East European Thought, 2022
Comparative Criticism, 2004
Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cutlural Theory, 2009
A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism
Primerjalna Knjizevnost, 2006
The paper reviews Gustav Shpet’s immersion in Russian Symbolism, his contacts with the Imagists, ... more The paper reviews Gustav Shpet’s immersion in Russian Symbolism, his contacts with the Imagists, his contribution to the work of the Moscow Linguistic Circle and the study of literature at GAKhN. In the final section an analysis of Shpet’s career as a translator is offered.
The article presents an original, innovative and interdisciplinary contribution to intellectual h... more The article presents an original, innovative and interdisciplinary contribution to intellectual history. It examines the intersections between economic and political thought, social philosophy, and aesthetics and literature that inform a pervasive post-romantic discourse on work, wealth and capital spanning the nineteenth century and becoming particularly prominent in the first third of the twentieth century in Germany and Austria
Roman Jakobson, linguistica e poetica, 2018
The publication history of Viktor Shklovsky’s Sentimental Journey in Russia is indicative of the ... more The publication history of Viktor Shklovsky’s Sentimental Journey in Russia is indicative of the turmoil Shklovsky captures in his memoir. Written and published in parts between June 1919 and January 1923, it is a book begun in Russia and completed in emigration. A book about war, revolution, literary theory, and world literature. In its entirety, it first appeared in January 1923 in Berlin; the many Russian editions since 1923 would omit various portions of the book (deemed to be incompatibl..
The Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought, 2021
This article is an attempt to understand how the work of a thinker exists across time, and what j... more This article is an attempt to understand how the work of a thinker exists across time, and what journeying through languages and cultures has to do with these peregrinations. The article examines the principal trajectories of appropriating Bakhtin in the West since the 1960s and revisits the question of Bakhtin’s longevity, and the potential of his work to gain traction in current debates on world literature. Bakhtin’s work can serve as a litmus test of appropriation that involves constant meta-reflexion on what constitutes translation in different cultural zones.
Thesis Eleven, 2020
This paper focuses on Georg Lukács, for it is in his work, and the attendant debates and disagree... more This paper focuses on Georg Lukács, for it is in his work, and the attendant debates and disagreements, that an entire constellation of questions around Realism is first compellingly formulated. The purpose of the paper is to revisit Lukács’ theory of realism as a response to a host of mainstream currents shaping the landscape of Continental philosophy in the first three decades of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to the problem of form and truth at the core of Lukács’ theory of realism.
The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, 1996
Interventions, 2020
The immediate purpose of this essay is to offer a brief reflection on 1968 as a nodal point in th... more The immediate purpose of this essay is to offer a brief reflection on 1968 as a nodal point in the appropriations and deployments of Romanticism, not least as a diagnostic tool. The essay substantiates the case for the continuous afterlife of Romanticism in the various guises of post-romanticism, a process which de-emphasizes the notion of period or indeed event, and constructs instead a complex discursive formation that renegotiates past intellectual agendas and resources by framing them within a discursive longue durée. The essay concentrates on the German scene of theory and the student protests during the second half of the 1960s. It traces the mediated links between them and demonstrates how this intellectual and political constellation is traversed – repurposed and refashioned – by Romantic discursive energies that are mobilized in order to make sense of, and respond to, the new developments. The groundwork and the hypotheses advanced in this essay require a careful differentiation between two understandings (and projects) of “theory.” The impact of May ‘68 on these two different theory projects is discussed in the conclusion.
Estudos Avançados, Dec 1, 2017