In this chapter, Marsha Barsky and Robert Barsky combined forces to suggest that the Bakhtinian conception of the modernist condition is discernable, but it’s situated in his approach to dialogism, which offers a distinctly modern... more
In this chapter, Marsha Barsky and Robert Barsky combined forces to suggest that the Bakhtinian conception of the modernist condition is discernable, but it’s situated in his approach to dialogism, which offers a distinctly modern approach to the relationship between bodies in space and in time. Part of this approach involves a careful examination of the self in relation to the body, the other, and the surrounding environment. Kliger envisions this process in a literary realm, in which “even the most abstract and lifeless of objects” are animated and endowed “with a temporal trajectory of a hero,” allowing for an engagement with abstract or “objectless” art (553). This is interesting as regards literary texts, but it’s even more applicable to bodies moving in space, and with time, for which modern dance provides a particularly salient microcosm.