ABSTRACT
I should begin by explaining the irreverent and sassy title. Why a nontopic? Because Bakhtin himself, in his voluminous writings stretching over half a century, had almost nothing to say about the currently fashionable liberationist triad: race, class, gender. This fact has greatly reassured Bakhtin's demarxified disciples in the former Soviet Union, who are bitterly aware that "thinking in group categories" has brought their country to the brink of moral and economic disaster. To that issue I shall return, for in general one of the most peculiar aspects of recent years has been the spectacle of literary scholars in the formerly communist East emulating what is conservative in the West, while Western academic critics lap up what has been thoroughly discredited in the East. It is sufficient to note that "gender consciousness" is not part of Bakhtin 's legacy.
