Bakhtin’s Carnivalesque: A Reconsideration Based on the BLM Demonstrations of 2020 and the Storming of the U.S. Capitol in 2021

Abstract

The theoretical insights of Mikhail Bakhtin offer the rhetorical critic of demonstrations and the social movements they are often a part of a useful analytical tool. Bakhtin’s focus on polyphony, particularly the type he termed “passive varidirectional” in his study of Dostoevsky, dovetails with his exploration of the “carnivalesque” as a popular culture and literary mode to offer a subversive rhetoric intended to undermine hegemony. Extant studies of Bakhtin by rhetoricians have bogged down in trying to make sense of his “messy” canon and, perhaps as a result, inadequately understood this subversive rhetoric. After offering an overall reading of Bakhtin and a sense of how the concept of “carnivalesque” has been used by critics, this essay will enrich that concept by applying it to the events of 2020 and 2021 and arguing that, to grasp the critical tool Bakhtin has offered critics, one must recognize (1) its political neutrality, (2) the possible varieties of “carnivalesque,” (3) the place of violence in the “carnivalesque,” and (4) the new and subtle ways the body plays a rhetorical role in it. The events of 2020–2021 enable the critic to acquire a more nuanced understanding of Bakhtin’s rhetorical insights.