Introduction: Imagining the monologic

This introductory chapter presents the core argument running through the volume: that monologue and dialogue are projects that implicate each other. The introduction surveys Mikhail Bakhtin’s foundational writings on dialogism and heteroglossia, as well as his attention to monologism in the realms of epic and nationalist projects. It also examines monologue as a form of creative performance that both depends on erasure and attempts to unify speakers in a way that might be called the “repeat after me” phenomenon, with the implication that the only possible forms of uptake are either perfect assent or faithful repetition. In examining these dynamics, the introduction offers examples from China, Fiji, Samoa, and New Zealand before summarizing the chapters to come.