Staff profile

Prof. Renfrew's main area of research specialization is literary and critical theory, although he has also taught and published on Russian Literature, Scottish Literature, Russian and Soviet Cinema, and is currently developing teaching and research interests on Theory and History of the Novel and on Popular music.

He has published widely on Mikhail Bakhtin and the so-called Russian Formalists, including the monograph Towards a New Material Aesthetics (Legenda, 2006) and an introduction to Bakhtin for Routledge Critical Thinkers (2015; Chinese translation 2017; Portuguese translation 2018), as well as seven edited volumes, including Critical Theory in Russia and the West (Routledge 2010; Chinese translation 2016).

He is currently completing a novel of the (Russian) nineteenth century.

• 2012: The Russian Centre(£94098.89 from Russkiy Mir Foundation)
• 2009: The Humanities in Russia and the West(£12655.00 from The Leverhulme Trust)

Authored book

• Renfrew, Alastair (2014). Mikhail Bakhtin. Routledge.
• Renfrew, Alastair. (2006). Towards a New Material Aesthetics: Bakhtin, Genre and the Fates of Literary Theory. Oxford: Legenda.

Chapter in book

• Renfrew, Alastair (2016). Against Adaptation: The Strange Case of (Pod)Poruchik Kizhe. In Border Crossing: Russian Literature into Film. Burry, Alexander & White, Frederick Edinburgh University Press.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2015). The Beginning and the End: The Formalist Paradigm in Literary Study. In 1922: Literature, Culture, Politics. Rabaté, Jean-Michel Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 145-167.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2012). Ivanovo detstvo. In Noev kovcheg russkogo kino: ot "Sten'ki Razina" do "Stiliag". Vasil'eva, Ekaterina & Braginskii, Nikita Globus-Press. 195-200.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2010). The Resurrection of a Poetics. In Critical Theory in Russia and the West. Renfrew, Alastair & Tihanov, Galin Routledge. 1-25.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2008). Before Learning to Speak: Genre in Tarkovsky's Earlier Features. In Tarkovsky. Dunne, Nathan London: Black Dog Press. 96-121.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2004). [Alexander Mackay], 'MacDiarmid and Russia Revisited. In Beyond Scotland. Carruthers, Gerard, Goldie, David & Renfrew, Alastair Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. 59-93.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2004). Kul't lichnosti [A Cult of Personality]. In Bakhtinskii sbornik V. Makhlin, V. Moscow: lazyki slavianskoi kul'tury. 499-509.
• Renfrew, Alastair (1998). Eux et nous: La représentation du discours dans l'oeuvre romanesque ecossaise contemporaine. In L’exil et l’allégorie dans le roman anglophone contemporain. Morel, Michel Paris: Editions Messene. 89-102.
• Renfrew, Alastair (1998). "We Are The Real": Bakhtin and the Representation of Speech. In The Contexts of Bakhtin. Shepherd, David Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. 121-138.
• Renfrew, Alastair (1997). Them and Us? Representation of Speech in contemporary Scottish Fiction. In Exploiting Bakhtin. Renfrew, Alastair Glasgow: Strathclyde Modern Language Studies. 15-28.
• Renfrew, Alastair (1997). The Carnival Without Laughter. In Face to Face: Bakhtin in Russia and the West. Adlam, Carol, Renfrew, Alastair, Falconer, Rachel & Makhlin, Vitalii Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. 185-195.

Edited book

• Renfrew, Alastair, Carruthers, Gerard & Goldie, David (2012). Scotland and the Nineteenth-Century World. Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature. Rodopi.
• Renfrew, Alastair & Tihanov, Galin (2010). Critical Theory in Russia and the West. BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies. Routledge.
• Renfrew, Alastair, Carruthers, Gerard & Goldie, David (2004). Beyond Scotland: New Contexts for Twentieth-Century Scottish Literature. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi.
• Renfrew, Alastair, Adlam, Carol, Falconer, Rachel & Makhlin, Vitalii (1997). Face to Face: Bakhtin in Russia and the West. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
• Renfrew, Alastair (1997). Exploiting Bakhtin. Strathclyde Modern Language Studies (New Series). Glasgow: University of Strathclyde.

Edited Journal

• Renfrew, Alastair & Ni Dhuill, Caitriona (2016). No Future II. Poetics Today, 37 (3): Duke University Press.
• Renfrew, Alastair & Ni Dhuill, Caitrıona (2016). No Future I. Poetics Today, 37 (2): Duke University Press.

Journal Article

• Renfrew, Alastair (2016). Lenin and Utopia. Poetics Today 37(2): 269-294.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2014). Uma Palavra Sobre a Matéria: Bakhtin e Tynianov. Conexão Letras 9(12): 87-111.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2013). Facts and Life: Osip Brik in the Soviet Film Industry. Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 7(2): 165-188.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2013). Fakty i zhizn': O. M. Brik i sovetskaia kinoindustriia. Kinovedcheskie zapiski (103/104): 62-90.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2012). The Dialectics of Parody. Poetics Today 33(3-4): 301-328.
• Renfrew, Alastair. (2007). Against Adaptation? The Strange Case of (Pod) Poruchik Kizhe. Modern Language Review 102(1): 157-176.
• Renfrew, Alastair. (2006). A Word about Material (Bakhtin and Tynianov). The Slavonic and East European Review 84(3): 419-445.
• Renfrew, Alastair. (2006). Brief Encounters, Long Farewells: Bakhtin and Scottish Literature. International Journal of Scottish Literature (1).
• Renfrew, Alastair (2003). A Cult of Personality. Slavonic and East European Review 81(1): 88-98.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2001). Ne vse voprosy dolzhny ostavat'sia otkrytymi. Kraine sub''ektivnye zametki o konferentsii "V otsutstvie mastera: neizvestnyi krug Bakhtina" [Not All Questions Should Remain Open: Highly Subjective Remarks on the Conference 'In the Master’s Absence: The Unknown Bakhtin Circle'. Dialog. Karnaval. Khronotop 2: 152-157.
• Renfrew, Alastair (2000). Russian Postmodernism. Slavonica 6(1): 92-98.

Other (Print)

• Renfrew, Alastair (2008). Kryl'ia kholopa. Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema 2(3).
• Renfrew, Alastair (2003). Why We're All Theorists Now. Times Higher Educational Supplement 14 November 2003: 4.