In an influential article entitled “Une poétique ruinée” [1970], an introduction to the French edition of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Julia Kristeva affirms that “[l]e travail de Bakhtine nous met … au bord d’une théorie de la signification, qui aurait besoin d’une théorie du sujet.” Kristeva’s unawareness that the Russian thinker, in his early writings developed a theory of subjectivity, leads her to posit a “divided subject” (une division du sujet) as well as a “fragmented self” (un morcellement du je) at the heart of his epistemological foundations. In this paper, I intend to nuance Kristeva’s emphasis on fragmentation and division of subjectivity by focusing on Bakhtin’s notion of “dialogic principle” and its relation to conceptual binaries. More precisely, I will argue that Bakhtin’s understanding of “dialogue” challenges the rhetoric that sustains a dichotmic understanding of the self-other binary and promotes instead a relational and synergetic conception of subjectivity based on an alternative theory of language. Furthermore, my focus on the notion of “dialogue” will be instrumental in establishing a connection between the Russian thinker’s theory of consciousness and his theory of the novel. I thus propose that Bakhtin’s understanding of the articulation between selfhood and otherness must be considered in a relationship of radical continuity with his seminal distinction between epic and novelistic genre. Finally, such a genealogical approach will allow me to set in motion a dialogical relationship within Bakhtin’s writing as well as to engage in a critical dialogue with his acute French interpreter.