Linda Hutcheon

Linda Hutcheon (born 1947) is a Canadian academic, literary theorist, and feminist. She is University Professor in the Department of English and of the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, where she has taught since 1988. In 2000 she was elected the 117th President of the Modern Language Association, the third Canadian to hold this position, and the first Canadian woman. Particularly known for her influential theories of postmodernism, she has published numerous books, including "The Politics of Postmodernism" (Routledge, 1989), "A Poetics of Postmodernism" (Routledge, 1988), "Rethinking Literary History" (OUP, 2002), and "A Theory of Adaptation" (Routledge, 2006).

Hutcheon's version of postmodernism is often contrasted with that of Frederic Jameson in North America: while the latter laments the lack of critical capacities to which postmodern subjects have access, and analyses present capitalist cultural production in terms of a dehistoricized spatial pastiche, Hutcheon highlights the ways in which postmodern modalities actually aid in the process of critique.

Specifically, Hutcheon suggests that postmodernism works through parody to "both legitimize and subvert that which it parodies" (Politics, 101). "Through a double process of installing and ironizing, parody signals how present representations come from past ones and what ideological consequences derive from both continuity and difference" (Politics, 93). Thus, far from dehistoricizing the present or organizing history into an incoherent and detached pastiche, postmodernism can rethink history and shed light on new critical capacities.

Hutcheon coined the term historiographic metafiction to describe those literary texts that assert an interpretation of the past but are also intensely self-reflexive (i.e. critical of their own version of the truth as being partial, biased, incomplete, etc.) (Poetics, 122-123). Historiographic metafiction, therefore, allows us to speak constructively about the past in a way that acknowledges the falsity and violence of the "objective" historian's past without leaving us in a totally bewildered and isolated present (as Jameson has it).

Publications

*"A Theory of Adaptation". (NY and London: Routledge, 2006).

*"Opera: The Art of Dying". Harvard University Press, 2004 (with Michael Hutcheon).

*"Rethinking Literary History: A Forum on Theory". New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 (with Mario J. Valdés).

*"Bodily Charm: Living Opera". Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000 (with Michael Hutcheon).

*"Opera: Desire, Disease, and Death." Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996 (with Michael Hutcheon).

*"Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony". London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Portuguese translation (Belo Horizonte, Brasil: Editora UFMG, 2000); final chapter reprinted in New Contexts of Canadian Criticism (Peterborough: Broadview P, 2001).

*"The Politics of Postmodernism". London & New York: Routledge, 1989.

*"A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction". London & New York: Routledge, 1988.

*"A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms". 1984; rpt with new introduction; Champaign and Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2001.

Awards

*2005, awarded the Killam Prize, by the Canada Council for the Arts

External links

* [http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/Hutcheon_outline.html Historiographic Metafiction Explained]
* [http://www.cla.purdue.edu/English/theory/postmodernism/modules/hutcheonpostmodernity.html Hutcheon Modules at the Purdue University Introductory Guide to Critical Theory]
* [http://www.athabascau.ca/cll/writers/hutcheon.html Biography]
* [http://www.athabascau.ca/cll/writers/hutcheon_biblio.html Bibliography]
* [http://individual.utoronto.ca/lindahutcheon/ Official website]
* [http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/complit/ Centre for Comparative Literature] at the University of Toronto.