Dr. Linda Hutcheon focuses her academic work in the fields of literary theory and criticism, opera, and Canadian studies. A specialist in postmodernist culture and in critical theory, she is particularly known for her influential theories of postmodernism.
Linda
Hutcheon
(1953 - )
Hutcheon's publications reflect an interest in aesthetic micro-practices such as irony, parody, and adaptation. Hutcheon has also authored texts which synthesize and contextualize these practices with regard to broader debates about post-modernism.
Hutcheon's version of postmodernism is often contrasted with that of Fredric Jameson in that while the latter laments the lack of critical capacities to which post-modern subjects have access, and analyzes present capitalist cultural production in terms of a dehistoricized spatial pastiche, Hutcheon highlights the ways in which postmodern modalities actually aid the process of critique.
MOTIVATIONS / IDEAS
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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).
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Holds that rather than dehistoricizing the present or organizing history into an incoherent and detached pastiche, postmodernism can rethink history and shed light on new critical capacities.
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Pastiche allows for political comparisons and engagement through art and film narrative in ways that move beyond irony and sarcasm.
RELATED STUDY TERMS
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Parody -- an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
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Pastiche -- A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates.
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Subversion -- the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.
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Irony -- the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.