Linda Hutcheon facts for kids

Linda Hutcheon, who is a member of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) and the Order of Canada (OC), was born on August 24, 1947. She is a Canadian professor who studies literary theory (how literature works) and criticism (how to understand literature). She also studies opera and Canadian studies.

She is a University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. She taught there in the English Department and the Centre for Comparative Literature starting in 1988. In 2000, she became the 117th President of the Modern Language Association. She was the third Canadian and the first Canadian woman to hold this important job. Linda Hutcheon is especially known for her ideas about postmodernism.

What is Postmodernism?

Linda Hutcheon has written many books and articles. Her work often looks at how art and stories are made. She explores ideas like irony, parody, and adaptation.

• Irony is when you say one thing but mean the opposite.
• Parody is when you imitate something in a funny or critical way.
• Adaptation is when a story is changed from one form to another, like a book becoming a movie.

Hutcheon has also written about postmodernism. This is a way of thinking that questions traditional ideas about truth, history, and art. Her books include The Politics of Postmodernism and A Poetics of Postmodernism. She also helped edit A Postmodern Reader.

Postmodernism: Hutcheon's View

Linda Hutcheon's ideas about postmodernism are often compared to those of another thinker, Fredric Jameson. Jameson thought postmodernism made people lose their ability to think critically. He believed it made history seem confusing and disconnected.

However, Hutcheon sees things differently. She believes postmodernism can actually help us understand things better. She thinks it helps us question and analyze the world around us.

Hutcheon says that postmodernism uses parody to both accept and challenge what it is making fun of. She explains that parody shows how new ideas come from old ones. It also shows how being similar or different to the past can have important effects. So, for Hutcheon, postmodernism doesn't erase history. Instead, it helps us rethink history and find new ways to understand it.

Historiographic Metafiction

Linda Hutcheon created the term historiographic metafiction. This describes stories that talk about the past but also make you aware that they are just one way of telling the story. These stories are "self-reflexive," meaning they question their own truth. They remind you that any version of history can be incomplete or biased.

Historiographic metafiction helps us talk about the past in a useful way. It acknowledges that "objective" history might not always be completely true. But it also keeps us from feeling totally lost or disconnected from the past.

Canadian Identity

Many of Hutcheon's ideas about postmodernism are also seen in her books about Canada. Her book The Canadian Postmodern looks at how Canadian writers use postmodern ideas in their stories. She believes that irony is very important to what it means to be Canadian.

Hutcheon says that irony is a complex way of connecting what is said with what is not said. It also adds a judgment or opinion. This happens when people are part of "discursive communities." These are groups where people share ways of talking and understanding. Being part of such a community helps listeners understand when a speaker is being ironic.

She argues that Canadians often see their identity as ironic. This is because Canada doesn't have one clear national story. Also, Canada has been influenced by being a British colony, being close to the United States, and having many immigrants. These influences mean Canadians are part of many different "discursive communities." Linda Hutcheon also explored writing by ethnic minorities in her book Other Solitudes: Canadian Multicultural Fiction.

Opera Studies

Since the mid-1990s, Linda Hutcheon has written several books about opera with her husband, Michael Hutcheon. Their books combine her knowledge of literature with his background as a doctor and medical researcher.

Selected Publications

• Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox. (NY and London: Routledge, 1984).
• 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).
• "Postmodern Afterthoughts". Wascana Review of Contemporary Poetry and Short Fiction 37.1 (2002): 5-12. [Link to article]
• Bodily Charm: Living Opera. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000 (with Michael Hutcheon).
• "A Crypto-Ethnic Confession". The Anthology of Italian-Canadian Writing. Ed. Joseph Pivato. Toronto: Guernica Editions, 1998.
• Opera: Desire, Disease, and Death. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996 (with Michael Hutcheon).
• "The Post Always Rings Twice: The Postmodern and the Postcolonial". Material History Review 41 (1995): 4-23. [Link to article]
• Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
• "Incredulity toward Metanarrative: Negotiating Postmodernism and Feminisms". Collaboration in the Feminine: Writings on Women and Culture from Tessera. Ed. Barbara Godard. Toronto: Second Story, 1994. 186–192. [Link to article]
• The Canadian Postmodern: A Study of Contemporary English-Canadian Fiction. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Splitting Images: Contemporary Canadian Ironies. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991.
• "Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History". Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction. Ed. P. O'Donnell and Robert Con Davis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. 3-32. [Link to article]
• The Politics of Postmodernism. London & New York: Routledge, 1989.
• "The Postmodern Problematizing of History". English Studies in Canada 14.4 (1988): 365–382. [Link to article]
• 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: University of Illinois Press, 2001.
• Leonard Cohen and His Works. Toronto; ECW Press; two different essays on his poetry and fiction, probably 1992 and 1994.[Link to article]
• Narcissistic Narrative 1980, 1985, 2013.

Awards and Honors

• 2016, She received the Lorne Pierce Medal.
• 2010, She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. This is a very high honor in Canada.
• 2005, She won the Killam Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.
• 1990, She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.