Hutcheon Linda - A poetics of postmodernism: history, theory, fiction

No text is without its intertexts, we have been taught. This one is no exception. The finely honed readings of postmodern texts by two colleagues in particular deserve mention right at the start: those of Alison Lee and Janet Paterson. Not only have they offered worthy examples to follow but also both have been provocative critics of various parts of this book. So too has been Graham Knight, the most critical and acute reader one could ever wish for. For listening to or reading parts of this study, or for just tossing ideas around with me, I would particularly like to thank Catherine Belsey, Aruna Srivastava, Susan Bennett, Magdalene Redekop, and Pamela McCallum. I owe much as well to the members of three graduate classes at McMaster University and the University of Toronto, for they were the guinea pigs upon which these ideas were testedand the stimulus for their (sometimes total) rethinking.

Over the last few years, a number of university audiences have heard parts of the research that went into this study. I would like to thank those institutions for inviting me to speak and for giving me the chance to work out my ideas in a public forum: Columbia University, Queens University, University of Toronto, University of Calgary, University of Alberta, Catholic University of America, University of Saskatchewan, University of Ottawa, Concordia University, York University, McGill University, Universit de Montral, University of Western Ontario. Similarly I would like to thank the professional associations whose conferences also gave an occasion for trying out new ideas on new audiences: the Modern Language Association (and Northeastern MLA), Royal Society of Canada, Association of Canadian University Teachers of English, Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures, Canadian Comparative Literature Association, American Comparative Literature Association, Canadian Philosophy Association (Society for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought), and the International Association for Philosophy and Literature.

Similarly parts of this book have appeared in shorter and earlier versions (often with quite different foci) in various journals (Textual Practice, Cultural Critique, Diacritics, Genre, English Studies in Canada) and in essay collections (Gender and Theory: A Dialogue between the Sexes [ed. L.Kauffman], Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction [ed. P.ODonnell and R.Con Davis], Future Indicative: Canadian Literature and Literary Theory [ed. J.Moss]). To the editors interest in and support of work in progress I am greatly indebted.

Perhaps the greatest intertextual framework of this study, though, is that of all the current debates on the nature and definition of the postmodern. Though this book would have been finished a lot earlier without them, I can only be grateful that I had such wonderful minds to think both with and against. My particular debts to each will be clear from references in the text, but I would like to single out the ones who most stimulated me and helped me formulate my own notions: Andreas Huyssen, Teresa de Lauretis, Arthur Kroker, Alan Wilde, Charles Russell, Charles Newman, Brian McHale, Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton, and especially those theoristpractitioners: Martha Rosler, Paolo Portoghesi, Charles Jencks, and Victor Burgin, to mention only a few.

Three particular thanks must end this list. One is to an institutionthe Canada Councilwhose Killam Research Fellowship gave me the time and the financial support needed to write this book. The second is to Methuen and especially to Janice Price, for having confidence in my work and being so supportive of it. And the last is, as always, to my spouse, Michael, for his constant encouragement, unfailing good humor, fine critical sense, and amazing patience in putting up with my postmodern obsessions.

Linda Hutcheon

Toronto 1987