Professor to speak on
literary theory
By Kurt Esposito
Staff
Writer
As part of the Woodman Lecture series presented
by the English department, Professor Linda Hutcheon is speaking on literary
theory.
Her speech is titled "Post-Colonial Witnessing
and After: Rethinking Literary History Today" and is at 5 p.m. on Wednesday
in the Krannert Auditorium.
Hutcheon, a professor of English and Comparative
Literature at the University of Toronto and the current president of
the Modern Language Association, is discussing her recent work on the
place of ethnicity in literary history as well as theories on other
comparative literary studies. She is one of the leading theorists of
postmodernism and parody, and has published 10 books on those and other
subjects relating to literary theory.
John Goshert, a graduate student in English studies,
said it is beneficial for English students to attend, as well as other
liberal arts students, because Hutcheon is an easy person to understand.
He said she teaches by using different examples
that students are familiar with, and discusses many facets of those
examples and how they relate to what she is teaching. Goshert said this
style makes Hutcheon accessible to readers.
Goshert said that Hutcheon is influential because
she challenges people to read differently.
"She is getting us to look at structure rather
than the message, and, because of that, asks us to rethink the big structure,"
said Goshert. "Changes relating to those structures allows you to be
critical."
Kyle Kerner, a senior in the School of Education,
said, "Other authors presume that you're an academic and you've been
studying literary theory for years. She doesn't do that to her readers.
She explains her theory over and over again and lets you know what she's
arguing."
Kerner is attending the lecture because he has
been studying Hutcheon's work and is interested in seeing if and how
her theories on postmodernism have changed since her 1989 book, "Politics
of Postmodernism."
John Duvall, an associate professor of English,
who is giving the introduction speech for Hutcheon, has worked with
her on "Modern Fiction Studies," which is a literary journal produced
by Purdue. He said Hutcheon is important to literary scholars for her
work on theories of postmodernism and her own theory, Historiographic
Metafiction.
Hutcheon's theories on postmodernism have challenged
the presumption that postmodernism is limited to fiction by white males
from first-class countries. She states that postmodernism is open to
all people throughout the world.
Historiographic Metafiction is a theory on historical
fiction that shows how the factual history of a certain time period
could have influenced those fictional events. It shows that history
did not always happen as it was recorded.
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