"Postmodernism" has become so familiar a term that it is easy to forget how complex, challenging and politically charged postmodern theory can be. We are even sometimes told that postmodernism is over, or that it never existed. This text remains a clear and incisive introduction to the field. Perhaps more importantly, it is a discussion of why postmodernism matters. Working through the issue of representation, in art forms from fiction to photography, Linda Hutcheon sets out postmodernism's highly political challenge to the dominant ideologies of the western world. A new epilogue traces the fate of the postmodern over the last ten years and into the future, responding to claims that it has, once and for all, "failed". Along with the new epilogue, this edition contains revised notes on further reading and a fully updated bibliography.
Contents:
General editor's preface. Acknowledgements. 1. Representing the postmodern: What is postmodernism? Representation and its politics, Whose postmodernism? Postmodernity, postmodernism, and modernism. 2. Postmodernist representation: De-naturalizing the natural, Photographic discourse, Telling Stories: fiction and history. 3. Re-presenting the past: 'Total history' de-totalized, Knowing the past in the present, The archive as text. 4. The politics of parody: Parodic postmodern representation, Double-coded politics, Postmodern film? 5. Text/image border tensions: The paradoxes of photography, The ideological arena of photo-graphy, The politics of address 6. Postmodernism and feminisms: Politicizing desire, Feminist postmodernist parody, The private and the public. Concluding note: some directed reading. Bibliography. Index.
