Institutionalization of Postmodernism and New Trends in Postmodern Studies: An Interview with Professor Linda Hutcheon

Linda Hutcheon, Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at University of Toronto and the 119th President of MLA, is one of the most prestigious postmodern theorists. As a defender of postmodernism, Hutcheon argues that postmodernism is anything but ahistorical and apolitical cultural pastiche; rather, it tries in a unique way to decode and recode the discourse-power relationship underlying cultural, literary as well as historical texts, so as to expose the ideological subtext buried in any cultural practices and the compulsory mechanism that reproduces unjust power, hence to pave the way toward more positive political practices. This interview was conducted in the written form by emails from March to May, 2012, focusing on the new trends of postmodern studies and practices. In her opinion, postmodernism has not been dead as theorists declared, only that it has entered into a new phase which can be temporarily called "the late postmodern moment," that is, postmodernism has evolved into an institutionalized and canonized counter-discourse, widely adopted and applied in contemporary cultural practices, artistic creativities, as well as academic and pedagogic studies. This interview also covers other topics, such as the influence of digital information technology upon postmodernism, the historical background of the growing-up of historiographic metafiction, and the similarities and differences between postmodern politics and that of Marxism, feminism and post-colonialism.