Linda Hutcheon

Bio: Linda Hutcheon is an academic researcher from University of Toronto. The author has contributed to research in topics: Postmodernism & Opera. The author has an hindex of 27, co-authored 146 publications receiving 8146 citations. Previous affiliations of Linda Hutcheon include National Autonomous University of Mexico & McMaster University.

Operatic Subjects: The Evolution of Self in Modern Opera (review)

Abstract: balance, Labounsky writes compellingly about worthwhile but neglected pieces, while frankly admitting that others (unspecified) should have remained unpublished: “Langlais could not objectively decide what to throw away. . . . Instead of reworking sketches for months at a time, he usually sent them to the copyist as soon as they were finished, without a second thought” (p. 330). Labounsky’s decision to place key works by Langlais in the broader context of his professional development and personal life is especially appropriate for a composer whose creative energies were often inspired by people, places, or events. Sometimes the inspiration is obvious, as in the highly programmatic pieces bearing descriptive titles and clear thematic allusions. In other works, like those containing motives melodically encoded from names of family members, friends, and lovers, the author’s explanations are especially welcome, even though one is inclined to agree that in these pieces, “[t]he pleasure of discovering the name motifs and performing his music is sometimes greater for the performer than for the listener” (p. 330). While Labounsky’s presentation of Langlais’s organ works leaves open the question of whether the best of them will eventually be ranked with those of Franck and Tournemire, her assertion that “[a]bove all Langlais should be recognized as a significant composer of sacred music” (p. 331) is substantiated by generous and informative coverage of the prominence of chant melodies and modes in his compositions and improvisations. Moreover, several of Langlais’s important compositions (including some intended for concert performance) were—like the organ works of his friend and contemporary Olivier Messiaen —inspired by Roman Catholic liturgy and teachings. And even though opposed (philosophically, at least) to the Second Vatican Council’s pronouncements on church music, Langlais contributed an important body of music for use in the new rites. Thus the composer’s lifelong commitment to expressing his ardent Roman Catholicism through music may form his strongest link to the so-called SainteClotilde Tradition. Benjamin Van Wye Skidmore College

Introduction: A 'Permanent Appointment'?

Abstract: I remember stocking up on clothes at one of the stores near the university that made their living out of students, and were very knowing about university gossip. The clerk asked me what I was studying, and I said, with a touch of shrillness, that I was teaching. Just for the summer, of course. He wrapped my parcel, handed it to me, and said ‘And I hope your permanent appointment comes through all right.’ –Northrop Frye, reporting to Victoria College on a summer teaching in Seattle after his Guggenheim year (1950–51) at Harvard. (CW 7: 54)

The Inward Turn: American Opera Revisits America’s Past

Abstract: :Many modern American operas revisit canonical American literature (e.g., The Great Gatsby, A Streetcar Named Desire, Of Mice and Men, An American Tragedy, A View from a Bridge, Moby-Dick, McTeague, Margaret Garner) or base themselves on historical events, especially recent ones (e.g., X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Nixon in China, Dr. Atomic). However, what is striking is that the focus of the latter is most often on the remarkable or heroic individual—as, indeed, it is in what could be called recent “celebrity opera” as well (as in Marilyn or Jackie O)—thus revealing the enduring power of American exceptionalism to this day.

Displacement and Anxiety: Empire and Opera

Abstract: Despite Edward Said’s extensive analysis of the manifestations of Orientalism in European culture, music receives little of his attention. Yet he had a strong interest in the art form and frequently used musical imagery in his critical language.1 His formal treatment of empire and opera, for instance, was confined to a discussion of the genesis—and not the music or narrative—of Verdi’s Aida in Culture and Imperialism.2 Like him, many have written about nineteenth-century Paris as the hub of Orientalist study and even more specifically about the French Romantic taste for the exotic and the Orientalist in literature (Nerval’s Voyage en Orient or Hugo’s Les Orientales) and in the visual arts (the paintings of Delacroix or Ingres). Ralph Locke and Susan McClary, among others, have discussed the nature and politics of the exotic in French music in general.3 Many have made the obvious generalizations about the link between colonialism and Orientalism, but few have tied the overt operatic explorations of imperialism directly and concretely to the historical fact that France was an active colonial power in North Africa and the Islamic Middle East in the middle and late nineteenth century.4

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

Abstract: Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality

Abstract: To raise the question of the nature of narrative is to invite reflection on the very nature of culture and, possibly, even on the nature of humanity itself. So natural is the impulse to narrate, so inevitable is the form of narrative for any report of the way things really happened, that narrativity could appear problematical only in a culture in which it was absent-absent or, as in some domains of contemporary Western intellectual and artistic culture, programmatically refused. As a panglobal fact of culture, narrative and narration are less problems than simply data. As the late (and already profoundly missed) Roland Barthes remarked, narrative "is simply there like life itself. . international, transhistorical, transcultural."' Far from being a problem, then, narrative might well be considered a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely, the problem of how to translate knowing into telling,2 the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific. We may not be able fully to comprehend specific thought patterns of another culture, but we have relatively less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that

The Post-Colonial Studies Reader

Abstract: The essential introduction to the most important texts in post-colonial theory and criticism, this second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to include 121 extracts from key works in the field. Leading, as well as lesser known figures in the fields of writing, theory and criticism contribute to this inspiring body of work that includes sections on nationalism, hybridity, diaspora and globalization. The Reader's wide-ranging approach reflects the remarkable diversity of work in the discipline along with the vibrancy of anti-imperialist writing both within and without the metropolitan centres. Covering more debates, topics and critics than any comparable book in its field, The Post-Colonial Studies Reader is the ideal starting point for students and issues a potent challenge to the ways in which we think and write about literature and culture.