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Reviewed by:
  • Re: Reading the Postmodern: Canadian Literature and Criticism after Modernism
  • Brenna Clarke Gray
Robert David Stacey, ed. Re: Reading the Postmodern: Canadian Literature and Criticism after Modernism. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2010. 394 pp. $39.95.

Re: Reading the Postmodern: Canadian Literature and Criticism after Modernism is a collection of essays that emerged from the 2008 meeting of the annual Canadian Literature Symposium at the University of Ottawa, organized and chaired by the collection’s editor, Robert David Stacey. At this conference, scholars and writers were asked to think about Canadian postmodernism, both in terms of how it has developed and where it has gone. This book collects perspectives on postmodernism from pioneers in the field, including Linda Hutcheon and Robert Kroetsch, as well as writers like Christian Bök and academics such as Herb Wyile and Susan Rudy. In short, this text offers a wide range of perspectives on postmodernism, from those who question its value as a tool for analysis to those who question Linda Hutcheon’s original definition of it, to those who argue for its continued importance in the way we think and talk about Canadian literature. In collecting together such a diversity of perspectives, this text is significant for scholars of contemporary Canadian literature and especially for graduate students who may not yet have been exposed to the multiplicity of views about postmodernism in Canada. [End Page 127]

Directing students to a collection such as this can sometimes be a problem, because with a variety of voices inevitably comes variety in levels of difficulty and complexity. This is particularly a concern when a text deals with a concept like postmodernism, and some essays in this collection have a theoretical density which perhaps makes them best suited to those who have already spent some time engaged with ideas around postmodernity. This collection is not, nor does it claim to be, an introductory primer. But Stacey’s collection avoids the pitfall of alienating the emerging graduate student entirely; because the essays have developed from conference papers, they are largely clear, concise, and thoughtfully presented. Stacey has also been careful to juxtapose papers in complementary ways, so that two densely theoretical essays are rarely paired together. By including a variety of close readings and historical examinations, the collection stays engaging for readers of all levels of familiarity with the conceptual underpinnings of postmodernism. It also provides a helpful background to the differences between, for example, Hutchesonian and Jamesonian postmodernism, by using these ideas in context.

Many debates emerge through these essays, all of which appear delightfully in conversation with one another. Hutcheon, in particular, comes under fire for her focus on fictional narratives primarily and her desire, as Christian Bök articulates and Jason Wiens underscores, to “radicalize the many, formalistically conservative, texts at the expense of the few, formalistically progressive, texts” (298). And while the majority opinion in this collection is that postmodernism is indeed over, debates emerge over definitions of what it was and whether or not it can be used as a useful framework without sidelining or marginalizing feminist, queer, and postcolonial readings of texts from the era of postmodernism.

Stacey’s collection is both original—collecting these scholars together for the first time to discuss, problematize, and negotiate the role or ending of postmodernism and what happens next—and authoritative; authority is lent to the text not only by the voices of Frank Davey, Linda Hutcheon, and Robert Kroetsch that open the collection but also by the variety of perspectives offered by the contributors. There is representation here from people working in poetry, drama, and fiction from across Canada and from academic ranks of instructor through to professors emeritus. It is impossible to come away from this text without a sense that these issues are broadly based and worthy of continued consideration throughout post-modern, postmodern, and contemporary Canadian Literature. [End Page 128]

The essays are presented in four sections, following a thoughtful and engaging introductory essay by Stacey that neatly outlines the goal of the conference and book and his sense of the debates that emerge within and between the essays. The first section, “Retrospections,” allows the old guard of...

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