(no subject)

So we've moved on to another postmodernist, Linda Hutcheon. She's the postmodernists postmodernists recommend to their sceptics, because she's saner, has some access to reality, and can carry on a discussion for some time before slipping into jargon.

So she's sort of the Locutus of postmodernism, since we apparently like borg metaphors around here :)

I'm trying to give her a fair chance. But she's already maligned my own theoretical approach about 6 times, and shown she doesn't understand it in the least, and I'm less than 5% through her book. And while she's more conscious, and more aware of reality, she's clearly too attached to many of the cynical ideas at the core of postmodernism that I just can't agree with.

It seems I'm not the only one in class. There's a guy in our course who's in the same "liberal humanist/thematicist" tradition I am, and we echo a lot of each other's points. I've already made him a convert of John Ralston Saul :)

And foi_nefaste? He's a former McGiller. He left because of Lecher.

One of his teachers -- the other Canadian Lit person at McGill -- had a great analogy for explaining Modernism and Postmodernism: "Modernism wanted to burn down the House of Art and Culture. Postmodernism is playing with the charred bits that are left" :)

Other than that, I'm working around the clock these days for the place that can't afford to hire me permanently. I'm working on call. For a guy who's been laid off, I seem to be clocking in more hours than when I was there officially :/