| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,000,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Yukiko Oshima studied the representation of Native Americans by a 19^<th> century American writer, Herman Melville (1819-1891). While Melville's African representations have been explored by critics since Carolyn Karcher's groundbreaking Shadow over the Promised Land (1980), Native American representation has suffered long neglect, although such representation should be weighed as heavily as the African question for Melville. Oshima has extracted Native American elements from Melville's major novels such as Moby-Dick, Pierre, Israel Potter, and The Confidence Man and show how they extend into "John Marr," his late work.
Oshima along with Izumi Ogura focused on the gap between the Pequot War accounts and historical "facts." Ogura, whose special field is Puritan studies, analyzed how the white settler desire to expand their land made them uphold the idea of "natural right." Ogura analyzed this in a monograph John Cotton and Puritanism and, in details, another full-length analysis of the war. Oshima explored the war from Native American perspectives focusing on the relevant works, such as Moby-Dick whose setting is a whaler named after the tribe and Israel Potter whose protagonist Potter is once compared to a Pequot slave, and concluded Melville had significant knowledge of the tribe. Oshima, through her exploration of Melville's other treatment of Amerindian tribes, concluded that one of the unique characteristics of Melville is his ability to imagine the racial Other: significant characters assume their voices and gestures.
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