African American Fiction and Fictions of the Founding Fathers
| Project/Area Number |
20K00459
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 02030:English literature and literature in the English language-related
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| Research Institution | Kansai University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2022)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,510,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥810,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000)
Fiscal Year 2021: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
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| Keywords | African American / Afro-pessimism / Frantz Fanon / Universalism / Frederick Douglass / WEB Du Bois / Founding Fathers / Agency / US Constitution / Constitution / Property |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
Situated at the intersection of African American literature, history and political science, my research project is quite interdisciplinary and requires extensive theoretical background reading. I will therefore devote my first year to building as complete a bibliography as possible. Over the second year, I intend to develop my argument in the form of essays, and then chapters. The Founding Fathers’ principles, and most particularly the notion of property, will constitute the golden thread of my project throughout. In the third year, I want to start contacting potential academic publishers.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I have devoted most of the past academic year to my book project Black Hopes/Black Woes, which final manuscript is due in the Fall of 2024. I wrote a chapter of about 21,000 words about how contemporary African American scholar Frank B. Wilderson promotes the tenets of Afro-pessimism. The chapter focuses on Wilderson’s definition of antiblackness, rejection of Marxism through his criticism of Antonio Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis, and slapdash borrowing of Cornel West’s concept of prophetic pragmatism. I have also laid the groundwork for my next chapter on how self-proclaimed Afro-pessimists David Marriott, Fred Moten, and Jared Sexton have appropriated the notions of violence and tabula rasa in Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1962). Last November, I participated in a panel at the American Studies Association conference in New Orleans, LA. On that occasion, I discussed the concept of “lateral universalism,” which will be a central issue of the conclusion of my book. Finally, I wrote a lengthy essay on agency and property in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016). That paper echoes some of the arguments I present in my book and will appear in The African American Novel in the Early Twenty-First Century (Brill 2024), a collection of essays I co-edit with Professor Anna Pochmara at the University of Warsaw, Poland.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
As my book focuses on cutting-edge theories in African-American research, I must process a liberal amount of new and complex academic works (especially from so-called Afro-pessimist authors and militants), which is time-consuming. I have also spent a lot of time editing the first half of my upcoming book by myself as my publisher decided I didn't need editing assistance. Despite the challenge, I have started the third chapter of my book and intend to complete it by the end of the summer.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The book chapter I am working on is about Frantz Fanon's influence on current African-American thinkers such as David Marriott, Fred Moten, and Jared Sexton. I intend to complete it this summer while on a research fellowship at the Rothermere American Institute (RAI) at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. That fellowship at the RAI will be a crucial step toward the successful completion of my project. I will then have a full year to write a final chapter and a conclusion and submit a complete manuscript (including an index and a full bibliography) to my editors.
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Report
(3 results)
Research Products
(11 results)
