Research on the mechanisation of the body and human relations in modernist literature

• Project/Area Number: 22520228
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: TAJIRI Yoshiki 東京大学, 総合文化研究科, 准教授 (20251746)
• Project Period (FY): 2010-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2014)
• Budget Amount: ¥4,030,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥930,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000); Fiscal Year 2013: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000); Fiscal Year 2012: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000); Fiscal Year 2011: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000); Fiscal Year 2010: ¥910,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥210,000)
• Keywords: 機械化 / 身体 / モダニズム / 二人組 / 疑似カップル / 機械 / ベケット / ウィンダム・ルイス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

I explored how modernist literature represented the body and human relations in new ways, inspired by the reorganised connections between the human and newborn technologies. I focused especially on the way authors like Wyndham Lewis and Samuel Beckett, who were keenly interested in the mechanisation of the human, transformed the traditional figure of the pair of clowns. I discussed this subject in relation to Bergson's idea of comedy, Chaplin's or Keaton's film comedies and Fredric Jameson's views of the 'pseudocouple'.

Research Products

• [Presentation] Beckett and Wyndham Lewis : The "Pseudocouple" in Modernism (2011)
  • Author(s): 田尻芳樹
  • Organizer: Samuel Beckett out of the Archive
  • Place of Presentation: ヨーク大学(英国)
  • Year and Date: 2011-06-25
• [Presentation] 'The Pseudocouple and Sexuality -- Rereading Mercier and Camier'.
  • Author(s): Yoshiki Tajiri
  • Organizer: Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies Seminar Series.
  • Place of Presentation: University of Oxford (Oxford, UK)
• [Presentation] 'The Sexuality of Beckett's Pseudocouples'
  • Author(s): Yoshiki Tajiri
  • Organizer: English Department Research Seminar at the University of Bristol
  • Place of Presentation: University of Bristol (Bristol, UK)
• [Presentation] Rethinking the 'Pseudocouple': Comedy, Mechanisation and Nihilism
  • Author(s): Yoshiki Tajiri
  • Organizer: Beckett International Foundation Research Seminar
  • Place of Presentation: 英国レディング大学