1999 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Ikutaro Shimizu and his period
| Project/Area Number |
09610211
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
社会学(含社会福祉関係)
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| Research Institution | Waseda University |
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Principal Investigator |
OKUBO Takaji Waseda Universitv, School of Literature, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (00194100)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1997 – 1999
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| Keywords | Ikutaro Shimizu / autobiography / life history / intellectual / life course |
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| Research Abstract |
Ikutaro Shimizu, a famous sociologist and one of the opinion leaders in Japan following World War II, has written three autobiographies about his life.
Shimizu was 42 years old when he wrote the first autobiography. In an ordinary sense, Shimizu was too young to write an autobiography. But at that time, Shimizu was standing at a critical turning point in his life course. It was necessary for him to look back upon the past, not to yearn for the past, but to take steps toward a changed life course.
Shimizu was 48 years old when he wrote the second autobiography. Only six years had passed since he had written the first autobiography. But Shimizu did not merely rehash the contents of the first autobiography. In the first autobiography, Shimizu told about his public life, or his educational and professional career. In contrast, he told about his private life, or his family career, in the second autobiography. The contents of the second autobiography complement the information presented in the
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first one. There is one other factor that is important in the second autobiography. The loneliness Shimizu faced at the beginning of his new life stage is projected onto the episodes that are recounted in the second autobiography.
Shimizu was 67 years old when he composed the third autobiograthy. Twenty years had passed since the publication of the second autobiography. Therefore, Shimizu was able to incorporate into the new autobiography many new episodes that occurred during his 40's and 50's. At the same time, Shimizu included many old episodes of his life, experiences from his teens, his 2O's, and his 30's, which had been already told in the first and second autobiographies. Some of the old episodes were clearly or more subtly modified. Shimizu was concerned with the details of each episode, and he tried to exclude dramatization from his last autobiography as much as he possibly could. Moreover, Shimizu positively expressed his opinions about up-to-the-minute social problems through the telling of the old episodes. The third autobiography is a dialogue between the past and the present. Less
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