1999 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Relationship between Media and Death in Contemporary American Literature
| Project/Area Number |
09610479
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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 |
英語・英米文学
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| Research Institution | Osaka University of Foreign Studies |
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Principal Investigator |
WATANABE Katsuaki Osaka University of Foreign Studies, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Associate Professor, 外国語学部, 助教授 (10182908)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1997 – 1999
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| Keywords | media / death / Don DeLillo / aura / spectacle / American literature / postmodernism / simulacra |
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of this research is to delineate what kind of relationship a great variety of media has with postmodern attitudes towards death through the extensive analysis of contemporary American Literary imagination. In the first year, electric media represented by computer, telephone, film, radio. TV, and internet appearing in literary text were mainly examined in relation to the concealment of death behind hyperreality and simulacra media proliferate. In the second year, the emphasis was put on consumption media including supermarkets and shopping malls and reproduction media such as pop arts, photographs, and advertisements which help promote consumption. In the final year, the focus was on velocity or transportation media exemplified by highways, cars, and planes and space media embodied by skyscrapers and stadiums.
In this process a series of works by Don DeLillo---one the most influential American writers---including white Noise, Libra, Mao II, and Underworld was found playing a crucial role in this research ; they deal with the essential correlation between the fear of death and the fascination of what should be called spectacular postmodern aura that takes the place of Benjamin's concept of aura. The close connection between the mystification of death and endlessly proliferated simulacra based on the rise of the new faceless "crowd" in Late Capitalism was consistently analyzed in the following papers : "From Noise to White Noise : where Death Meets Media" ; "Postmodern Oswald and Postmodern Aura : Assassination of JFK and Don DeLillo's Libra" ; "The Age of "Crowd" and the Portrait of a Novelist : Mythology of Death and Media in Mao II."
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