2004 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Study of the Representation of the "American Sublime" and the Emanation of Aura in Contemporary American Literature
| Project/Area Number |
13610569
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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, Professor, 外国語学部, 教授 (10182908)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2004
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| Keywords | America / sublime / aura / Don DeLillo / postmodern / media / globalization / spectacle |
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| Research Abstract |
The object of this research is to analyze the representation of the American sublime in American literature, for the purpose of explaining how the post-Benjamin aura has come to emanate from mass-produced and mass-consumed virtual images in the media-saturated postmodern society. This viewpoint is based on the observation that the characteristic American obsession with huge mythical qualities represented in the awe-inspiring landscape of the new world has been drastically transformed into the seemingly contrastive preoccupation with simulacra through the advancement of media technologies. As a result of this research, the glaring discrepancy in the American collective unconscious between the nature-orientated sublimity and the media-orientated sublimity turned out not only compatible but also affinitive in terms of their irresistible attraction to immortality.
Diachronically and synchronically delineating the American sublime extracted from various kinds of text, including fiction, drama, poetry, art, film, photo, TV, advertisement, and internet, this project particularly focused on the major postmodern novelists such as Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Paul Auster, Richard Powers, and Robert Coover. Taking into account what kind of twist has been given to the conventional concept of the American sublime and how it has been assimilated into the new one, this research examined the problematic emanation of the new aura form the perspective of the postmodern culture and the globalization. In consequence, it was verified that the configuration of the new aura could be detected sometimes as an uncanny apparition in waste and virtual images the late-capitalism endlessly proliferates.
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