How catastrophic events are narrated by someone who is not personally involved: narrative strategies in contemporary Austrian literature.

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K16713
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: European literature
• Research Institution: Kobe University
• Principal Investigator: Fukuoka Asako 神戸大学, 大学教育推進機構, 准教授 (40566999)
• Research Collaborator: Ivanovic Christine ウィーン大学, 文学部, 教授
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: オーストリア現代文学 / カタストロフィ論 / イェリネク

Outline of Final Research Achievements

One of the most difficult and thoroughly discussed issues in contemporary society is the question of who is "tojisha" (directly affected) by a catastrophic event, for example, in post-WWII society or following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and Tsunami. In this project I delved into some noteworthy examples from contemporary Austrian literature that deal with this issue, illustrating their narrative strategies and deriving one model from them. The play "Kein Licht" ("No light", 2011) by Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek (born 1946) served as the central example. This play was written in immediate response to the Tohoku disaster, but told from a geographical distance (i.e. based on her "experiences" via various media). In light of that Jelinek's literary strategies that deal with not only the event itself but also the "medial" characteristic of experiences were analyzed in this project.

Free Research Field

ドイツ語圏文学