2016 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Rural Texts, Global Contexts: Willa Cather's Cosmopolitan Imagination
| Project/Area Number |
16K02501
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| Research Institution | Hiroshima City University |
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Principal Investigator |
ゴーマン マイケル 広島市立大学, 国際学部, 准教授 (20625892)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | Willa Cather / imperialism / World War I / The Boxer Rebellion / cosmopolitanism / American literature / rurality |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I used the 2016-17 academic year to assemble and read secondary sources on Willa Cather’s life and work. I focused attention on gathering and studying materials related to her interest in imperialist events taking place during her lifetime, such as the Boxer Uprising of 1900 in China.
Reading historical accounts such as Diana Preston’s The Boxer Rebellion (2001) provided me important context to understand primary documents―like “The Chinese Minister,” “A Chinese View of the Chinese Situation,” and “The Conversion of Sum Loo”―that Cather published in response to the same incident. In addition, I closely read Willa Cather’s correspondence recently made available by Janis Stout and Andrew Jewell in The Selected Letters of Willa Cather (2013). Particularly useful were the letters Cather wrote during the First World War as well as those she composed while writing One of Ours (1922), her Pulitzer Prize winning novel about World War I.
I have applied the fruits of the research conducted so far to two separate projects. The first is an article for the Japanese Association for American Studies entitled “Rural Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Imperialism in Willa Cather’s One of Ours.” It is scheduled to appear in volume 28 of the journal. I have also used parts of this research in a proposal to present a paper at the International Willa Cather Seminar to be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 11-17 June 2017. The proposal was accepted, and I will present “China, Christianity, and Cather’s ‘The Conversion of Sum Loo’” on 13 June 2017.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
In the first year of my grant, I planned 1) to collect scholarly resources on Willa Cather, 2) to research primary materials in the Willa Cather Archive at the University of Nebraska, 3) to interview Cather scholars, and 4) to attend the 41st Annual Western Literature Association Conference. I did not envision publishing anything relating to my research on Cather in the first year of the project.
While I was unable to conduct archival research at the University of Nebraska or attend the WLA Conference, I have been in regular communication Cather scholars and I have found useful primary and secondary source materials relating to Willa Cather’s interest in ethnic diversity, her depiction of rural cosmopolitanism, and her incorporation of international events into her rural settings. Among the materials uncovered were names of actual acquaintances who inspired Cather to write critically about Christian missionaries in China in fiction she published from the 1890s to the 1920s.
Moreover, I have been fortunate to apply the results of my research in publishing a scholarly article on Willa Cather, producing a successful proposal for the 2017 International Cather Seminar in Pittsburgh, and preparing the paper for that seminar.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In June 2017, I will present at the 16th Annual Willa Cather Seminar held at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Also in June I will submit a proposal to present a paper on Willa Cather at the Western Literature Association Conference held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in October. Between August and September, I intend to review Cather’s unpublished correspondence at the Willa Cather Archive in Special Collections of the Love Library at the University of Nebraska―Lincoln. Since I last visited the archives between 2003 and 2005, UNL Special Collections has received more than 3,000 additional pieces of Cather's correspondence. I will use this time to familiarize myself with the new materials and to make more specific plans for future visits to the archives in 2017 and 2018 as well as to shape the larger plans for my research project. I originally intended to perform archival research last summer, but used that time to work on collecting and studying secondary materials on Cather in preparation for writing the JAAS article.
In addition to conducting archival research at the University of Nebraska, I plan to visit important historical sites relating to Cather’s interest in and representation of indigenous cultures of North America. I originally hoped to visit spots in the American Southwest, Midwest, and Canada in the summer of 2017. To allot more time to archival research, however, I will scale back the plans to include significant places in Canada and the American Midwest like the Jeffers Petroglyphs Historical Site in Comfrey, Minnesota.
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| Causes of Carryover |
In 2016, I intended to buy scanners and computers for writing and research and for traveling to the United States to attend conferences and conduct archival research. I had an opportunity to publish an article sooner than expected. To give myself time to research and write the article, I delayed plans to conduct archival research at the University of Nebraska and to attend the Western Literature Conference.
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
In 2017, I will be traveling to North America three times. In June and October, I will travel to the United States to present at the International Willa Cather Seminar in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (June) and the Western Literature Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota (October). In August and September, I will be traveling to the University of Nebraska to conduct archival research and travel to significant sites connected to indigenous civilization in the American Midwest and Canada.
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