2017 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Rural Texts, Global Contexts: Willa Cather's Cosmopolitan Imagination
| Project/Area Number |
16K02501
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Hiroshima City University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
ゴーマン マイケル 広島市立大学, 国際学部, 准教授 (20625892)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
|
| Keywords | Willa Cather / rural cosmopolitanism |
|---|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I used the 2017-18 academic year to explore indigenous history on the Great Plains, homesteading, grain production in the Midwest, World War I, and relations between indigenous people and the European/American settlers who supplanted them. In August, I visited several sites such as the Pipestone National Monument in Pipestone, Minnesota, and the Jeffers Petroglyphs Historical Site outside of Comfrey, Minnesota, where I learned first-hand about 7,000 years of indigenous history on the plains. I was also able to visit the Brown County Historical Museum in New Ulm, Minnesota. Visiting these sites and reading historical accounts such as Michael Neiberg's The Path to War (2016), Scott Berg's 38 Nooses (2012), Gwen Westerman and Bruce White's Mni Sota Makoce (2012) provided me important context for understanding Cather's novels such as O Pioneers! (1913), My Antonia (1918), and One of Ours (1922).
In 2017, I published an article entitled“Rural Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Imperialism in Willa Cather's One of Ours" and presented papers on Willa Cather at two conferences in the United States. In June, I presented“China, Christianity, and Cather's 'The Conversion of Sum Loo'”at the International Willa Cather Seminar, and I presented“Negating the Indigenous Presence: The Jeffers Petroglyphs and Willa Cather's‘Indian Stories'" at the Western Literature Association conference in October.
|
| 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 second year of my grant, I planned to "explore Cather's representation of and interest in Native American cultures.”To this end, I had intended to 1) visit sites of archaeological and historical import from the American Southwest to Grand Manan Island on the Atlantic coast of Canada; 2) conduct extensive research into indigenous and settler history in Minnesota; and 3) present papers at the International Cather Seminar and the Western Literature Conference. While I was unable to visit Mesa Verde or Grand Manan island, the research trip to Minnesota and the conferences in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis were profitable learning experiences and instrumental in helping me write the Western Literature Association paper and the article on My Antonia.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In June I will submit a proposal to present a paper on Willa Cather at the Western Literature Association Conference held in St. Louis, Missouri, in October. Between August and September, I will explore sites associated with the Asian Americans Cather depicted in her early fiction and journalism. I hope to visit the Daniel K. E. Ching Collection in San Francisco, the Pictorial Collection at the University of California’s Bancroft Library, and the Fogg Museum at Harvard University to view exhibits relating to Chinese and Chinese American culture.
|
| Causes of Carryover |
I knew I was going to buy a desktop computer in 2018. Rather than spend it on things I didn't need, I wanted to apply that sum to the new computer that I plan to buy.
|
