2018 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 / Internationalism / Modernism / Rurality / World War I / Great War / Boxer Rebellion / Cosmopolitanism |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
To better appreciate both the rural background of Cather’s fiction and her international outlook, I used the 2018-19 academic year to broaden my understanding of pioneer history, rural American society, and indigenous culture as well as to expand my knowledge of Cather’s interests in foreign cultures and international affairs, from the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 to the 1940s. In August, I traveled to the American Midwest. While there, I conducted research and collected materials at the University of Wisconsin libraries and visited several sites of historical or cultural importance such as the Richard I. Bong Veterans Center, the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center, the Bayfield Heritage Museum, as well as the Native American Museum, Indigenous Culture Center, and Center for Rural Communities at Northland College. In September, I traveled to France, where I visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Orleans that had been visited by Jeanne d’Arc and which plays an important part in Willa Cather’s One of Ours. In October, I traveled to Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (a UNESCO World Heritage site) in Collinsville, Illinois, to see the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico. In January of 2019, I traveled to Chicago and visited the Field Museum of natural history, the Museum of Science and Industry, the American Writer’s Museum, and the Chicago Art Institute.
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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 third year of my grant, I planned to investigate the history of Chinese Americans and Cather’s representation of and interest in Chinese American cultures and the representation of Asian Americans in popular culture. I accomplished this by accessing Internet resources, by conducting research at university libraries in the United States; and by visiting museum exhibits such as the Cyrus Tang Hall of China at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. While I did not present any conference papers relating to my kaken subject in 2018, I managed to publish an article on Willa Cather and the Boxer Rebellion and finish drafting a second article-length manuscript. With this in mind, I am satisfied with my progress to date.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
I intended to use academic year 2019-20 to disseminate the fruits of this kaken project through conference presentations and publications. In May, I will submit a proposal to present a conference paper on Willa Cather at the 2019 Western Literature Association Conference to be held in September at Estes Park, Colorado. I originally planned on presenting at the 2019 International Cather Seminar in June but will be unable to attend because of duties at my university. I will attempt to make up for this by volunteering to present a paper at the May 2020 ALA conference in San Diego. I will use August and September of this year to conduct needed research and to write, with the goal of submitting a book proposal based on this research project in the winter of 2019-20.
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