2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Positioning Tokyo as Global City: Anglo-American Narratives of the New Japanese Capital, 1868 - 1922
| Project/Area Number |
18K12316
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| Research Institution | Sophia University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | English literature / travel writing / Japan / tourism / Tokyo |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I have continued to develop my research into British travellers and residents in Tokyo during the long nineteenth century. In January of 2023, I co-organized (with Professor Alex Watson) a Meiji University symposium on "English Literature and the Pacific", chairing the plenary by Professor Steve Clark. I also gave three conference presentations in the last year: 1) a paper on "“The real melancholy inspired by autumn”: Lafcadio Hearn’s Translations of Japanese “Insect Melody”, at the University of Ghent "Unknown Tongues" seminar (April 2022); 2) a paper on “Re-Evaluating Elizabeth Craven: A Pioneering Eighteenth-Century Traveller and Feminist Writer”, at an online conference on “What’s in a Name? Re-evaluating marginalized figures from the Early Modern Period in Britain” (King’s College London, UK); and 3) a paper on “John Keats and Lafcadio Hearn’s Translations of Japanese Insect Melody”, at the 48th Japan Association of English Romanticism Conference, Matsuyama University. I have also submitted to Palgrave the complete manuscript of an edited collection (edited with Professor Tomoe Kumojima, Nara Women's University) on "Pacific Gateways: Trans-Oceanic Narratives and English Literature, 1780 to 1914". This manuscript will contain 15 essays. I have authored two essays: 1) the introduction, co-authored with Tomoe Kumojima, and 2) “An Aesthetic Gateway to Japan: Mount Fuji and the Steamship Arrival in British Travel Writing, 1880 to 1900”.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
The project has been extended twice because of the effects of COVID-19, which has made it difficult to travel abroad or to invite international speakers. I intend to accomplish as much as possible of the research within the remaining one year.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In the next year, I will continue to develop my research, focusing on three main areas: 1) British travellers in Tokyo and Japan during the period from 1852 - 1914 2) representations of Tokyo in Western literature during the twentieth century 3) British political discourse on Japan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in the context of other countries that were "closed" to Western travel or trade (such as China and Tibet). I will write a chapter for the Bloomsbury Handbook of Romanticism in Britain and Asia on “Tibet and Japan (1770 - 1840): Early Encounters”, and a chapter on Lafcadio Hearn for a volume titled "Unknown Tongues", with Edinburgh University Press. I am also continuing to plan and write a monograph on this topic.
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| Causes of Carryover |
The amount has been transferred to next fiscal year because of the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made international travel and inviting speakers to Japan more difficult than expected. In the next year, I expect to resume international travel, making research trips and attending conferences such as the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies conference in Singapore in June 2023. Kaken funds will also be used for the purchase of books and essential office supplies. If the contract with Palgrave can be concluded within the next fiscal year, I also plan to use money to pay for Open Access fees for the "Pacific Gateways" book.
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