2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Theories and representations of "hybridity" in Western history of thought
| Project/Area Number |
20K00103
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Tokyo Metropolitan University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
グロワザール ジョスラン 東京都立大学, 人文科学研究科, 准教授 (30781885)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
|
| Keywords | hybrid / medieval bestiary / monster / animal symbolism |
|---|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In FY2021, I focused my research on the representation of hybrid creatures in European Medieval culture. My corpus included both literary material, mainly in the genre of animal encyclopedias called "bestiaries" (Greek "Physiologos", Latin "Physiologus", French "bestiaire"), and visual representations such as carved capitals in churches or illuminations in manuscripts. My aim was to understand how hybrid creatures are at a crossroads between humanity, animality and monstrosity, so that they define and blur at the same time the limit between human and animal (or sometimes vegetal) as well as between normality and abnormality or between reality and imagination. I investigated the paradox of the omnipresence of hybrid creatures in Medieval culture in spite of their geographical or religious marginality as exotic monsters living on the borders of the known world or diabolical creatures living outside the realm of Christianiy. I was able to show that, through this paradox, representations of hybrids, both in their symbolic and humoristic value, are representative of Medieval culture as a whole in its blend of free fantasy and mystic rationalism: hybrids reveal a view of nature as impredictible and threatening, but also wonderfully diverse and reflecting the mysteries of its Creator's will.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Restrictions to international travel due to the coronavirus pandemic prevented me from making a planned research trip in FY2021, so that I had to adapt my research plan and focus my research on material available in Japan.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
For FY2022, I plan to move forward within the chronological frame of my initial research project with two main directions : 1) 18th century French literature, and particularly Restif de la Bretonne's novel "La decouverte australe", which is a remarkable example of what can be called an esthetics of hybridity; 2) the history of teratology, and particularly the process by which hybrid monsters, namely monsters composed of parts similar to those of different species, were progressively removed from the field of scientific teratology, while still being present in works of such authors as Ambroise Pare and Fortunio Liceti.
|
| Causes of Carryover |
In the first two years of my research project, the coronavirus pandemic prevented me from making the research trips to Europe I had initially planned, so that the actual expenditure was lower than expected. I plan to use the remaining amount to make a research trip this year or next year if conditions allow it.
|
