2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
African American Fiction and Fictions of the Founding Fathers
| Project/Area Number |
20K00459
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| Research Institution | Kansai University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | African American / Founding Fathers / Agency / Afro-pessimism / Universalism |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This year, an academic journal in the US accepted my essay, “Translating Diversity from Ralph Ellison to Kenzaburo Oe,” pending revisions. I did the revisions and am now waiting to hear back from the editors. I also penned a long essay, “Agency and Property in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad,” for the upcoming collection, The African American Novel in the Early Twenty-First Century (Brill), which I am co-editing with a colleague in Europe. The theme of agency, which is central to that essay, is also very relevant to my research project, which is taking the shape of a monograph that I tentatively call Black Hopes/Black Woes: Early African American Optimism and Twenty-first Century Afro-pessimism. In a nutshell, this book explores the positive ethos of early African American thinkers and the negative ethos of their present-day counterparts. I am currently working on the second half of the book, which engages with the tenets of Afro-pessimism and endeavors to rehabilitate the much-decried values of universalism. I intend to pitch it to various publishing houses before summer starts.
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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
My research project is going at a steadier pace than last year, even though the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still creates difficulties. However, I expanded my monograph by about 25 pages and started outlining and writing the second half of my book project. As its topic is rather cutting-edge, I must keep up with a substantial amount of new material that has come out over the past 10 years.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Anticipating the end of travel restrictions, I have two goals in mind. On the one hand, I want to invite international colleagues to Japan, and on the other hand, I want to take part in international conferences because these are essential to keep abreast of evolutions in the field. Accordingly, I have accepted to be on a panel at the next American Studies Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA, in November 2022. Meanwhile, I am immersed in the reading of works by both champions and critiques of Afro-pessimism to support my argument in the second part of the book. As I suggest above, Afro-pessimism is a new movement that is evolving fast and whose radical principles are shaking the whole edifice of African American studies. While I am keeping up with the growth and transformations of the movement, I need to process (i.e., read, analyze, and criticize) a lot of new material. As I did last year, I annotate my readings and write small segments that I intend to insert into my book at a later stage.
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| Causes of Carryover |
As the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be wearing off, I am hoping that the whole academic world will go back to its usual pace. As I explained earlier, I would like to invite international scholars to Japan and organize events around them. The purpose of this is to initiate a fruitful exchange of perspectives on my topic and share cutting-edge scholarship with colleagues in Japanese academia. I also intend to take part in international conferences, especially in the United States and Europe, to give talks and interact with colleagues in the field. Accordingly, I have accepted to take part in a panel ("Worlding of Blackness: A Global Dialogue") at the next American Studies Association conference, which will be held (on zoom or in-person) in New Orleans in November 2022.
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