2022 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 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | African American / Afro-pessimism / Frantz Fanon / Universalism / Frederick Douglass / WEB Du Bois |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I have devoted most of the past academic year to my book project Black Hopes/Black Woes, which final manuscript is due in the Fall of 2024. I wrote a chapter of about 21,000 words about how contemporary African American scholar Frank B. Wilderson promotes the tenets of Afro-pessimism. The chapter focuses on Wilderson’s definition of antiblackness, rejection of Marxism through his criticism of Antonio Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis, and slapdash borrowing of Cornel West’s concept of prophetic pragmatism. I have also laid the groundwork for my next chapter on how self-proclaimed Afro-pessimists David Marriott, Fred Moten, and Jared Sexton have appropriated the notions of violence and tabula rasa in Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1962). Last November, I participated in a panel at the American Studies Association conference in New Orleans, LA. On that occasion, I discussed the concept of “lateral universalism,” which will be a central issue of the conclusion of my book. Finally, I wrote a lengthy essay on agency and property in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016). That paper echoes some of the arguments I present in my book and will appear in The African American Novel in the Early Twenty-First Century (Brill 2024), a collection of essays I co-edit with Professor Anna Pochmara at the University of Warsaw, Poland.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
As my book focuses on cutting-edge theories in African-American research, I must process a liberal amount of new and complex academic works (especially from so-called Afro-pessimist authors and militants), which is time-consuming. I have also spent a lot of time editing the first half of my upcoming book by myself as my publisher decided I didn't need editing assistance. Despite the challenge, I have started the third chapter of my book and intend to complete it by the end of the summer.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The book chapter I am working on is about Frantz Fanon's influence on current African-American thinkers such as David Marriott, Fred Moten, and Jared Sexton. I intend to complete it this summer while on a research fellowship at the Rothermere American Institute (RAI) at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. That fellowship at the RAI will be a crucial step toward the successful completion of my project. I will then have a full year to write a final chapter and a conclusion and submit a complete manuscript (including an index and a full bibliography) to my editors.
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| Causes of Carryover |
I earned a visiting research fellowship at the Rothermere American Institute (RAI) at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and intend to be a fellow in residence at the RAI over the summer (August to mid-September 2023) and for about three weeks in the Spring of 2024 (February-March). I also intend to invite a scholar from overseas and organize a talk in the winter of 2024.
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