2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Beyond Genius: Gender, Ethnicity and Authorship in the Modern Japanese Literary Field
| Project/Area Number |
21K12932
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| Research Institution | Waseda University |
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Principal Investigator |
PITARCH PAU 早稲田大学, 文学学術院, 准教授 (40813837)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | Modern Literature / Authorship / Gender / Ethnicity |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In 2022, I focused my research on the case of Otsuka Kusuoko (1875-1910). While she has been canonized mostly as a poet, and her fictional works have been criticized as derivative (often compared unfavorably to those of her friend Natsume Soseki), I value her prose as an ironic take on the mainstream ideological and aesthetic debates of her time. Otsuka's mordant takes on moral issues around art earned her the censure of her contemporary male critics, because her works did not conform to their expectations of the public decorum befitting an upper-middle-class woman in Meiji. Ultimately, both the issues of Otsuka's public persona and her subsequent marginalization in the canon of modern Japanese literature tell us a significant amount about the policing and enforcing of the identity between person and author in moral terms that was expected of female writers in her era, in contrast with the artistic value afforded to the "abnormal genius" persona that her contemporary male writers (like Soseki) could deploy.
This year I have also started collaborating closely with the ERC project "Modernizing Empires: Enlightenment, Nationalist Vanguards and Non-Western Literary Modernities" (University of Bologna). In September 2023 we will hold a shared workshop at the Waseda University Brussels Office together with other European scholars of Japanese and Ottoman studies.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
The aftermath of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have affected my ability to complete and submit the articles I am working on. I am confident that by the end of this year they will all be in process of publication.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
I am working in parallel on three articles.
1) My article on Okamoto will be submitted to the special issue on Medical Humanities and Gender of the Gender Studies journal _Lectora_.
2) My article on Cheong has been proposed to a journal and is awaiting peer review.
3) My article on Otsuka will be part of a special journal issue organized by the ERC project "Modernizing Empires: Enlightenment, Nationalist Vanguards and Non-Western Literary Modernities" (University of Bologna).
I plan to propose a presentation on my Otsuka research as well to the upcoming Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Many of the conferences that I had planned on attending and presenting at in 2022 were either cancelled or conducted online. In 2023 I plan to use the excess funds to attend the AAS in Asia conference in Daegu (Korea) and the Association for Asian Studies conference in Seattle (USA).
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