Research on the mechanisation of the body and human relations in modernist literature

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 22520228
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: TAJIRI Yoshiki 東京大学, 総合文化研究科, 准教授 (20251746)
• Project Period (FY): 2010-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 機械化 / 身体 / モダニズム / 二人組

Outline of Final Research Achievements

I explored how modernist literature represented the body and human relations in new ways, inspired by the reorganised connections between the human and newborn technologies. I focused especially on the way authors like Wyndham Lewis and Samuel Beckett, who were keenly interested in the mechanisation of the human, transformed the traditional figure of the pair of clowns. I discussed this subject in relation to Bergson's idea of comedy, Chaplin's or Keaton's film comedies and Fredric Jameson's views of the 'pseudocouple'.

Free Research Field

イギリス文学