A Study of the Cultural Historical Significance of 'Staring' and 'Attention' in the West

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 22520231
• 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: ABE MASAHIKO 東京大学, 人文社会系研究科, 准教授 (30242077)
• Project Period (FY): 2010-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 英文学 / イギリス史 / 西洋史 / アメリカ文学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, I tried to show how staring and attention play important roles in the western culture. We tend to think that the human act of focusing is a natural and almost trivial process in the functions of the mind, but I revealed how human attentiveness is historically relative; it is formulated in specific historical and cultural contexts. In this sense, one's belief that one can understand an object better by looking at it with special attention needs to be addressed from a view point which can also posit a non-attentive way of seeing, such as lack of attention, digression, and improvisation. These factors are usually seen as obstacles to our understanding of the world, but they may form essential part of the intelligence in modern culture.

Free Research Field

英文学