The Making of the Obsession with Things Victorian and Its Undoing

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24320154
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: History of Europe and America
• Research Institution: Konan University
• Principal Investigator: INOSE Kumie 甲南大学, 文学部, 教授 (70203271)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KOSEKI Takashi 京都大学, 人文科学研究所, 准教授 (10240748) ; TAKADA Minoru 甲南大学, 文学部, 教授 (70216662) ; FUJIMOTO Kenichi 武庫川女子大学, 生活環境学部, 教授 (00248121) ; KUDO Yasunori 龍谷大学, 社会学部, 教授 (20314304)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ヴィクトリア朝文化 / ネオ･ヴィクトリアニズム / オブセッション / ノスタルジー / 第一次世界大戦 / 再記憶化 / ロリータファッション / ツーリズム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Since the turn of the century, the obsession with Things Victorian has become a modern-world cultural phenomenon found, not only in British Isles but also in Eastern Asia, including Japan. This phenomenon is sometimes called “Neo-Victorianism”, but it is not so easy to see that this adaption of Things Victorian is just rooted in nostalgia for “the good old days” of the Victorians. Why has the Victorian period influenced such a variety of cultures in the early 21st century? The aim of this joint research is, through a discussion between historians and sociologists, to analyze how this obsession was made, developed and remade up to our own time, overcoming much violence in the 20th century. One of the interesting results of our discussion is that making of so-called “Kawaii cultures” in contemporary Japan including “Lolita fashion” was closely connected with the process by which this obsession developed, morally as well as materially.

Free Research Field

人文学