環境美学のイデオロギー編成―ロマン主義時代の環境主義と庭園と職人・農民詩人たち

2013 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370319
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Research Institution: Nanzan University
• Principal Investigator: TEE Ve・Yin 南山大学, 外国語学部, 講師 (10387649)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 勝山 久里 京都造形芸術大学, 芸術学部, 教授 (00351362) ; 大石 和欣 東京大学, 総合文化研究科, 准教授 (50348380)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 環境意識 / 農民詩人 / 環境美学 / ロマン主義 / ワーズワース / クーパー / 英領インド

Research Abstract

In May 2013, I completed the first draft of The Moral Language of Nature, which used the writings of Wordsworth and Whewell to show the extent to which modern environmentalism is a middle-class aesthetic. With this essay as a starting point, my project partners in Japan (Kuri Katsuyama and Kazuyoshi Oishi) and colleagues in England (Simon White, Rosemarie Dias and David Higgins) now had something concrete on which to base their research. Over the next three months, we agreed on holding two symposiums in April and June 2014 for Rosemarie, Kaz, Simon and David to publicize the preliminary results of this research. Kaz's paper ‘Cowper, Suburban Aesthetics, and Romanticism’will basically confirm the main point of my essay with examples from the poetry and prose of Cowper and his circle of Evangelicals. Rosie’s ‘From Counting House to Country House: Landscape and the Aesthetics of British Colonial Governance’ and Simon’s ‘The Other Lake Poets: Class, Community and Georgic’ will sketch out the environmental aesthetics of the upper and working classes respectively. This symposium should not only raise the level of my thinking on the subject, but will help me work out an interesting conception of class and nature for everyone on the project to work with.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

I had set myself a completion date of September 2013 for the work that I had intended to do on Wordsworth and Whewell, which has in fact been achieved three months ahead of schedule. Also, owing to the fruitful discussions I’ve had with the project members I was able to refine The Moral Language of Nature to a sufficiently high standard so that it has been accepted by Nicholas Roe of Romanticism for publication. (However, due to the long queue of articles currently awaiting publication, my essay is not expected to be out before 2015.)

Strategy for Future Research Activity

The second symposium, which will revolve around an extended paper by David Higgins, is scheduled to take place on June 21, 2014. Kuri, the new project partner, Yuko Otagaki, the new consultant Laurence Williams and I expect to hold our final discussion for the project with David. Kuri will publicize her research findings at another conference, possibly the conference on ‘Coleridge and Contemplation’ taking place in Kyoto in March 2015, before working it up into an essay for the project. I myself will seek additional feedback for my own research at either a similar conference, or at Oxford Brookes University, where Simon would like to invite me as a speaker in 2015.

Expenditure Plans for the Next FY Research Funding

Having invited 2 speakers from England (i.e. Rosie and Simon), the symposium of April 20, 2014, would clearly be the single most expensive item on the project agenda. Knowing this, I decided to limit my expenses as far as possible for the academic year of 2013 so that I would have enough funds left for the academic year of 2014 to pull it off.
I intend to use the funds remaining from the 2013 academic year to invite Rosie and Simon in April 2014, and David in June 2014. If possible, I would also like to use some of the money to pay for my trip to Tokyo to attend an international conference.