Henry James and Japan: the Pursuit of Selfhood in the Artistic Exchange between Japan and America in Nineteenth-Century Boston

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25580064
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: Aoyama Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: FUKUDA Takako 青山学院大学, 文学部, 教授 (80276005)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: ヘンリー・ジェイムズ / ジャポニズム / ボストン / イザベラ・スチュワート・ガードナー / ヴェネツィア / ジェイムズ・マクニール・ホィッスラー / 岡倉天心 / ロンドン・ジェントルマンズ・クラブ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Henry James, an Irish American Novelist, never visited Japan during his lifetime. However, in 1905, the second year of the Russo-Japanese War, he dined with Theodore Roosevelt in Washington D. C., who had been trying to end the war. In addition, the presence of Okakura Tenshin, a famous Japanese art critic of the Meiji Period, made James think of his American selfhood as well as the meaning of being an outsider and an expatriate.
The fact that many Japonisme enthusiasts in Boston flocked to Venice means that they also struggled to find their own selfhood through the contact of the unknown culture. It is possible to say that those Bostonians thought themselves outsiders and felt uncomfortable in Boston even though they were born and brought up there.
Therefore, the study of the relationship between James and Japan has led to elucidate the cultural characteristics specific to late nineteenth-century America, especially Boston.

Free Research Field

アメリカ文学、アメリカ史、日米史