2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

An Analysis of Representations of "Eugenic Ideology" in ModernJapanese Literature and Research in Comparative Intellectual History

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23652079
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Literatures/Literary theories in other countries and areas
Research Institution	Aoyama Gakuin Women's Junior College
Principal Investigator	TSUJI Yoshihiro 青山学院女子短期大学, 現代教養学科, 准教授 (50409588)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2012
Keywords	優生学 / 国文学 / 外国文学 / 比較文学 / 思想史 / 木下尚江
Research Abstract	The aim of this research is to clarify the most comprehensive ideology of “modern” Japan, “Social Darwinism” or also known as “Eugenic Ideology,” and its influence on and mutual interrelationship with literature. Based on the collection of substantive materials from international perspectives, it is clear that the liberation ideology and literature of the Meiji and Taisho periods were eroded by ideas of natural history in ways we have failed to recognize, and the nature of “the social” in the literary modern was different from how we define it today. This research clarified important points in that process.

(4 results)