Evolution of Human Enhancement in American Literature and Futuristic Designs of "The Pursuit of Happiness"

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370317
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Watanabe Katsuaki 大阪大学, 言語文化研究科(言語社会専攻、日本語・日本文化専攻), 教授 (10182908)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: ヒューマン・エンハンスメント / ドン・デリーロ / リチャード・パワーズ / 幸福の追求 / ゼロ K / 幸福の遺伝子 / ポストヒューマン / 現代アメリカ小説

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Human enhancement can be defined as the application of technology to overcome physical or mental limitations of the human, entailing the augmentation and upgrading a person’s abilities and aptitude beyond their normal state. This project primarily explores a great variety of discourses and rhetorics with which human enhancement, a quintessential American experience, has been represented in American literature and then analyzes its emotional affect in connection with the politics of “The Pursuit of Happiness.” With a special emphasis on a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives concerning our irresistible urge for intervention in nature, this study elucidates how contemporary American writers such as Richard Powers and Don DeLillo have groped for their own ethical critique, by closely investigating the multi-layered interface between desires and misgivings frontier biotechnologies arouse.

Free Research Field

現代アメリカ文学