Tropes of Memory in Japanese Literature through the Meiji Period

Researcher: Evie McDermott
Supervised by: Professor Michael Gardiner
Home department: English and Comparative Literature Studies
Expected start date: 10/07/2015
Expected end date: 14/09/2015

I am about to enter into my final year studying for a BA in English Literature, with a particular interest for literature that deals with the notion of modernity. My other academic interests include feminism through the ages, sociolinguistics and 1900-present day poetry. I have undertaken the URSS project in an attempt to develop my research skills in ways that undergraduate degrees do not always offer.

I am looking at Japanese literature written during the Meiji era (the period between 1868 and 1912 which was known as the time of modernisation and 'enlightenment' in Japanese history) in an attempt to find tropes of memory and nostalgia for old traditions amidst the rapidly industrialising and modernising Japan. Notions of memory will mostly be manifested as dreams, flashbacks or, indeed, simply in the shadows. I will be reading a selection texts published between 1868 and 1930, before choosing around half a dozen novels which encapture the feeling of the old traditons at war with new, and creating an annotated bibliography for these texts as well as close readings of the most prominant extracts from each novel.