A study of Honore de Balzac in a Socio-Historical and Cultural Context

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The aim of our research was to publish a holistic study on Honore de Balzac for the benefit of scholars both in Japan and overseas. We held the first conference in April. 1999 and in the following spring published a collection of our research results. The themes for the book vary from texual studies of Balzac's novels to cultural studies of his times. It was distributed to scholars both in Japan and overseas and was very well received. We also ediated a special issue on Balzac for Equinoxe No. 19. Conrtibutors for this issue were four scholars from France, Switzerland, UK, and Canada, and six from Japan, including four from our group. These papers prove the excellence of our Balzac scholarship in Japan today, and the papers published in this issue will be taken up in the review section of L'Anneee balzacienne, a most well-known scholarly journal in the field.A homepage, "Balzac Studies in Japan," is now under construction through the Jochi University site. It will open up international scholarly dialogues with world-wide scholars and researchers. One other ongoing project is a bibliography of the private collections owned by Japanese scholars.We had two successful meetings. A seminar was hosted at Osaka University, inviting Professor Vacion from Canada. In December 2000, International Forum titled "Balzac and His Times," was held at Dokkyo University. Topics covered Law, Social Issues, Art, and PUblication, and, under each topic, contemporary French and Japanese examples were compared and discussed.The research material, including books and documents, that Kaken-Fund enabled us to purchase were far beyond our expectations. We are confident that these newly acquired research materials well surely yield new scholarship in our field.