A STUDY OF UTOPIAS THROUGH QUANTATIVE ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE

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What kind of influences has the utopian dream had on the American mind? This was the subject of our research in the 1997 fiscal year. Accordingly, we worked together to preparing basic data bases for the scheme; we collected and examined various resources in American literature and cinema, with a view to finding whatever utopian topics there were to be discussed. It is to be added here that, in the previous projects, we had arrived at an interesting hypothesis that anti- or counter-cultural movements tend to emerge in America with an interval of a century; that these movements probably stem from the perenial desire of the American people for "utopias." In the 1998 year, we devoted ourselves to integrating both American literary history and American cinema history into a whole, under the common theme of "utopia." And we came to realize afresh the width and strength of the utopian dream on hundreds of literary and cinematic scenes in America. It sometimes appears in a very straight way, while it sometimes shows itself cunningly disguised. Importantly, it never fails to attach a typically American character to the works where it appears. America was certainly a utopia on earth, since it gave its immigrants the dream of success; it was not a utopia that existed "nowhere" on earth, but a utopia that existed "nowhere" but in America. The dream has long been gone. Yet, the dream--the perenial aspiration for utopias --still remains on the American mind, the more strongly because once it really existed.Our project 1997-1998, we believe, is instrumental in providing the general public with a proper perspective for discussing American literature and American cinema in an integrated manner.