Representations of Shame in Modern American Literature and Culture

本研究旨在将1860年至1950年间的现代美国文学中所表现的羞耻概念化。特别是在日本的学术环境中，自从人类学家鲁思·本尼迪克特出版了《菊花与剑》(1946)以来，我们似乎失去了将羞耻作为美国文化的一种属性进行积极思考的合理理由。然而，一旦仔细调查，美国文学就充满了羞耻的表现。这个项目旨在证明羞耻的框架是一种典型的美国经验。

This study aims at conceptualizing shame as represented in modern American literature written between 1860 and 1950. Particularly in Japanese scholarly circumstances, since the publication of _The Chrysanthemum and Sword_ (1946) by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, we seem to have lost reasonable grounds for positively contemplating shame as a property of American culture. Once carefully investigated, however, American literature is full of representations of shame. This project aims at authenticating a framework of shame as a quintessential American experience. The most crucial element that engenders the powerful affect is the recognition of historically shifted racial relationship in the U.S. By a close investigation of literary, historical and theoretical sources, I have explored a solid and fertile layer of American culture, in which literary authors have attempted to develop representations of shame as resources for an ethical and political mode of self-presentation.