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

我们的研究目的是为了出版一份关于巴尔扎克的整体研究报告，以造福日本和海外的学者。我们在四月份举行了第一次会议。1999年和次年春天出版了我们的研究成果集。这本书的主题从巴尔扎克小说的文本研究到他所处时代的文化研究。它被分发给日本和海外的学者，并受到好评。我们还为《春分点》第19期编辑了一期关于巴尔扎克的特刊。本课题的作者是法国、瑞士、英国和加拿大的四位学者和日本的六位学者，其中包括本课题组的四位学者。这些论文证明了当今日本巴尔扎克研究的卓越性，本期发表的论文将刊登在该领域最著名的学术期刊《L'Anneee balzacienne》的评论部分。它将与世界各地的学者和研究人员开展国际学术对话。另一个正在进行的项目是日本学者拥有的私人收藏书目。我们成功地举行了两次会议。大坂大学举办了一次研讨会，邀请了加拿大的Vacion教授。2000年12月，在独协大学举办了题为“巴尔扎克和他的时代”的国际论坛。课题涵盖了法律、社会问题、艺术、公共化等，在每个课题下，对当代法国和日本的例子进行了比较和讨论。研究基金资助的书籍和文献等研究资料远远超出了我们的预期。我们相信，这些新获得的研究材料一定会在我们的领域产生新的学术成果。

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.