Study on the representation of sustainability in modern American literature for use in education for sustainable development

为了应对迫切需要创造可持续发展的社会和社区，我研究了现代美国文学如何代表可持续发展的社会和人与自然之间的可持续关系。根据这次审查的结果，我开发了可持续发展教育（ESD）使用的材料，并在课堂上实际使用。在2011年至2012年期间，在JSPS的资助下，我研究了威廉·福克纳、罗伯特·P·沃伦、加里·斯奈德和赛珍珠的作品，并创建了这些作品中可持续性表现的数据库。一般来说，文学作品描述的是不可持续性，而不是天真地相信人与自然之间存在可持续的关系。具体而言，战争灾难叙事作品往往告诉我们，人类追求自由，虽然能够暂时实现自由，但自由是不可避免的，是永远不会实现的。但是，通过仔细审视这些极端的困难，寻找积极的东西，文学有望为我们提供在这个艰难的世界上祈祷的东西。这种对世界的看法在许多方面与可持续发展教育的理想相呼应，也就是说，目的是看到我们社会和我们时代的问题，并努力通过与他人合作找到可能的解决办法。

To respond to the imminent need to create sustainable societies and communities, I examined how modern American literature has represented sustainable societies and sustainable relationships between human beings and nature. On the basis of the findings of this examination, I developed materials for use in education for sustainable development (ESD) and actually used them in classrooms. During the period from 2011 to 2012, with financial support from JSPS, I examined works by William Faulkner, Robert P. Warren, Gary Snyder, and Pearl Buck and created a database of the representation of sustainability in these works. In general, literary works describe un-sustainability instead of naively believing in the possibility of sustainable relationships between human beings and nature. Specifically, works in which the disasters of war are narrated often tell us that although human beings pursue freedom and are able to achieve it temporarily, the freedom is inevitably evasive and never per anent. However, by carefully examining these extreme difficulties and looking for something positive, literature can hopefully provide us with something to pray for in this difficult world. This perspective on the world in many ways resonates with the ideal of ESD, that is, the aim to see the problems of our society and our time and struggle to find possible resolutions by collaborating with others.