Profiles

Professor ONUKI Takashi

Affiliations :

The true pleasure of research

I strived for this job because I like to think, but thinking quite often leaves me completely exhausted. Whenever this happens, I go out and find a tree that attracts my attention. I then look up its name and investigate – albeit on an amateur level – its history and place in human culture (recently I have been reading on the dawn redwood, or metasequoia, a giant tree that grows on the grounds of the Kawauchi campus). I have started actively researching plants mentioned in English literary works, too, and this has turned out to be an unexpectedly entertaining endeavor. For instance, let’s take a look at gorse, which decorates wastelands with clusters of yellow flowers. Apparently, it is often treated as a troublesome weed because of its fecundity, but people also burned gorse as stove or fireplace fuel before coal became widespread or used it to feed horses. Such explorations allow us to see the familiar picture of England in a new light. What seemed to be untamed wilderness suddenly reveals a glimpse of human presence. It is as if our eyes followed a procession of dim silhouettes: people who harvested gorse to turn it into fuel or fodder, people who processed it to make it edible as well as people who made tools for the task, and, finally, people who observed the somewhat cruel change, as in the course of time gorse was downgraded to a weed. Autointoxicated by my own excessive thinking, I am revitalized by such moments: my shell cracks to let in new sensitivity and fresh points of view. This, I think, is the real pleasure of my research.

  • Research, History
  • Books, papers, etc.
  • Courses
    Graduate: English Culture (Advanced Lecture)
    Undergraduate: English Literature (Introductory Reading); English Literature (Seminar)
    Personal History
    Graduated from the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo
    Completed the doctoral program (without a doctoral degree) at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo
    Sept 2015- Aug 2016 Guest researcher, Swansea University
    Received a Ph.D. in literature at Osaka University

    Career:
    Associate Professor, Faculty of Economics, Kushiro Public University of Economics
    Professor, School of Business Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University
    Current position
    Degree
    Ph.D. (Literature)
    Field
    Culture and Literature of 20th Century England; Dramatic Theory
    Research Subject
    Culture and literature of 20th century England; Raymond Williams
    Keywords
    Modernism; 'placeable' bonding; Raymond Williams
    Affiliation
    The English Literary Society of Japan; The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan
  • Books
    『愛と戦いのイギリス文化史1951-2010年』、(co-editor, with Kawabata Yasuo, Kōno Shintarō, Satō Motonori, and Shin Kunio)、秦邦生との共編著、慶應義塾大学出版会、2011
    『文化と社会を読む 批評キーワード辞典』、(co-editor, with Kōno Shintarō and Kawabata Yasuo)、研究社、2013
    『「わたしのソーシャリズム」へ―二〇世紀イギリス文化とレイモンド・ウィリアムズ』、研究社、2016
    Academic Papers
    「社会の消失とモダニゼィション」、『レイモンド・ウィリアムズ研究』第3号、レイモンド・ウィリアムズ研究会、2012、97-114
    「ふたつの二重視―ポピュラー・ポリティクスとブレヒト再発見」、『商学論究』第60巻第1・2号合併号、関西学院大学商学研究会、2012、667-688
    「レイモンド・ウィリアムズ―ストライキ、共同体、そして文化」(with Kōno Shintarō)、『POSSE』第20号、NPO法人POSSE、2013、218-231
    「英語圏ナショナリズム論のなかのウェールズ―1983年のネイション、そして〈個人〉」、『商学論究』第63巻第4号、関西学院大学商学研究会、2016、187-205
    「リアリズム〈運動〉、その擁護と拒絶―リアリズムの書き手(ライター)としてのカズオ・イシグロとレイモンド・ウィリアムズ」、『商学論究』第64巻第6号、関西学院大学商学研究会、2017、165-181
    Awards
    Nov 2008 Young Scholar Award, English Literary Society