Details of the Researcher

PHOTO

Ryo Yamauchi
Section
Graduate School of International Cultural Studies
Job title
Associate Professor
Degree

  • 博士（人間・環境学）（京都大学）

  • 修士（人間・環境学）（京都大学）

Research History 5

  • 2016/04 - Present
    Tohoku University　Graduate School of International Cultural Studies　associate professor

  • 2011/04 - 2016/03
    Kagawa University　Faculty of Education　assistant professor (2011.4-2013.3), associate professor (2013.4-2016.3)

  • 2009/10 - 2011/03
    Kyoto University　The Center for the Promotion of Excellence in Higher Education　Part-time lecturer

  • 2006/04 - 2011/03
    Ritsumeikan University　Part-time lecturer

  • 2005/04 - 2011/03
    Otani University　Part-time lecturer

Education 2

  • Kyoto University　Graduate School, Division of Human and Environmental Studies

    2001/04 - 2009/03

  • Kyoto University　Faculty of Literature

    1997/04 - 2001/03

Research Interests 4

  • Spanish American Literature

  • Spanish-American Literature

  • Latin American Literature

  • American Literature

Research Areas 2

  • Humanities & social sciences / Literature - British/English-language / US English Literature, American Literature

  • Humanities & social sciences / Literature - European / Spanish American Literature, Latin American literature

Papers 14

  1. Carnivores and Cannibals: Human Animality in Faulkner’s The Hamlet and García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad International-journal Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Faulkner and García Márquez (Christopher Riegar and Andrew B. Leiter, ed.)　89-107　2020/10

    Publisher: Southeast Missouri State University Press

  2. Reconsideración de la cola de cerdo en Cien años de soledad －el tema y la retórica de la animalización y la marginalización de la cultura indígena－ Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Anales de estudios latinoamericanos　(40)　13-41　2020/07

  3. An Afro-American Adaptation of The Tempest, Black Masculinity, and Silence of Father and Son in Philadelphia Fire. Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    305-324　2021/02

    Publisher:

  4. The Use of the Word “Child” in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth

    Ryo Yamauchi

    柴田昭二先生御退職記念論文集　57-66　2016/03

  5. Reading Zora Neale Hurston's Racial Consciousness in the Representation of Masculinity in Their Eyes Were Watching God

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Memoirs of the Faculty of Education, Kagawa University. Part Ⅰ　(145)　49-58　2016/03

  6. Silent Sphinx: The Motif of Hybridity in Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno"

    Ryo Yamauchi

    英語と英文学と 田村道美先生退職記念論集　43-52　2014/03

  7. Oates (Not) Reading Faulkner Reading Poe A Study of American Gothic Fiction

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Memoirs of the Faculty of Education, Kagawa University. Part Ⅰ　(138)　119-129　2012/09

    Publisher:

    ISSN： 0454-9309

  8. The Mute White Man-Child and Voices of Black People : Reading Benjy's "Blackness" in The Sound and the Fury Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    アメリカ文学研究　47　(47)　37-52　2011/03

    Publisher: The American Literature Society of Japan

    DOI： 10.20687/japanesealsj.47.0_37 　

    ISSN： 0385-6100

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    The question of racial blackness in white writers' works, which is still a moot point in the field of literary studies, arises when we consider William Faulkner's description of Reverend Shegog's sermon in The Sound and the Fury. Though some critics argue that the representation of black speech and accent assumes the character of Afro-American traditional counter-culture, it holds the possibility of arousing criticism for the white artist's appropriation of black linguistics. With this problem in mind, John N. Duvall evaluates Faulkner's use of the figures of racial blackness as markers of white writers' embodiment of "blackness" that afford a critical clue to the question of whiteness. According to Duvall, Faulkner figuratively becomes black in search for his artistic identity as he writes his main male characters as "black Caucasians," men who are racially white but embody the quality of racial blackness. In this view, Shegog, as well as Faulkner's "black" white men, figures the possibility of "an artistic identity that is black." This paper aims to examine the question of these conflicting critical attitudes toward Faulkner's "blackness" by reading racial connotations into Benjy Compson and his inability to speak. In the first section of the novel, Benjy assumes the image of black masculinity when his yearning for Caddy is implied with the episodes concerning his verbal difficulties. When he remembers the day of his sister's loss of virginity, Benjy tries to avoid the anguishing memory by performing the imaginary play of incestuous miscegenation. The association between the white man-child and the black conjurer is established by the fact that Benjy is mentally handicapped and unable to speak. His verbal inability and incestual yearning for Caddy take another shape of racial blackness when he is castrated after he was "trying to say." Suspected of sexual assault, the white man with the mental age of a three-years-old child embodies the racial stereotypes of "black rapist" and submissive and childish "Sambo." In addition, castration serves to elicit the patriarchal nature of the white South that caused feminization of black male southerners. What allows us to read Benjy as a "black Caucasian," however, turns into markers of his whiteness when he is juxtaposed with black characters in the fourth section. A conversation between Dilsey and Frony indicates that Benjy is alienated from the white community due to his "black" qualities but cannot wholly assimilate into the black community due to the fact that he is a white. The vague description of Benjy's response to Shegog's sermon makes it ambiguous how deeply he gets immersed in both the power of his linguistic performance and the wordless communication to which it leads the black congregation. The nature of Benjy's whiteness can be also found in his final cry, which represents the difficulties of articulating the inbetween character of his racial status. Benjy's inbetween whiteness leads us to examine the racial aspect of Faulkner's artistry that is neither appropriation of racial blackness nor dependence on ambiguous blackness. It is based on the history of racial division and his creative imagination with self-critical reference to its own whiteness.

  9. Watching Memory: Reprerentations of Violence in the American Lynching Era and Faulkner's Works Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Novelist's America: How Dream Turned into Nightmare　149-172　2010/02

    Publisher: Shorai-sha

  10. Lena Grove and Faulkner's Racial Consciousness : Race and Mother in Light in August Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    英文学研究　84　(84)　109-122　2007/11

    Publisher: The English Society of Japan

    ISSN： 0039-3649

  11. Joe Christmas's Manhood and a Revision on the Manuscript of Light in August Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    The Faulkner Journal of Japan　(9)　136-144　2007/04

    Publisher: Shohaku-sha

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    Online version is written in English.

  12. History and Sexuality in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Kansai American Literature　(43)　47-65　2006/11

  13. Silence and Vision: Quentin’s Southern Whiteness in Absalom, Absalom! Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Human and Environmental Studies　13　(13)　71-81　2004/12

    Publisher:

    ISSN： 0918-2829

  14. Rosa Coldfieldの語りの戦略にみる人種意識と身体性 ― Absalom, Absalom!における語りえぬものを語る試み― Peer-reviewed

    Ryo Yamauchi

    Kansai American Literature　(40)　49-60　2003/10

Show all ︎Show first 5

Misc. 3

  1. A Viewpoint of Latin American Literature --- Another "America"

    Ryo Yamauchi

    212-213　2021/04

    Publisher: ミネルヴァ書房

  2. Adaptation of The Tempest and Difficulties in Being an Afro-American Man in Philadelphia Fire

    Chu-Shikoku studies in American literature　(53)　22-26　2017/06

    Publisher: 中・四国アメリカ文学会

    ISSN： 0388-0176

  3. Book review: Ore-Ore (Tomoyuki Hoshino)

    Ryo Yamauchi

    The Kagawa University Library bulletin　8　6-6　2012/03

Research Projects 3

  1. A Study on Influences of Caribbean Literature and Ideas on African American Literature

    Yamauchi Ryo

    Offer Organization: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

    System: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

    Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)

    Institution: Tohoku University

    2017/04/01 - 2020/03/31

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    This study aims at examining African American writers' adaptations of Caribbean literature and ideas and considering the transnational aspects of their creative sources of fiction about African Americans by focusing on fiction based on African American version of The Tempest. In particular, the paper on African American version of Shakespeare's canonical play in John Edgar Wideman's Philadelphia Fire reveals how he utilizes the hyperbolic images of black masculinity represented by his version of Caliban to imply the difficulties he had in communicating with his imprisoned son and describing the dysfunction of the father-son relationship. This study also develops into a comparative study of William Faulkner and Garcia Marquez, examining the question of cannibalism that derives from the West Indies.

  2. Race and Gothic: A Comparative Study of Fiction of Faulkner and Wideman

    Yamauchi Ryo

    Offer Organization: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

    System: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

    Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)

    2014/04/01 - 2017/03/31

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    This study aims at considering racial aspects of the fiction of William Faulkner and John Edgar Wideman within the context of American Gothic criticism. With the critical trend of the 1990s rereading American Gothic novels in the historical context in mind, the examination of the works of the white male writer and the black male writer sheds light on the generic questions of the narrative technique. In particular, my study of Wideman's Philadelphia Fire assumes significance due to the analysis of its appropriation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, a canonical play in the literary history of USA as well as England, in terms of black masculinity.

  3. Gender and Ownership of Property: an Intertextual Study of Fiction of Faulkner and Hurston

    YAMAUCHI Ryo

    Offer Organization: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

    System: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

    Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up

    Institution: Kagawa University

    2011 - 2012

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    This study aims at comparing the novels of William Faulkner and Zora Neale Hurston in term of gender and ideas about ownership of property, thus clarifying the similarities and differences between these two contemporaries who lived and wrote fiction in the early 20th century. The examination of fiction of the white male writer and the black female writer sheds light on the significance of the intertextual relationship between their works which has been unmarked in the recent studies of the multicultural aspects of the black-white relationship in the early 20th century American literature.