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• Literature and Philosophy

• Office Fiction Studies

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Published Papers 【 display / non-display 】

• Jack London, the Writer of a Speculative Turn: "To Build a Fire," or Things Outside Thought

  Masaomi Kobayashi

  Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory ( Johns Hopkins University Press )  82 ( 2 )   2026 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

  Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

  　View Summary

  The present essay illuminates the speculative narrative of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” Given its least anthropocentric aspects, the story is open to more recent movements than naturalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Particularly noteworthy is speculative realism, which is arguably most relevant to the speculative turn at the outset of the twenty-first century. This movement furnishes an alternative to humanism and its cousin, anthropocentrism. Herein lies why this essay makes special reference to Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman. With their speculative-realist philosophies in mind, an attempt is made to uncover the thought-provoking narrative of “To Build a Fire.” This project brings sharp focus on a range of things, from numbers to objects, all of which are subject to speculation. London’s story is, after all, more than an early twentieth-century classic of naturalism. It is an ever-evolving narrative of the nature of things that will remain speculative.

• Poe’s Prehistoric Fiction and Pre/Post-Humanity: Speculation via "Silence"

  Masaomi Kobayashi

  Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory ( Johns Hopkins University Press )  80 ( 4 ) 81 - 104   2024.12 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

  Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

  　View Summary

  The present study brings into sharp focus the prehistoric aspects of “Silence,” the 1838 tale by Edgar Allan Poe. The word “prehistoric” came into general use in the 1860s, and it was not until around the turn of the century that saw the emergence of prehistoric fiction in English. In “Silence,” however, Poe had already presented a form of prehistoric narrative by creating a fictional setting of West Central Africa. The Demon tells the frame narrator what happened when systems of writing had not yet been invented. The tale based predominantly on his story can then be seen as a spoken account of the prehistoric event that had yet to earn the epithet “historic.” As the story evolves, the man in the toga shows themselves standing on the rock—one engraved first with the word “DESOLATION” and then with the word “SILENCE.” Taken together, the abrupt appearance of the ancient Roman and the anonymous appearance of the capital words are highly symbolic of the dawn of protohistory—the threshold between prehistory and history. The man wears a world-weary expression that tells of his detachment from his prehistoric condition, under which words cannot be alone because they can exist in the spoken form alone. At the same time, he looks around and finds himself absolutely alone. This series of movements bespeaks of his commitment to the historic condition, under which words can be alone because they can now exist in the written form also. The tale ends with the passage where the frame narrator refers to “the fine tales in the volumes of the Magi,” suggesting history as an act of telling stories through writing a series of past events, including prehistoric ones. Thus “Silence,” which has been considered cryptic, can be decoded from an entirely historical perspective spanning from prehistory to protohistory to history. Overall, this study casts new light on prehistoric fiction by discovering the tale’s unexplored potential. It is to be noted, however, that while contributing to prehistory studies in close relation to the work of Poe, this study finds itself associated with philosophy studies with special reference to so-called phonocentrism and correlationism, each of which has come under severe and sharp criticism by the French-Continental philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Quentin Meillassoux. Their deconstructive or speculative philosophies serve to reveal what has been unexplored (or at least underexplored) in “Silence,” hence allowing an understanding of how widely open it is to what belongs outside of history and humanity. An attempt is ultimately made to demonstrate that the tale’s potentiality lies in its capacity to generate fresh perspectives not only on prehistory but also on pre-humanity and even on post-humanity.

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• Appreciation and Speculation: On the Aesthetic of Melville's "The Bell-Tower"

  Masaomi Kobayashi

  The Journal of the American Literature Society of Japan ( 日本アメリカ文学会 )  ( 23 ) 1 - 18   2026 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

  Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

• The Speculative Nature of Things: "To Build a Fire" and Its Intellectual Narrative

  Masaomi Kobayashi

  Studies in English Literature ( 日本英文学会 )  ( 66 ) 19 - 35   2025 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

  Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

  　View Summary

  The present essay aims to provide fresh insights into the intellectual narrative of Jack London’s 1908 best-known story, “To Build a Fire.” Given its least anthropocentric aspects, the story is certainly open to more recent movements than naturalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Particularly noteworthy among them is the novel movement of speculative realism, which is arguably most relevant to the speculative turn at the outset of the twenty-first century that directs focus toward things, living and nonliving alike. This intellectual movement furnishes an alternative to a certain humanism and its closest cousin, anthropocentrism. Herein lies why this essay makes reference to the speculative realist philosophers, Quentin Meillassoux and Graham Harman, who pursue their own approaches beyond humanism in relation to critiquing correlationism between mind and matter—i.e. thinking and being—as embodied by Immanuel Kant. With their explorations of speculative reality in mind, an attempt is thus made to uncover the thought-provoking narrative of “To Build a Fire.” The key figure in this attempt is not the main character but the third-person narrator who offers an omniscient point of view. The focus of this project shifts from numbers to objects: from the temperature degrees that transcend a range of typically human conditions to the snow that allows thinking beyond oneself to the tree that exists outside thought and to the fire that cannot be fully accessible to anyone nor anything. Throughout London’s rewriting of the story, these numbers and objects remain as things in their own right: their own realities are and will continue to be subject to speculation. As the universe of things is of intellectual nature, so is the world of London. If his work is constantly susceptible to intellectual movements, “To Build a Fire” is most illustrative of this very susceptibility. It is, after all, more than an early twentieth-century classic of naturalism. It is an ever-evolving narrative of the speculative nature of things.

• Bartlebys: Gothicizing Office Fiction

  Masaomi Kobayashi

  Palgrave Communications ( Palgrave Macmillan )  4   1 - 6   2018.11 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

  Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

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  Gothic fiction is in essence about the power of place, particularly of house. If this obsessive focus on the house is found in other genres of fiction, Gothic fiction can certainly expand its realm of representation; namely, the extensive capacity of this genre can be illustrated by unveiling the Gothic nature of the seemingly non-Gothic. Herein lies why special attention is given to the office as an idiosyncratic kind of house in office fiction: fiction featuring such characters as clerks, civil servants, and company employees. In Gothicizing office fiction, Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street” draws parallels with Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.” These classics of nongenre fiction have hardly been considered the classics of office fiction. The primary emphasis of this study is on the international kinship between Melville’s Bartleby and Kafka’s Samsa: Bartleby’s occupation of the law office turns the place into a house, and Samsa’s transformation into the monstrous vermin turns his apartment into an office. These dual settings render each protagonist uncanny and ghostly. The discovery of parallels between the protagonists who embody work-life integration stems from incorporating not only elements typical of the Gothic, such as supernatural happenings and closed-room settings, but also other elements, especially work-life balance. This focus on work-life issues allows an exploration of another classic office-fiction story about an Asian Bartleby. Thus, cultivating an environment in which Bartleby’s transnational cousins are rediscovered as Bartlebys lends itself to extending the scope of the Gothic. After all, Gothic fiction is an expanding universe in which the walls come tumbling down between office and house, between work and life, and even between the Gothic and the non-Gothic. The findings of this study highlight how every sphere of life, including work life, is potentially Gothicized.

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Books 【 display / non-display 】

Books 【 display / non-display 】

• The Multiverse of Office Fiction: Bartlebys at Work

  Masaomi Kobayashi ( Part: Single Author )

  Palgrave Macmillan  2022.11

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• Professor of the Year

  2014   University of the Ryukyus  

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Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research 【 display / non-display 】

• Speculative Narratives by Ishmaels: Toward New Speculative Fiction

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C)

  Project Year: 2025.04  -  2029.03 

  Investigator(s): Masaomi Kobayashi 

  Direct: 1,500,000 (YEN)  Overheads: 450,000 (YEN)  Total: 1,950,000 (YEN)

• Ahabs, or Aspects of the Posthuman

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C)

  Project Year: 2020.04  -  2024.03 

  Investigator(s): Masaomi Kobayashi 

  Direct: 1,300,000 (YEN)  Overheads: 390,000 (YEN)  Total: 1,690,000 (YEN)

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  This research project aims at: ・Discovering a variety of posthuman characteristics of Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick. ・Exploring a variety of American fiction and films featuring posthuman characters as Ahabs. ・Offering a variety of possibilities for future studies in posthuman discourse.

• Bartlebys, or Aspects of Office Fiction

  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C)

  Project Year: 2016.04  -  2020.03 

  Investigator(s): Masaomi Kobayashi 

  Direct: 1,600,000 (YEN)  Overheads: 480,000 (YEN)  Total: 2,080,000 (YEN)

• Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists(B)

  Project Year: 2010.04  -  2012.03 

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