Kobayashi Masaomi

写真a

Title

Associate Professor

Researcher Number(JSPS Kakenhi)

30404552

Current Affiliation Organization 【 display / non-display

  • Duty   University of the Ryukyus   Faculty of Education   Elementary and Secondary School Teacher Training Program   Associate Professor  

  • Concurrently   University of the Ryukyus   Graduate School of Community Engagement and Development   Language and Representation   Associate Professor  

External Career 【 display / non-display

  • 2005.04
     
     

    University of the Ryukyus, Faculty of Education, English Education, Associate Professor  

Affiliated academic organizations 【 display / non-display

  • 1998.04
    -
    Now
     

    The American Literature Society of Japan 

  • 2005.10
    -
    2023.03
     

    Foreign Language and Literature Society of Okinawa 

  • 2014.04
    -
    Now
     

    English Literary Society of Japan 

Research Interests 【 display / non-display

  • 米文学,批評理論

Research Areas 【 display / non-display

  • Humanities & Social Sciences / European literature

Research Theme 【 display / non-display

  • Office Fiction Studies

  • Posthuman Studies

Published Papers 【 display / non-display

  • (forthcoming) The Sciences and Beyond: On Nonhumanity in Moby-Dick

    Masaomi Kobayashi

    The Journal of the American Literature Society of Japan ( The American Literature Society of Japan )  22   2024 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

    Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

  • The Will to Matter: Captain Ahab, the Cyborg

    Masaomi Kobayashi

    Studies in English Literature ( 日本英文学会 )  61   21 - 35   2020.03 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

    Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

     View Summary

    The present study aims to cast fresh light on the cyborg-fiction aspects of Herman Melville’s 1851 classic, Moby-Dick. In so doing, it presents the novel as archetypal of cyborg fiction featuring those with artificial limbs. A specific focus is placed on the will-to-matter embodied by Captain Ahab. His prosthetic leg made of a whalebone has more often than not been viewed as an external manifestation of his monomaniacal nature. While his hostile challenge to the white whale as an inscrutable object demonstrates how emotionally-driven he has become since his last voyage, it is an idiosyncratic challenge to the longstanding domination of spirit over matter. When it comes to this complex figure with an acute consciousness of the inorganic part of his organic body, overemphasizing the power of spirit leads to deemphasizing the will to matter. Ahab’s human battle with the great white whale is closely associated with his posthuman/transhuman desire for self-enhancement. This paradoxical desire finds expression in his cyborg manifesto in which he envisions himself as a complete man—an augmented being with an enlarged brain but no heart. Ahab’s body—both disabled and imagined—is thus suggestive of how deeply humanity is interwoven with technology. His will-to-matter that exemplifies humanity-as-technology manifests itself finally in the Pequod. If Ahab is a cyborg, this whaleship is also a cyborg as an amplified projection of himself. Among the most central subjects in cyborg fiction is the transcendence of the limits of corporeality, and Ahab meets his fate when he attempts to immortalize himself by becoming something other than himself, something of an Ahab. This other-directedness is where the cyborg diverges from other posthuman/transhuman entities. The cyborg is not an autonomous being, and neither is Ahab. Moby-Dick is ultimately about his fatal journey to live immortally as the other.

  • 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)

     View Summary

    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.

  • Work in an Age of Post-Work: Ted Chiang and the Meaning of Life

    Masaomi Kobayashi

    Kyushu American Literature ( The Kyushu American Literature Society )  64   15 - 30   2023.11 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

    Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

  • Do the Electric Things Have Their Lives, Too? Philip K. Dick on Post-Humanity

    Masaomi Kobayashi

    American Research Journal of English and Literature ( American Research Journals )  5 ( 1 ) 1 - 11   2019.08 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

    Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

     View Summary

    What does it mean to be human? In his best-known novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick addresses this fundamental question through drawing parallels between natural and artificial beings. While conceiving humanity in relation to technology as an integral part of the posthuman condition embodied in human-machine relations, the novel sets in perspective the post-human condition under which post-modern technology actualizes viable machine-machine relations. Special attention is thus paid to the android characters, possibly including the bounty hunter protagonist, mass-produced by high-tech corporations as post-modern Prometheuses. With in mind the novel’s film adaptations that underscore its post-human aspects such as corporate personhood, this study affords insights into the author’s science fiction not only by providing an exploration of humanity, but also by expanding the universe of discourse of post-humanity

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Books 【 display / non-display

Academic Awards 【 display / non-display

  • Professor of the Year

    2014   University of the Ryukyus  

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

  • Ahabs, or Aspects of the Posthuman

    Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C)

    Project Year: 2020.04  -   

    Investigator(s): Masaomi Kobayashi 

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

     View Summary

    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  -  2020.03 

    Investigator(s): Masaomi Kobayashi 

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

SDGs 【 display / non-display

  • 仕事小説研究