Current Affiliation Organization 【 display / non-display 】

Current Affiliation Organization 【 display / non-display 】

External Career 【 display / non-display 】

External Career 【 display / non-display 】

Affiliated academic organizations 【 display / non-display 】

Affiliated academic organizations 【 display / non-display 】

Research Interests 【 display / non-display 】

Research Interests 【 display / non-display 】

Research Areas 【 display / non-display 】

Research Areas 【 display / non-display 】

Research Theme 【 display / non-display 】

Research Theme 【 display / non-display 】

• Literature and Philosophy

• Office Fiction Studies

Published Papers 【 display / non-display 】

Published Papers 【 display / non-display 】

• To Relive Things: The Thingly Turn in Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis

  Masaomi Kobayashi

  European Journal of American Studies ( Open Edition Journals )  21 ( 2 ) 1 - 16   2026.07 [ Peer Review Accepted ]

  Type of publication: Research paper (scientific journal)

  　View Summary

  The present essay brings into sharp focus the question of things—both material and immaterial—that exist in their own right in Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel, Cosmopolis. Set against the exponential growth of digitalization that enables things to be far more networked than ever beofe, the novel is open to theoretical approaches such as actor-network theory and object-oriented ontology which play an influential role in the turn of the century movement of new materialism that challenges the textual bias in humanities studies. An attempt is hence made to re-explore a broad range of things in the novel from the perspective of the so-called “thingly turn.” In so doing, those things reveal themselves as relivable things. Cosmopolis allows rediscovering the thought-provoking nature of things, and this essay concludes that the novel represents his new millennium fiction that creates its own sense of things.

  • Access this article

    DOI

• 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.

  • Access this article

    DOI

• 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.

  • Access this article

    DOI

• 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)

display all >>

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

Academic Awards 【 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 】

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)

  　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: 2016.04  -  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 

SDGs 【 display / non-display 】

SDGs 【 display / non-display 】