研究発表 死を描く場面における「情動性」と「感情の共同体」：夕顔と紫の上を中心に

Frequently cited as the world’s first psychological novel, Genji monogatari （c. 1008） has been widely praised for its uncanny ability to relate its characters’ emotions in so real a manner so as to stir the audience’s feelings as if the experiences were their own―and yet, virtually no studies have hitherto touched upon this subject at length. The presentation in question seeks to explore the manner in which the text produces affective reactions in both its characters and readers and fosters emotional communities between them, focusing on the death scenes of Yûgao and Lady Murasaki in particular. Generally-speaking, “affect” denotes the emotional, psychological or even physical response of a group of individuals such as readers, listeners or participants to a highly emotional situation, stimulus or work; “affect studies” examines the various ways that this emotional response is expressed and communicated within a specific community. A group of individuals that shares a set of similar emotional responses due to their common values or preferences in turn forms an “emotional community.” The death scenes in Genji monogatari provide an especially fertile ground for this type of analysis considering that they rarely center around the deaths themselves, and focus instead on their effect on the surrounding characters and the overall narrative development, often with the use of highly specific language and imagery. The following presentation will examine the way in which the Genji narrative constructs its emotional scenes―namely those dealing with the deaths of Yûgao and Lady Murasaki―through the use of language, poetry, landscape, and narrative in order to create situations in which its characters and its readers respond in highly emotional ways. I believe that Genji’s innovative incorporation of poetic diction （kago） and citations （hikiuta） into prose had the effect of increasing the affective impact of the prose and expanding the associative scope of the poetry （waka）. As such, I hope to analyze the relationship between the use of particular types of poetic and seasonal imagery in Genji and their capacity to elicit specific types of affective responses

Remaining Beautiful in Death: On the Affect of Dying and Mourning in the “Genji monogatari”

Over the course of the “Genji monogatari” (“The Tale of Genji,” c. 1008) narrative, roughly fifty characters die. The eponymous hero’s arc starts with the passing of his mother and ends as he himself succumbs to grief at being parted from his beloved Murasaki; the subsequent ten chapters of the text are likewise marked by successive personal losses. However, while the “Genji’s” plot is consistently catalyzed through encounters with death, it would be a mistake to say that the tale is about death: instead, it is the highly aestheticized scenes of grief experienced privately and communally by its characters in the aftermath (and sometimes even in the anticipation) of their loved ones’ passing that motivate much of the action and narrative development. My dissertation project aims to analyze the intrinsic affective qualities of “Genji monogatari’s” portrayals of death and mourning. Although the text showcases Murasaki Shikibu’s skillful interweaving of Heian spiritual beliefs, social rituals, and funerary practices with classical literary tropes and the preexisting traditions in elegiac poetry, it also represents a significant departure and innovation vis-à-vis earlier and contemporary depictions of death. For one, it resurrects and reinvents the depiction of the corpse which all but disappeared from courtly literature, and expands the narrated experience of bereavement from the point of view of an isolated principal mourner to that of a larger emotional/affective community. What’s more, the narrative patterns and images it establishes early on continue to evolve over the span of the text itself. The “Genji’s” hallmark death scenes foreground the exquisite bodies of the dying or already dead—and almost exclusively female—subjects, laid out unobstructed to the discerning gaze of the male protagonists. As I will show through a thorough exploration of the poetic vocabulary and affective narrative structuring in situations dealing with grief and sorrow in these scenes, this has the effect of narratively minimizing the moment of death as a descriptive event and instead heralding an affective mode of storytelling that creates communal bonds between the bereaved characters, the narrator(s), and the readers. That said, as the plot progresses, subtle subversive changes start to emerge: the women in the first part of the tale, who remained beautiful but voiceless after frequently meeting sudden ends, give way to characters who anticipate and eventually even will their demise, and whose richer interiority offers insights on their mortality that can counterpoint the ensuing objectifying consumption of their bodies. This development consequently not only brings into question the larger meaning of death retrospectively throughout the entire text, but also allows us to glean Murasaki Shikibu’s own intratextual theorization on the affective and narrative functions of death, in addition to its wider literary potential

Finding the impetus for linguistic diversification : a causal analysis of the grammatical and semantic broadening of aware

The present thesis explores the interrelated linguistic processes of grammatical and semantic broadening as they pertain to the Japanese concept of aware during the initial stages of its development, paying close attention to the 250 year span between the 8th and late 10th centuries which saw its highly limited interjectional use burgeon into the diverse instantiations characteristic of the mid-Heian period (794-1185). As I will argue, it was precisely during this time that aware’s literary usefulness as an interjection motivated a crucial syntactic reanalysis into a bound nominal form that was in turn conducive to its subsequent grammatical diversification, semantic strengthening and even aesthetization. Accordingly, approaching this issue from a strictly functional perspective, I aim to link the linguistic evolution of aware to the growing social import and standardization of Heian poetic practices, taking note of the cross-generic influence between poetry and prose and its effect on aware’s path to diversification. After a brief introduction to the literary and cultural background surrounding the history of aware in Chapter One, I turn to its narrow interjective function in the Kojiki (712), the Nihon shoki (720) and the Man'yōshū (759) in Chapter Two, arguing that it was the very markedness of this linguistic realization that enabled aware to diversify in the first place. In Chapter Three, I then focus on aware’s development as evidenced in the Kokin wakashū (905), using the prose-bound tokens found in the Kana preface to explain the semantic incongruities between the overtly analogous structures found in poetry and relating them to the emergence of aware’s bound nominal form. Chapter Four consequently contextualizes the importance of this development with poetic and prose evidence from the Taketori monogatari (c.901), Ise monogatari (c.930) and Tosa nikki (935). Finally, the Epilogue addresses aware’s status at the turn of the 11th century and discusses the overarching connection between aware’s linguistic evolution and its growing aesthetic status.Arts, Faculty ofAsian Studies, Department ofGraduat

Structure- and Interaction-Based Design of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Aptamers

Aptamer selection against novel infections is a complicated and time-consuming approach. Synergy can be achieved by using computational methods together with experimental procedures. This study aims to develop a reliable methodology for a rational aptamer in silico et vitro design. The new approach combines multiple steps: (1) Molecular design, based on screening in a DNA aptamer library and directed mutagenesis to fit the protein tertiary structure; (2) 3D molecular modeling of the target; (3) Molecular docking of an aptamer with the protein; (4) Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of the complexes; (5) Quantum-mechanical (QM) evaluation of the interactions between aptamer and target with further analysis; (6) Experimental verification at each cycle for structure and binding affinity using small-angle X-ray scattering, cytometry, and fluorescence polarization. Using a new iterative design procedure, Interaction Based Drug Design (SIBDD), a highly specific aptamer to the receptor-binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, was developed and validated. The SIBDD approach enhances speed of the high-affinity aptamers development from scratch, using a target protein structure. The method could be used to improve existing aptamers for stronger binding. This approach brings to an advanced level the development of novel affinity probes, functional nucleic acids. It offers a blueprint for the straightforward design of targeting molecules for new pathogen agents and emerging variants.peerReviewe