Department of Liberal Arts

Kono Shion

  (河野 至恩)

Profile Information

Affiliation
Professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts Department of Liberal Arts, Sophia University
Degree
A.B.(Bowdoin College)
M.A.(Princeton University)
Ph.D(2003, Princeton University)

Contact information
s-konosophia.ac.jp
Researcher number
60439338
J-GLOBAL ID
200901076082697378
researchmap Member ID
5000105676

At the Faculty of Liberal Arts, I am offering courses on comparative literature and Western literature. My recent research topics include translation and circulation of Japanese literature, Japanese literature as world literature, and plurilingualism in modern Japanese literature.


Major Research History

 10

Major Papers

 16
  • Kono Shion
    Modern Japanese Literary Studies (Nihon Kindai Bungaku), (102) 71-86, May 15, 2020  Peer-reviewed
    This paper examines Mizumura Minae's Shishōsetsu from Left to Right (1995) in terms of plurilingualism, which assumes that both the writer and the reader have proficiency in multiple languages. Specifically,I consider the question of why Minae, the protagonist, decided to write in Japanese rather than English. I approach this issue by imagining the books Minae could have written in English but chose not to. I discuss the question of how and why she made this decision not only in terms of Minae's education in American schools, but also with reference to several relevant contexts, such as the fall of the "West" and the rise of multiculturalism in American academia, Japanese studies in the United States, narrative temporality in the novel, and the self-referential use of the "shishōsetsu" (I-novel) genre. Mizumura's novel shows that the question of language choice in plurilingual conditions raises a series of fundamental questions about linguistic expression in general.
  • KONO SHION
    Journal of Japanese Studies, 32(2) 311-340, Jul 1, 2006  

Major Books and Other Publications

 18

Major Presentations

 52

Research Projects

 2

Social Activities

 9