Our research focuses on the analysis of Kenzaburo Oe’s manuscripts, which were entrusted to the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, UT, in January 2021. Manuscript studies of Oe, Nobel Prize-winning author and alumni of UT, is an almost untouched field, as is the infrastructure development required for this research. Accordingly, the digitalization of the 18,000 pages of handwritten manuscripts and the creation of a database of books donated by Akio Mori were carried out as an HMC planned research project in FY2021.

Based on the outcomes of the planned research project, this new research project will:

1. 1. Gather a group of researchers specializing in Japanese and foreign literature to undertake readings of Oe’s literature from diverse perspectives; and
2. 2. Blend insights from manuscript research and other forms of literary research with knowledge from digital archives and other areas of the digital humanities, with a view also to exploring the potential for literary research in the age of digital transformation.

Through these and other activities, the research team will develop academic research aspects—specifically, exploring the diverse potential of Oe’s literature and examining the problems of digital transformation focused on text-based materials. We are also considering collaboration with the Creation and Distribution of the Archive of Contemporary Japanese Writers project, which focuses primarily on oral materials.

The Kenzaburo Oe Library