The IOCP is proud to introduce our new member

Takayuki NAKAMURA

Né le 15 décembre 1975 à Tokyo, Japon

 

Formation

2001-2006: Institut des hautes études (études de langues et civilisations) : cours de doctrat, Université des Langues Etrangères de Tokyo

1999-2001: Institut des hautes études (études de langues et sociétés) : cours de maîtrise, Université Hitotsubashi

1995-1999: Faculté des Lettres (Section de littérature française), Université Meiji-Gakuin

Diplômes

2006: Doctorat d’Etudes scientifiques à l’Université des Langues Etrangères de Tokyo

2001 Maîtrise d’Etudes scientifiques à l’Université Hitotsubashi

1999: Licence ès Lettres à l’Université Meiji-Gakuin

Doctorat

Thèse de doctorat à l’Université des Langues Etrangères de Tokyo

Titre de la thèse: «Edouard Glissant, Poétique de l’Anti-histoire»

Directeur de thèse: Osamu NISHITANI

Soutenue le 12 mai devant le jury formé de Osamu NISHITANI Université des Langues Etrangères de Tokyo, Yoshinari NISHINAGA Université des Langues Etrangères de Tokyo, Ichiro MAZIMA Université des Langues Etrangères de Tokyo, Hidehiro TACHIBANA Université Waseda, Moriyuki HOSHINO. Université de jeunes filles Shirayuri

Activités d’enseignement

2003-: Chargé de cours(non titulaire) au Lycée Sakado

2005-2006: Chargé de cours (non titulaire) au Lycée International Yamamura

2005-: Chargé de cours (non titulaire) à l’Institut de Technologie de Kanagawa

Articles en japonais «Le Quatrième Siècle: une réappropriation du passé», in Etudes de langue et littérature françaises, numéro 89, Société Japonaise de Langue et Littérature Françaises, 2006, pp.171-183.   «Ecrire la non-histoire, Edouard Glissant et l’histoire antillaise», in Etudes de langue et littérature françaises, numéro 85–86, Société Japonaise de Langue et Littérature Françaises, 2005, pp.318-332.   «Sacrifice incomplet: autour de la mort de Valérie dans La Lézarde de Glissant», in Etudes de langues, régions et civilisations, numéro 8, Université des Langues Etrangères de Tokyo, 2001, pp.87-104.  Traduction en japonais Edouard Glissant et Patrick Chamoiseau, «De loin» (Lettre ouverte au Ministre de l’intérieur de la République Française à l’occasion de sa visite en Martinique), Gendai Shisô (Revue de la pensée d’aujourd’hui), numéro 34-3, 2006, pp.34-38.

Communication en français

Exposé à la conférence à l’Université de Bo ğaziçi (Istanbul), le 27 novembre 2006: «La communication créole et les écrits d’Edouard Glissant à propos de la langue».

Edouard Glissant, Poetics of “Anti-History”

This dissertation focuses on the literary and critical work of Edouard Glissant, a noted Martiniquan writer not only in French Caribbean literature but also in Caribbean literature as a whole. The purpose of this dissertation is to consider “the recovery of the past”, an important subject in Glissant’s works. With this subject in mind, I examine his works, Le Quatrième Siècle (The Forth Century) and Le Discours antillais (Caribbean Discourse).

In Le Discours antillais (1981), Glissant characterizes Caribbean history, especially the history of the French-speaking Caribbean as “non-history”. This notion indicates an absence of the conditions for the formation of history. According to Glissant, history in general consists of three inseparable elements: historical consciousness, collective memory, and the lived time of people. When these elements are present, people can perceive history as continuity. For the people of the French-speaking Caribbean, however, history remains discontinuous. The process of colonization disrupted the memory of the people. The Caribbean past was decisively separated from the present. Therefore, Edouard Glissant seeks to recover the past in order to form a continuous history of his people.

However, it is difficult to represent the past in writing since the past is lost in “non-history”. No writers can remember and express lost memories, such as the African’s experience of the “Middle passage”. Nevertheless, Glissant tries to write the past in order to form a Caribbean identity through the poetics of history. He proposes an idea of “the prophetic vision of the past” for this purpose. This idea shows a way to instinctively imagine the possibility of the past from traces in the present.

Therefore, the problem of “the recovery of the past” in the Caribbean context belongs to the writer rather than the historian. This is the case not only because French West Indies historians do not accept Glissant’s poetical method, but also because historians have not even tried to create a proper Caribbean history. For Glissant, the historians of his country do not see the reality of “non-history”. It is important for the writer and historian to recover the past from the consciousness of “non-history” (Chapter 1 & 2).

Le Quatrième Siècle (1964) is a remarkable novel from this point of view. In this novel, Glissant displays a unique approach in trying to restore the Caribbean collective memory through a description of two opposite characters, Mathieu Béluse and papa Longoué. In search of broken memory, Mathieu frequents papa Longoué’s house where papa Longoué proceeds to tell the history of his family to the Mathieu. For Mathieu, the young historian, the past can and must be reconstituted as facts established by scientific method. But papa Longoué, a sorcerer, encourages him to “see” the past like a seer in contrast.

At the end of these two antagonistic visions, we discover in papa Longoué the idea of “the prophetic vision of the past”. Thus, Mathieu is initiated into the knowledge of the seer. But the synthesis of two opposite visions provokes a spiritual crisis in Mathieu, which makes him renounce the writing of history. This event reveals Glissant’s motivation to write novels, not historiography (Chapter 3).

In Le Quatrième Siècle, there is another important subject when we consider the problem of “the recovery of the past” in Glissant’s work: it is the subject of the maroon (fugitive slave). The maroon is described in Le Quatrième Siècle as a man who absolutely refuses slavery. Refusing slavery is not simply battling against the slave’s master, but rather, denying the very relation of “master-slave”. Therefore, in this novel, the maroon represents negation of the dominant history of the Occident, and the creation of another history beginning with his encounter with Caribbean nature.

But we can never know the maroon’s real life throughout the reading because he refuses not only the domination of the master, but the domination of the narrator as well – in short, he even escapes the act of narration as well. In this sense, the maroon signifies the representation of refusal and the refusal of representation at the same time. Consequently, the maroon remains an “absolute other” for the author and reader. But Glissant tries to surpass the limits of narration and inscribe the unimaginable figure of the maroon. We see one of his forms in episodes of impossible communication between the maroon and a Creole woman. These episodes indicate a vision of the past that we can only glimpse (Chapter 4).

From an examination of Glissant’s critical and literary works on “the recovery of the past”, we can conclude that his works are the making of an “anti-histoire” that signifies the refusal of “history” and “story” in the Occidental context. In other words, the making of “anti-history (story)” is the making of another Caribbean “history,” the creation of a “story” against the condition whereby the writer is forced to write in the language of French, which is inseparable from the Occidental imagination. Therefore, despite the difficulties, Glissant will have to continuously search for a new style in French in order to express Caribbean reality. In this sense, the works of Edouard Glissant stands for a poetics of “anti-history (story)”.