The Possibility of the Fieldworks

If they had said a year ago that we wouldn’t be allowed to go abroad to research in the coming academic year, nobody would have believed it. Now, that such an unbelievable story has come true, I'm truly aware of how important it is to revisit the settings of literary works to discover something you'd overlook without the fieldworks. Last year, I was offered to contribute to a new collection of essays on the possibility of the fieldworks being a scholarly method and tried to combine my travelogues set in Germany and Sado Island. Last week, I received a copy of the new book published by Tamagawa UP and felt how far I've come since then. Fortunately, however, I could have the rare experience of being encouraged by rereading my own article to make sure what I've done is right.