This is an ongoing project that concentrateson the representation of ragtime and early jazz music in "NegroNewspapers" from St. Louis, Missouri, during the first two decades of the20th century. During my summer 2019 research trip to St. Louis (Aug. 13-23), Iworked at the Missouri Historical Museum’s Research Center using microfilmcopies of the St. Louis Argus and finishedgoing through every page of the newspaper for the year 1919. Additional research was conducted at the Minnesota History Center's Research Library in St. Paul, where I examined all editions from June through December 1918 of that city’s prominentAfrican American newspaper, the St. PaulAppeal, .  Ragtime emerged as one of America’s mostpopular musical genres during the first two decades of the 20thcentury, and the major city in which it first flourished was St. Louis. Although scholarscontinue to debate whether ragtime should be viewed as a precursor to jazz music or, in fact, constitutes jazz in its earliest form, insufficient attention hasbeen devoted to how the music was treated in African American discourse,particularly in the Midwest. The current project aims to address this deficiencyin the extant English-language research on jazz history.

特定課題研究の下で2019年2月後半から3月上旬にかけ、米国セントルイス市にあるMissouri History Museum Research Centerで資料検索および収集を実施した。具体的には、1916年から1918年までのセントルイスの主要な「黒人新聞」の一紙だったSt. Louis Argusのマイクロフィッシュ版を仔細に調べた。三年間におよぶ同紙の紙面に一枚一枚目を通し、音楽関連の記事および広告――とくに「ラグタイム」と「ジャズ」に関するあらゆる言及――を収集し、コピーし、そして帰国後に読解作業に取りかかった。また、今回の研究結果の一部を執筆中の本『ジャズピアノ百年』（仮題、刊行は岩波書店からすでに決定済み）に反映させることができたことは大きな収穫だったと言える。

Thisresearch was undertaken in support of a book that I am writing about thehistory of jazz piano. The book, which has been accepted for publication byIwanami Shoten, is scheduled to appear in appear in hard cover in 2019 under thetitle, 『ジャズピアノ百年』 (100 Years of Jazz Piano). The current research project focused on gathering information based on filmsand documents displayed at two music museums: (1) The National Blues Museum inSt. Louis, and (2) the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City. Both museumsprovide useful information not only about the history of jazz and blues on anational scale, but offer critical insights into the development of thesemusical genres in a local  context as well. In addition to myresearch at the museums, I interviewed a jazz pianist active in the Kansas Cityjazz scene and undertook preliminary archival research at local publiclibraries in St. Louis.

This grant was used to build the foundation for a multi-year research project that explores the representation, reception, and transformation of Asian martial arts in the United States. Research activities and accomplishments are summarized below:1) Archival research to collect both scholarly studies in English andJapanese as well as cinematic works (primarily Hong Kong films) that will serve as the background for this study.2) Reading and viewing collected materials.3) Fieldwork in the U.S., consisting of interviews with martial arts instructors, students, and in the case of children, their parents. Both children's and adult's classes were observed, and contacts were established for additional fieldwork in the future.4) Discussions with my co-researcher, Prof. Sakaue Yasuihiro, a specialist of sports history and the sociology of sports about our current research as well as about future directions for expanding this project by incorporating other scholars. 5) Submitted a proposal to present a paper at the first international conference, Martial Arts Studies, to be held at Cardiff University (Wales) in June 2015. The proposal was accepted.6) Submitted a grant proposal to expand and pursue this research during the coming year with an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars working on martial arts studies. Results of the selection process will be announced in July 2015.