Assistant Professor of Anthropology and East Asian Studies +1 203 432-3795 tel (office)
Yale University +1 815 371-4029 fax (personal)
10
Sachem Street karen.nakamura @ yale.edu
New Haven CT 06520-8277 USA http://www.disabilitystudies.jp
Higher Education
2001 Ph.D.
in Sociocultural Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Yale University.
Dissertation title: Deaf Identities,
Sign Languages, and Minority Social Movement Politics in Modern Japan
(1868-2000). Advisor: Professor William Kelly.
1998 M.Phil. in Sociocultural Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Yale University.
1993 B.A. magna cum laude. Cornell University. Double major, College Scholar Program and Psychology with a concentration in Women's Studies. Distinction in all subjects.
Monographs and Edited Volumes
2006 Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Winner of 2008 John Whitney Hall Book Prize from the Association of Asian Studies
2003 Co-Editor, Many Ways to be Deaf: International Linguistic and Sociocultural Variation. Ed. Leila Monaghan, Constanze Schmaling, Karen Nakamura, and Graham Turner. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.
2007 Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan. High-definition color. 41 minutes.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
2006a Creating and Contesting Signs in Contemporary Japan: Language Ideologies, Identity and Community in Flux. Sign Language Studies Volume 7 Number 1 (Fall 2006): 11-29.
2006b 抵抗と同化：全日本ろうあ連盟と政治権力の関係。社会科学研究、第５７巻き第３・４合併号。東京：東京大学社会科学研究所紀要。
[Resistance and Assimilation: The Relationship between
Japanese Federation and the Deaf and Political Power. Shakai Kagaku Kenkyû Vol 57
(3-4). Tokyo: Tokyo University Institute for Social Science.]
2003a "Deaf Shock," and the Hard-of-Hearing: Japanese Deaf identities at the borderlands. Many Ways to be Deaf: International Linguistic and Sociocultural Variation. Ed. Leila Monaghan, Constanze Schmaling, Karen Nakamura, and Graham Turner. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.
2003b Female masculinity and fantasy spaces: transcending genders in the Takarazuka theatre. With Hisako Matsuo (co-author). Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa. Edited by James Roberson and Nobue Suzuki. 59-76. New York: Routledge.
2002 Resistance and Co-optation: the Japanese Federation of the Deaf and its Relations with State Power. Social Science Japan Journal. Vol. 5 (1): 17-35.
- Selected as one of the 100 seminal papers from Oxford Journals (Oxford University Press Centennial)
1999a 日米のろう運動：比較研究の視点から。手話コミュニケーション研究。
日本手話研究所所報。1999.9
(33): 45-54。
[Deaf Movements in the
United States and Japan from a Comparative Analytical Perspective. Sign
Language Communication Studies August (33): 45-54. Tokyo: Japanese Institute for Sign Language Studies.]
1999b 言語・文化人類学から見た日米ろう社会と教育（講演会記録1998.11.14）。
トータルコミュニケーション研究会会報。No. 79 （冬号）：24-39。
[Deaf education in Japan and the U.S.: a comparative approach from a linguistic and sociocultural anthropology perspective (Lecture Transcript of November 14, 1998). Total Communications Research Group Report No. 79. Winter, 1999. Tokyo: Total Communication Research Group.]
1998a 民族としてのろう社会：ろう者のアイデンティティ・カルチャーと 手話言語コミュニティの形成。日本手話研究所所報, 1998.3 (27)。
[Ethnically deaf: identity, culture, and the making of sign language communities. Sign Language Communication Studies. April, 1998. Tokyo: Japanese Institute for Sign Language Studies.]
1998b Transitioning on Campus: A Case Studies Approach. In Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender College Students: A Handbook for Faculty and Administrators. Ronni L. Sahlo, ed. 179-186. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
1997 Narrating Ourselves: Duped or duplicitous? In Gender Blending. Bonnie Bullough, Vern Bullough, and James Elias, eds. 74-86. Buffalo: Prometheus Press.
2007 The Chrysanthemum and the Queer: Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives on Sexuality in Japan. Journal of Homosexuality. Volume 52, Issue ¾: 267-281.
2006a Two New Ogawa Shinsuke Films (review).
Visual Anthropology. Volume 19, No. 3-4: 391-392.
2006b Review of Jennifer Robertson, ed. A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan.
Pacific Affairs. Volume
79, No. 1 (Spring): 129-130.
2006c Review of Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda, eds. Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Journal of Japanese Studies. Vol. 32 No. 2 (Summer): 459-462.
2004a Review of Keiko Hirata's Civil Society in Japan.
Social Science Japan Journal. Vol.
7, No. 2 (October): 318-320.
2004b Review of Megan Jennaway’s Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in
Bali.
American Ethnologist. Vol.
31, No. 1 (February).
2004c Review of Jennifer Robertson’s Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. Visual Anthropology 17: 205-207.
1998 Review of Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla’s Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture. SOLGAN Vol. 20, No. 3: 5-6..
2005 Severe Disabilities, Liberalism, and Social Welfare Policy in Japan and the United States. Anthropology News. Vol. 46, No. 9: 58. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.
2002a Eight photographs of rural Malaysia in “Meeting Malaysia.” Text by Jan Shaw-Flamm. Macalester Today (Summer): 22-29.
2002b "Deafness, Ethnicity, and Minority Politics in Modern Malaysia." Macalester International Volume 12 (Autumn): 193-202. St. Paul, MN: Macalester College.
2002c ９月１１日以降のアメリカ。季刊ミミ ９５号(春): 10-11。 東京:全日本ろうあ連盟。 [America after September 11th. Quarterly Mimi No. 95 (Spring): 10-11. Tokyo: Japanese Federation of the Deaf.]
2002d Morals, Sexuality, and Fieldwork. Ethical Currents. Anthropology News. Vol. 43 (3 [March]): 24. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.
2002e Helpful or Harmful: How Innovative Communication Technology Affect Survivors of Intimate Violence. By Ann L. Kranz with Karen Nakamura. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse. http://www.mincava.umn.edu/
In review Challenging Disabilities: An Overview of the 2004-2005 Japanese Disability Protest Movement. Submitted to Disability Studies Quarterly. Currently in peer review.
Forthcoming Disability, Destitution, and Disaster: Surviving the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Japan. Submitted to Human Organization (Journal of the Society for Applied Anthropology). Currently in peer review.
Forthcoming No voice in the courtroom?: Deaf legal cases in Japan during the 1960s. In Going to Court to Change Japan: Social Movements and the Law. Ed. Patricia Steinhoff. Chapter manuscript completed, book manuscript submitted to the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies series.
2005.8 ~ current Assistant Professor of Anthropology and East Asian Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
2001.8 ~ 2005.8 Assistant Professor of Anthropology. Macalester College, St. Paul MN.
Volunteer and Service Positions
2008.1~ Editorial Board, American Anthropologist, American Anthropological Association.
2005.11-2008.11 Elected member, Committee on Minority Affairs in Anthropology, American Anthropological Association.
2004-2005 Nominated Member, American Anthropological Association SOLGA Benedict Prize Committee.
2002-2005 Elected member (Minority Seat), Long-Range Planning Committee, American Anthropological Association.
2002-2004 Academic Mentor. Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Macalester College.
2002-2004 Nominated member, American Anthropological Association SOLGA Payne Student Research Prize Committee.
2000-2005 SOLGA Liaison (AAA Board nominated position), Committee on Ethics, American Anthropological Association.
Exhibitions and Film Screenings
March 2, 2008 Japan Premiere: Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan. Feminist Active Documentary Video Festival Renren. Tokyo, Japan.
Sept 7, 2007 International Premiere: Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan. Disabled People’s International World Assembly. Seoul, Korea.
March 28, 2007 Film screening: Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan (rough cut). Asia Art Week. University of South Carolina.
Nov 11, 2006 Film screening: Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan (rough cut). Conference on Representing Disability: Theory, Politics, Practice. Haverford College.
Oct 11, 2006 Film screening: Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan (rough cut). Margaret Mead Ethnographic Film Festival at Yale University, New Haven.
Oct - Nov 9, 2006 Photography exhibition. Disability in Japan. Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.
Conference Presentations and Lecture Series (Past 5 Years)
March 1, 2008 Paper presentation: Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity. Around the Deaf World in Two Days (It's a Small World): Sign Languages, Social Issues/Civil Rights, Creativity. Swarthmore College.
Dec 1, 2007 Paper presentation: Crazy in Japan: schizophrenia, traumas of memory, and community storytelling in rural Japan. Panel on Depressed Society and Disturbed Individuals?: The Varieties of Suffering Experiences. American Anthropological Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.
Co-organizer: Panel on Depressed Society and Disturbed Individuals?: The Varieties of Suffering Experiences. American Anthropological Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.
March 31, 2007 Paper presentation: Call Girls for Crips: The growing movement for sexual and reproductive freedom for people with disabilities. Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. New York University.
Feb 3, 2007 Paper presentation: Narrative, Community Memory, and Schizophrenia in Contemporary Japan. Time, Memory and Body in Japan: An Interdisciplinary Symposium. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA.
Nov 15, 2006 Paper presentation: Performing Disability, Class, and Gender in Contemporary Japan. Panel on Critical Intersections of Disability and Culture in Asia. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA.
Panel Organizer. Panel on Critical Intersections of Disability and Culture in Asia. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA.
Discussant. Panel on Teaching about race from the sub-fields of anthropology. AAA Committee on Minority Issues in Anthropology Invited Session. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA.
Nov 11, 2006 Paper presentation: Deaf Politics in Japan and the United States. Panel on Global Perspectives: Poverty, Economic Development, and Disability. Conference on Representing Disabilities: Theory, Politics, Practice. Haverford College.
Oct 31, 2006 Seminar series: Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity. Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard University Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
April 28, 2006 Paper presentation: Challenging Disabilities in Japan and the United States. Dickinson College Symposium on Health, Law and Justice in Asia.
April 21, 2006 Paper presentation: Rethinking Disability and Social Welfare Policy in Japan and the United States. Columbia University Seminar on Japan.
April 11, 2006 Discussant: Panel on Culture and the Wiring of the Brain. Speaker: Bruce Wexler, organized by the Law & Biotechnology Society. Yale University Law School.
March 31, 2006 Paper presentation: Disability, Destitution, and Disaster: Surviving the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Japan. Panel on Who Lives? Who Dies? Disaster, Bioethics, and Disability Part II (SMA), organized by Lakshmi Fjord. Society for Applied Anthropology / Society for Medical Anthropology 2006 Annual Meeting. Vancouver, British Columbia.
Feb. 25, 2006 Paper presentation: Sign Language Interpretation as Gendered Labor in Japan. Workshop on Work, Gender, and Identity in Modern Japan. Organized by Christopher Gerteis, Council on East Asian Studies: Yale University.
Dec. 2, 2005 Panel Chair and Organizer: Social Change in East Asia: Grassroots Mobilization and Small-scale Political Activism. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.
Paper presentation: It’s not Welfare if it’s not Enjoyable: Rethinking Grassroots Disability Activism in Japan. Anthropological Association Annual Meeting.
Apr. 23-24, 2005 Paper presentation: Radical Disability Politics at the Grassroots: The Growth of Centers for Independent Living in Japan. Anthropology of Japan in Japan Regional Workshop. Osaka Gakuin University, Osaka Japan.
Nov. 13-14, 2004 Chair: Discourses of Love and Romance. Anthropology of Japan in Japan (AJJ) Annual Meeting, Sophia University, Tokyo Japan.
March 24-27, 2004 Paper presentation: Images of Women, Imaginations of Women in Japanese Animation and Popular Culture. European Social Science History Conference, Berlin, Germany.
Nov. 19-23, 2003 Panel Co-chair and Organizer: Lesbians, sex workers, drug addicts, queer kids, and gossips, oh my! The politics and ethics of research on stigmatized populations. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Committee on Ethics Invited Session.
Paper presentation: 25 Years of Invisibility. Panel titled: 25 Years of ARGOH/SOLGA: From the Margins (Almost) to the Center. Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. SOLGA Invited Session.
Oct. 24-25, 2003 Paper presentation: No voice in the courtroom?: Legal cases regarding deaf individuals in Japan during the 1960s. Rocky Mountain / Southwest Regional Japan Seminar, Colorado Springs, CO.
Oct. 10-12, 2003 Paper presentation: Deafness, Gender, and Age in Contemporary Japan. Deaf Studies Conference at the University of Iowa Global Health Studies.
Paper presentation: Disability and Deafness as New Model Minority Discourses in Japan. East Asian Studies Department. University of Iowa.
June 22, 2003 Paper presentation: Asexuality and Polygenderism: Shojo & shonen manga at the fin de siecle. Asian Studies Conference in Japan. Sophia University, Tokyo Japan.
April 27, 2002 Panel Discussant: Performing Woman, Perfecting the Feminine. Workshop on Sex and the Politics of Desire. The University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.
March 24, 2002 Panel Discussant: Straddling State and Society: Challenges and Insights from Asian Associational Life. International Studies Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA. Panel sponsored by the International Political Sociology section.
Public and Guest Lectures and Presentations (Past 5 Years)
Oct 22, 2007 Lecture: Participant Observation Fieldwork in the Ethnographic Study of Mental Illness in Japan. Invited by Prof. Ikuyoshi Mukaiyachi. Hokkaido Health Sciences University.
Feb 6, 2007 Guest Lecturer: Fantastic futures and remembered pasts: Japanese animation in late modernity. Architecture 752b: Critical Imaginaries, a Contemporary Architectural Discourse Colloquium. School of Art and Architecture, Yale University.
June 16, 2006 Lecture: Mental Health Care in the United States. Bethel House, Urakawa City, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan.
Mar 23, 2006 Guest Lecturer: From Atom to Evangelion - Teaching Japanese Culture and History through Japanese Animation and Manga Comics. Yale PIER Lecture Series.
Nov 8, 2004 Guest Lecturer: Disabilities in the U.S. and Japan. Invited by Professor Tom Gill, Meiji Gakuin University.
July 27, 2004 Guest Lecturer: Disability as a New Civil Society Movement. Invited by Professor Yutaka Tsujinaka, Tsukuba National University, Japan.
April 3, 2004 Guest Speaker: Understanding ‘9 Months in America’ by Wing Young Huie. Invited by Professor Anita Gonzalez, Minnesota Museum of American Art.
Feb 13, 2004 Lecture: Contesting Abilities: Disability and Deafness as Emerging Minority Social and Political Movements in Contemporary Japan. Jackson School for International Studies, University of Washington.
July 1, 2003 Guest Speaker: From Atom to Evangelion: Japanese Culture and History through Anime and Manga. Invited by Prof. Thomas Gill, Meiji Gakuin University.
April 25, 2003 Invited Speaker: Native and Halfie Anthropology in Japan. Invited by Professor Sonia Ryang. Johns Hopkins University.
March 11, 2002 Invited Lecture: Deaf Identity in the U.S. and Japan. Twilight Scholar Lecture Series. Middlebury College.
Feb 14, 2002 Invited Lecture: Deaf Minority Identities, Social Movements, and State Power in Modern Japan. Noon Lecture Series, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan.
March 4, 2002 Signing Deaf in Japan: Minority Identity, Language, and Social Protest in Modern Japan. Department of Anthropology. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.
Selected Grants, Awards, and Scholarships
2007 Yale University Junior Faculty Fellowship.
2006 Journal article “Resistance and Co-optation” selected as one of 100 Seminal Papers in the Oxford University Press Centenary of Publishing.
2004-05 Abe Fellow, Social Science Research Council and Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. Principle investigator. $83,000.
2004 East-West Center China-U.S.A. Asian Studies Development Program.
2003 Tokyo University Institute of Social Science / Oxford University Award for Modern Japanese Studies.
2003 Macalester College Co-Mentoring Fellowship.
2003 Macalester College Freeman Fund China Travel Grant. Principle investigator.
2003 Macalester College Mellon Summer Research Fellowship. Principle investigator.
2002 Macalester College Bush Course Development Grant.
2002 Macalester College Faculty Development International Seminar, Penang, Malaysia
1999-00 Yale University Council on East Asian Studies Prize Fellowship.
1999 Yale University Schwartz Fund Dissertation Research Fellowship.
1999 SSRC Japan Dissertation Workshop Fellowship.
1999 Yale University Dissertation Writing Fellowship.
1998-9 Yale University Council on East Asian Studies Charles Kao Research Grant
1997-9 Wenner-Gren Foundation Small Grant for Dissertation Research (Gr. #6144). Principle Investigator.
1996 Yale University Council on East Asian Studies Fellowship for Summer Language Study.
Mellon Grant for Summer Pre-Dissertation Research, Yale University.
1995 Mellon Grant for Summer Language Study, Yale University
1994 University Fellowship, Yale University.
Sumitomo Fellowship, Yale University.
1993 Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.
[2008.4.10]