VISITING ANTHROPOLOGIST & FILMMAKER KAREN NAKAMURA

Karen Nakamura is assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University. Her focus as a cultural and visual anthropologist has been on disability and culture in contemporary Japan . Her book titled Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity was released from Cornell University Press last summer. Dr. Nakamura will lecture and present her first film, Bethel. The film explores how a small but vibrant group of people with Schizophrenia and other psychosocial disabilities struggle with their lives, their problems, and the meaning of community in a small fishing town on the northern island of Hokkaido. She will also conduct workshops with anthropology and media-arts students on the art of documentary filmmaking.