"Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan" has gone live on Anthropology News!

My photo collage from the article. 

Caption: Members of Japanese Sign Language Atelier practice to 

improve their performance of JSL and create greater Deaf identity.

My new article is now live and available on the Anthropology News website. It appears as part of a Society of East Asian Anthropology series called Cultural Consumption and Performance in Asia. The article is a little different from my usual style but I hope it will serve as an overview and introduction to deaf/sign language issues in Japan.

I would like to thank the SEAA column editors, Shuang Frost and Heidi Lam, for their patience and incredible editing endeavors. I would also like to to thank Elizabeth Kenney, my sensei and colleague, for her support throughout my career as well as her suggestions/editing of an early draft of the article. A shout out to my colleagues in the Asian Studies Program at KGU for their advising and encouragement. Lest I forget my wonderful students from Spring 2019 Deaf World Japan class who allowed me to read this paper as a part of their "midterm review" and gave me helpful constructive criticism comments. I couldn't have done the research without the assistance of Fumie Fedorowicz. And finally, my thanks and appreciation to the members of Atelier in Hirakata-shi as well as my deaf friends throughout Japan.

I benefitted from so much mulitmodal collaborations... However, any errors of interpretation in the article are mine alone.

Please check it out!

Fedorowicz, Steven C. 2019. “Performance, Sign Language, and Deaf Identity in Japan.” Anthropology News website, June 5, 2019. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1182

http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/06/05/performance-sign-language-and-deaf-identity-in-japan/