Karen's talk at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City

Just a quick note that I'm giving a talk tomorrow afternoon at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Just landed here and it's truly like another planet. Having my own Jane Carter moment….

DISABILITY OF THE SOUL | Thursday, April 12, 2012 2:00 PM BEH S Room 114

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Event Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 2:00 PM MDT

A DISABILITY OF THE SOUL: MENTAL ILNESS AND PSYCHIATRIC DISABILITIES IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN

By Karen Nakamura
Associate Professor
of Anthropology and East Asian Studies,
Yale University

For the past several years, Prof. Nakamura has been conducting research within an intentional community of people with severe mental illnesses in northern Japan. Founded in 1984 on Christian principles, Bethel House attempts to create a space where people with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders can live within
the community.

Like other utopias, Bethel is not without its flaws but it also has much to teach us in its approach to mental illness and community life. A visual and cultural anthropologist, Prof. Nakamura's work explores through image and text what it means to live with psychiatric and other disabilities in contemporary Japan.