February 19, 2002

Contact:

Sarah Ray

802-443-5794

sray@middlebury.edu

Posted: February 14, 2002

MIDDLEBURY,

VT - Middlebury College Visiting Twilight Scholar Karen

Nakamura will give a talk, “Deaf Identity in Japan and the

United States,” on Monday, March 11, at 4:30 p.m. in

Twilight Hall Auditorium on College Street (Route 125). The

lecture is free and open to the public.

Deafness

shares aspects of being both a biological condition as well

as an ethnic and linguistic identity. In this lecture,

anthropologist Nakamura will discuss the results of her

five-year study of deaf identities, sign languages, and

minority social movements in modern Japanese culture while

using U.S. deaf culture as a point of comparison. She will

also address the methods deaf activists use to further their

political and social causes in a country such as Japan,

where minority discourse is not widely extant.

Nakamura is

an assistant professor of anthropology at Macalester

College. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Cornell

University and her doctorate at Yale University. Born in

Indonesia, Nakamura grew up in Australia, Japan and the

United States.

American

Sign Language interpretation will be provided. For more

information, contact Middlebury College Americans with

Disabilities Act Coordinator Elizabeth Christensen at

802-443-5851.