Disability in Premodern & Early Modern Japan

General

Ehlers, Maren. Give and Take: Poverty and the Status Order in Early Modern Japan. Harvard University Press. 2018.

Kimbrough, Keller, trans. "Shintokumaru." In Wondrous Brutal Fictions. New York: Columbia University Press. 2013. pp. 96–122.

Konō, Katsuyuki 河野勝行. Shōgaisha no chūsei 障害者の中世 (Disabled people in the Middle Ages). Kyoto: Bunrikaku. 1987.

Namase, Katsumi 生瀬克己. Nihon no shōgaisha no rekishi, kinsei hen 日本の障害者の歴史. 近世篇 (History of disabled people in Japan – early modern period). Tōkyō: Akashi Shoten 明石書店, 1999.

Namase, Katsumi 生瀬克己. Kinsei shōgaisha kankei shiryō shūsei 近世障害者関係史料集成 (Sources related to disabled people in the early modern period). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten 明石書店, 1996.

Namase, Katsumi 生瀬克己. Kinsei Nihon no shōgaisha to minshū 近世日本の障害者と民衆 (People with disabilities and common people in early modern Japan). Tokyo: San'ichi Shobō 三一書房, 1989.

Tanaka shiryō sentā (kokuritsu koroni nozomi no sono) 田中史料センター (国立コロニーのぞみの園). Waga kuni kodai shinshin shōgaisha no mondai 我が国古代心身障害者の問題 (The problem of people with disabilities in ancient Japan), Tokyo: Shinshin shōgaisha fukushi kyōkai. 1986.

Watanabe, Takeshi. "Reexamining the Yamai no Sōshi: Defining Illness, the Ill, and the Normal." In Yamai no sōshi 病草紙, ed. Kasuya Makoto 加須屋誠 and Yamamoto Satomi 山本聡美. Tokyo: Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 2017.

Yamamoto Satomi 山本聡美. "Yamai" 病 (Illness). In Yami no Nihon bijutsu 闇の日本美術, 95–115. Chikuma Shinsho 1356. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 2018.

Hanada Shunchō 花田春兆. Nihon no shōgaisha : ima wa mukashi「日本の障害者・今は昔」(Japanese disabled people : now is the past). Tokyo : Kozue. 1990.

Blindness Studies

Fritsch, Ingrid. Japans blinde Sänger: Im Schutze der Gottheit Myōon-Benzaiten (Japan's blind singer : protected by the deity Myōon-Benzaiten). Munich: Iudicium, 1996.

Groemer, Gerald. The Spirit of Tsugaru: Blind Musicians,Tsugaru-jamisen, and the Folk Music of Northern Japan, with the Autobiography of Takahashi Chikuzan. Harmonie Park Press, 1999.

Groemer, Gerald. "The guild of the blind in Tokugawa Japan." Monumenta Nipponica 56, no. 3 (2001): 349–380

Groemer, Gerald. Goze uta 瞽女うた (Songs of the goze). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2014.

Groemer, Gerald. Goze: Women, Musical Performance, and Visual Disability in Traditional Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Hyōdō, Hiromi 兵藤裕己. Biwa hōshi – "takai" [ikai?] wo kataru hitobito 琵琶法師―"異界"を語る人びと (Biwa hōshi – people narrating the "other world"). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. 2009.

Katō, Yasuaki 加藤康昭. Nihon Mōjin shakaishi kenkyū 日本盲人社会史研究 (Research on the history of the Blind in Japan). Tokyo: Miraisha, 1974.

Matisoff, Susan. The Legend of Semimaru, Blind Musician of Japan. Boston: Cheng & Tsui. 2006.

Nagai Akiko 永井彰子. Nikkan mōsō no shakaishi 日韓盲僧の社会史 (Social history of Japanese and Korean blind priests). Fukuoka: Ashi Shobō 葦書房, 2002.

Nakayama, Tarō 中山太郎. Nihon mōjin shi 日本盲人史 (History of the Blind in Japan), Tokyo: Shōwa Shobō. 1934.

Ōkuma, Miyoshi大隈三好, Namase, Katsumi生瀬克己, Mōjin no seikatsu 盲人の生活 (The daily life of the Blind). Tokyo: Yuzankaku Shuppan, 1998.

Tan, Wei Yu Wayne. Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Tan, Wei Yu Wayne. "Disability, Text, and Performance: The Significance of One Blind Musician's Career in Tokugawa Japan." The Journal of Japanese Studies 45, No. 1 (2019): 91–119.

Taniai, Susumu 谷合侑. Mōjin no rekishi 盲人の歴史 (History of the Blind). Tokyo, Akashi shoten, 1996.

Deaf Studies

Itō, Masao 伊藤政雄. Rekishi no naka no rōasha 歴史の中のろうあ者 (Deaf people in History). Tokyo: Kindai shuppan. 1998.

Visual/Media Sources

Ippen hijiri-e 一遍上人絵 (ca. 1299). Shinshū Nihon emakimono shūsei, vol. 11, and Nihon emakimono zenshū 新修日本絵巻物全集 vol. 10.

Illustrated Biography of Priest Ippen (Ippen hijiri-e 一遍上人絵) Scrolls 1 & 2, Tokyo National Museum. Available online.

Illustrated Biography of Priest Ippen (Ippen hijiri-e 一遍上人絵) Volume 7, Tokyo National Museum. Available online.

Yamai no sōshi 病草紙, reproduced in full in Nihon emakimono shūsei, v. 9, and Nihon emakimono zenshū, v. 6. Also available online.

Additional Readings of Interest (non-Japan)

Chen, Mel Y., Alison Kafer, Eunjung Kim, and Julie Avril Minich. Crip Genealogies. Duke University Press. 2023.

Ellcessor, Elizabeth, and Bill Kirkpatrick. Disability Media Studies. NYU Press. 2017.

Kafer, Alison. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press. 2013.

Kim, Eunjung. Curative Violence: Rehabilitating Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Modern Korea. Duke University Press. 2017.

Mills, Mara, and Rebecca Sanchez, eds. Crip Authorship: Disability as Method. NYU Press. 2023.

Mitchell, David and Sharon Snyder. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. University of Michigan Press. 2001.

Puar, Jasbir. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Duke University Press. 2017.

Sterne, Jonathan. Diminished Faculties: A Political Phenomenology of Impairment. Duke University Press. 2022.

Notes

The foundations of this reading list were generously provided by the PMJS Mailing List, Wayne Tan, and Anne-Lise Mithout.

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