The first printing of the physical version of A Disability of the Soul was accompanied by a DVD containing two documentaries about Bethel made by the author—Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan and A Japanese Funeral (winner of the Society for Visual Anthropology Short Film Award and the Society for East Asian Anthropology David Plath Media Award).


If you do not have access to a DVD player to play the films, or if you purchased the second edition or e-book version which does not have the streaming films embedded, you may watch the films online. This service is only provided only for individuals who have purchased the book. If you are a classroom teacher, please purchase the teacher's edition DVD of each respective film, which has public screening rights.


In order to watch these films, you will need to type in the password: 

        IOwnADisabilityOfTheSoul

(no spaces, capitalization is important, easiest to just copy and paste it into the password fields below)


Bethel: Community and Schizophrenia in Northern Japan

I apologize that while the film has subtitles, there is no audio description; however, an English-language transcript of the film is available. For more information about this film (including to purchase a copy suitable for public screening or for the teacher's guide), go to the film's website at: disability.jp/bethel

A Japanese Funeral

For more information about this film (including to purchase a copy suitable for public screening or for the teacher's guide), go to the film's website at: http://www.videoethnography.com/funeral/

Teaching Guide



Possible prompts:



Prompt 1: Bethel: There are multiple levels of both similarity and difference between the experiences of the people you meet in _Bethel_ and your own. Imagine that you are an anthropologist entering the Bethel community for the first time. What are the elements of difference and similarity that you see, and to what degree could you attribute them to:

  1. * Japan vs. the USA
  2. * Northern Japan vs. central Japan
  3. * Someone with schizophrenia vs. someone without
  4. * Someone who was a racialized minority (Ainu, in the case of Japan) and someone who was not
  5. * Someone with a different gender that another

    Those difference you might constitute as hypotheses: “I noticed this person thinks/acts this way and I think it’s because of _______.” How would you go about hypothesis testing this? What would you need to do in terms of asking questions or doing research that might help you understand where this difference is coming from? Discuss.