ABSTRACT
WEI YU WAYNE TAN
Disability, Text, and Performance:
The Significance of One Blind Musician’s Career in Tokugawa Japan
This article explores the career of Ogino Chiichi (1731–1801), a prominent blind musician of the genre of heikyoku. With a renewed focus on Chiichi’s relationship with the tōdō (the guild of blind men) against the literary and social backgrounds of heikyoku, it reinterprets the significance of Chiichi’s status as a blind, learned, and well-connected professional. Chiichi’s exceptional trajectory contributes perspectives for rethinking disability while his composition provides an important analytical lens on textual production and performance in the broader framework of interpersonal interests and literary practices shared among many blind musicians and sighted audiences.
Volume 45, Number 1 (Winter 2019)
© 2019 Society for Japanese Studies