To theorize the relationship between slavery, personhood, and performance in medieval Japan, Jackson examines the dramaturgical writings of master Noh actor and playwright, Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443), and the play Jinen Koji (Genuine Preacher Jinen), a Zeami revision in which enthralling dances liberate a slave. What physical exertions, gendered relations, and affective investments does the slave figure activate—and toward what ends?

Reginald Jackson is Assistant Professor of premodern Japanese literature and performance at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and The Tale of Genji Scrolls (forthcoming, University of Michigan Press). His research appears in Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Mechademia, and the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.