With the 2021 Paralympics in Tokyo beginning today, sports fans can learn more about the history of the games and the importance of disability sports, particularly in the host country, in More Than Medals: A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan (Cornell University Press, 2021) by Dennis Frost, Wittenberg University class of 1998.
Frost uses interviews with Japanese athletes, media sources, and institutional materials to examine the development of disability sports in Japan, the first country outside of Europe to host the Paralympics, and the impact that sporting events have had on the perceptions of disability, as well as the promotion of disability policy and rehabilitation techniques.
“The Paralympics and other events have played—and continue to play—a pivotal role in fostering the development of sports for people with disabilities in Japan and beyond,” Frost said.
“Such development has included the establishment of new institutions, expanded opportunities for people with disabilities to pursue sports in different areas, and increased popular and media interest in disability sports and athletes with disabilities.”
The book illustrates the ways in which international attention and media coverage of the events have impacted the public’s understanding of disability, challenging “some stigmas with disability while reinforcing or even creating others,” he said.
Frost’s interest in Japan and East Asia began as a student at Wittenberg. Arriving at the University with plans to pursue a career in international law, he decided on a whim to sign up for Japanese language classes his first year. That decision led to a major in East Asian Studies, a year abroad and a Fulbright Fellowship in Japan, a doctorate in East Asian languages and cultures from Columbia University, a career as a college professor teaching courses on East Asian history, and the publication of two books on sports in Japan.
“I wanted to do what my professors at Witt had done for me: help people discover their own passions for learning about East Asia,” said Frost, who is currently the Wen Chao Chen Professor of East Asian Social Sciences and director of East Asian Studies at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. “Of course, none of that was part of my original plan, so it’s no exaggeration to say that my experience with the Japanese and East Asian Studies programs at Witt changed my life.”
The inspiration for More Than Medals also has its origins at Wittenberg, where Frost served as a Freeman East Asian Studies Teaching Fellow in 2005-2006. When a student expressed an interest in exploring the 1998 Nagano Paralympics for a class presentation, Frost realized he knew little about the subject himself, even though he was teaching a course called Sports in East Asia. After completing his first book, he began researching the history of disability sports in Japan in 2011.
“Over the course of the next decade, my work on the project continued to unfold in really interesting and unanticipated ways,” he said. “It’s another great example of how a single, unexpected, and seemingly simple experience can have a really profound impact on our lives.”
Frost noted that television coverage in the United States of the 2021 Paralympics will be greatly expanded this year. According to NBC Sports, coverage will include a record 1,200 hours plus the first NBC primetime broadcasts ever. The games are scheduled to be held Aug. 24 through Sept. 5.
He would like those watching the events to understand that “they are rooted in a much longer history of Japan’s engagement with the Paralympic movement and in decades' worth of work on the part of promoters, activists, and athletes,” he said. “In the end, I think it’s critical to remember that changes happen as a result of all that work. Events themselves don’t make change happen, but people do.”
