Credentials

Ph.D. in History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1995

Dissertation:”Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China: A Study of Physicians in Suzhou, 1600-1850”  

M.A. in History, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1983   

                      Concentration in Premodern China and Japan  

B.A. in History with Honors, Hong Kong Baptist College, 1981   

Certificate, Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies (Stanford Center), Tokyo (1984)
 
 
 
 

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Selected Publications

Book:

Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China: A Study of Physicians in Suzhou, 1600-1850. NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009.

Articles:

"Medicine and the Law in Late Imperial China: Cases from the Xing'an huilan (Conspectus of Penal Cases" in Chinese Historical Review 24, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 58-76.

"Knowledge to Practice: Scholars, Physicians, and Common Folks in Late Imperial China: A Symposium in Honor of Benjamin A. Elman" in Chinese Historical Review 24, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 1-4.

“The Pi and Wei in the Inner Bodily Landscape in Late Imperial Jiangnan: The Fashioning of Ye Gui,” in Pingyi Chu ed. Medicine and Hygiene: Some New Perspectives (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2013), pp. 157-191.

“Poetry and Footbinding: Teaching Women and Gender Relations in Traditional China” in World History Connected, Vol. 6 No. 2 (June 2009)

 "The Ideal Physician in Late Imperial China: The Question of sanshi (three generations)." East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, no. 17 (2000): 66-93. 

Reviews

Review of Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia: Policies and Publics in the Long Twentieth Century ed. by Angela Ki Che Leung and Charlotte Furth (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010) in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 86 no. 1 (Spring 2012): 131-133.  

Review Essay of Li Jianmin ed. Zhong yiliao kan Zhongguo shi (Examining Chinese History   Through Medicine) in East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International            Journal, vol. 4, no. 2 (2010): 349-353. Through Medicine) in East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, vol. 4, no. 2 (2010): 349-353.

Review of H.T. Huang, Science and Civilisation in China Volume 6: Biology and Biological Technology. Part V: Fermentations and Food Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001 in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 57.3 (2002) 351-353.

Review of Joseph Needham, with the collaboration of Lu Gwei-Djen and edited by Nathan Sivin. Science and Civilisation in China. Volume 6, Biology and Biological  Technology, Part VI. Medicine.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 57.1 (2002): 95-97.

Review of P.Y. Ho and F.P. Lisowski,  A Brief History of Chinese Medicine and Its Influence, 2nd ed.  in East Asian Science, no. 17 (2001).   Review of Carol Benedict, Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth Century China.  Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996 in Jindai Zhongguoshi Yanjiu Tongxun (Newsletter for Modern Chinese History), Number 26 , 1998. (In Chinese)   Review of East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond. Edited by Hashimoto KeizÇ, Catherine Jami, and Lowell Skar. Osaka: Kansai University Press, 1995 in Chinese Science, no. 13, 1996.

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"Worms, Snails, and Swellings: Disease and Medicine in Jiangnan in the Qing Dynasty" Paper presentation at the ICHSEA (International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia) conference in Jeonju, Korea, August 19-23, 2019. 

“Environment, Diseases, and the Development of the wenbing (heat-factor) school in Jiangnan in the Qing dynasty.”  Paper presented at the annual Southeast Conference for the Asian Studies Association, Rhodes College, Memphis January 18-20, 2019.

“History of Medicine: Past Research and New Trends.” Paper presented at the conference “Chinese History in Global World: An International conference on New Approaches to Chinese Historical Studies,”  June 6-8, 2014 at East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.

  “The Pi and Wei in the Inner Bodily Landscape in Late Imperial Jiangnan: A Preliminary Study of Ye Tianshi’s Theory of Weiyin” at The Fourth International Conference on Sinology, June 20-22, 2012 Academia Sinica, Taiwan.  

“Physicians Becoming Gods: the ritual representation of physicians in the Sanhuang miao and Yaowang miao” presented at the Association for Asian Studies annual conference, March 31-April 3, 2011 in Honolulu, Hawaii. This is the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, a national organization of Asian Studies.  

“The Growing Importance of wei in the Qing wenbing school: Ye Gui and his theory of weiyin” at the Association for Asian Studies annual conference, March 25-28, 2010 in Philadelphia.  Panel  “Tradition and Renewal: Chinese Medical History” This is the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, a national organization of Asian Studies. 

 “Ordering the Inner Landscape: Acupuncture and the Body” Presentation at the 12th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, July 14-18, 2008 at Johns Hopkins University.  This is an international conference of the International Society for the History of  East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (ISHEASTM).  Its membership consists of top scholars in the field from Europe, Japan, US, China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Taiwan.  The conference is held every three years around the world.  

 “Rationalizing the Body: Government and Medicine in the Song Dynasty, 960-1279) to be presented at the Southern Conference in the History of Medicine, Science, and Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, April 11-13, 2008.

 “The Body Landscape in Traditional Chinese Medical Texts” Presented at the Princeton University Library. August 4, 2006.

  “Acupuncture and the Body: Bronze Figures in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).” Presented at the Southeast Conference of the Association of Asian Studies.  Atlanta, GA  January 20-22, 2006. 

  “Lineages and Schools: Zhang Zhongjing and Sidajia in Ming and Qing.”  Presented at the 10th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Shanghai August 20-24, 2002.

  “Zhang Zhongjing as ‘Medical Sage’ (yisheng) in Traditional Chinese Medicine.” Presented at the 9th International Conference on the History of Science in China, Hong Kong, October 9-12, 2001.

  “The Identity of Physicians in Late Imperial China: Professionals?” Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Social History of Medicine, July 16-18, 1999 at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.  

“Medicine and the Law in Late Imperial China.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, May 6-9, 1999 at New Brunswick, NJ.

  “The Question of ‘sanshi’ (Three Generations) in Traditional Chinese Medicine.”  Presented at UCLA’s Workshop on New Directions in the History of Chinese Science, May 24, 1997.  

“Knowledge and Experience in Traditional Chinese Medicine: The Question of Sanshi (Three Generations).”  Presented at the Association for Asian Studies Conference, March 13-16, 1997 at Chicago.

  “Patronizing Medicine: The Sanhuang miao (Temple of the Three Emperors) in Late Imperial China.”   Presented at the American Historical Association Conference, January 2-5, 1997 at New York.

  “Confucian or Artisan? Discussions on Medical Ethics in Late Imperial China.” Paper presented at the 1994 California Chinese History Graduate Student Conference at Stanford University, May 13-14, 1994.

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Works in Progress
 

The formation of the wenbing (warm factor) school of medicine in late imperial China was closely connected to the changing perceptions of the inner bodily landscape, emphasizing the importance of the piwei (spleen and stomach).  This development was very much shaped by the geographical and disease landscape in Jiangnan. Physicians and scholars formulated the emergence of the school based not only on this new bodily landscape, but also through the construction of a textual tradition that was legitimated by the efficacy of the foremost wenbing physician, Ye Gui. 

The environment is a major factor in the spread of diseases. The rivers and canals in the Taihu 太湖 region underwent several transformations over time, and as Suzhou is located in the Yangzi floodplain, it experienced periodic floodings. From modern day scientific research, we know that one of the diseases prevalent in the lower Yangzi area that is intimately related to the environment, and specifically to water management, is schistosomiasis, also referred to as snail fever, bilharzia, or big belly disease. But the term schistosomiasis did not yet exist during the period under our study, we will move past modern disease categories and examine how Qing physicians categorized, diagnosed, and treated diseases that closely resembled the symptoms. We find that many symptoms under the categories such as gudu 蠱毒(poisonous worms), shui zhong 水腫 (fluid swelling), guzhang 臌脹 (bloating dropsy) resemble those of schistosomiasis. These included symptoms of bloody diarrhea, vomiting blood, fatigue, wasting of the physical body, emaciated arms and legs, and accumulating of abdominal fluids. In setting aside the modern category of disease, we strive to understand how physicians and patients in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jiangnan experienced these symptoms, how they explained the signs and symptoms, and their approach to alleviating the pain and suffering of the patients.  

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Undergraduate Courses Taught
History 1110, World Civilizations to 1500  Spring 2018 syllabus
History 1120, World Civilizations since 1500

History 3010, Historian's Craft 
History 3070, Topics in World History:

                     Revolutions in China

                     Monk and Warriors:Religious and Secular Worlds in East                       
History 4450, History of Japan Hist 4450 F17 syllabus
History 4460, History of China Fall 2016 syllabus
History 4410, History of Medicine
History 4810, History of Women in the Third World: Women in China

History 4985  Senior Seminar spring 18 Senior Seminar syllabus

Graduate Courses Taught
History 6305, Research Seminar in Global History

History 6304,  Reading Seminar in Global History

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