History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Modern East Asia

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course introduces the history of science, medicine and technology in modern East Asia—mainly China, Japan, Korea, and their inland and maritime peripheries—between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. The first half of the course examines the reconfiguration in understandings of the body and the natural world, as well as the politics of medicine and technology, during the transition from the early modern to the modern period. The second half puts this East Asian reconfiguration into global perspective over the last century. A central goal will be to explore different methodological approaches including traditional history of science, social history, post-colonial studies, gender, translation studies, and material culture.