Talks
Institute of Continuing Education: Undergraduate Virtual Open Day
Looking to pursue your love of learning, take the next step in your career or take your first steps along a new career path? Join us for our upcoming Undergraduate Virtual Open Day on 21st May, where we’ll delve into the world of undergraduate study at the Institute of Continuing Education
Glocalizing Medicine in the Canton/Hong Kong Region in Late Qing China (1840-1911)
Thu 14 May 2015
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Faculty of
Glocalizing Medicine in the Canton/Hong Kong Region in Late Qing China (1840-1911)
Prof. Angela Ki Che Leung (University of Hong Kong)
Thursday, 14th May, 2015 at 4pm
Rooms 8 & 9, Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
The Canton/ Hong Kong region was known for its cosmopolitanism with long- standing multi-cultural presence due to trans-continental trade since at least the 17th century. This lecture will look at the process of Glocalizing medicine by focusing on two points: 1) To see how Western medical concepts were ‘sold’ to the Cantonese and how they were understood. Two aspects of the process will be highlighted: the adaptation of missionary ‘hospitals’ in Canton, and the rendering of missionary medical texts into Chinese with Chinese student- translators playing a critical role. 2) Based on two major global epidemics: bubonic plague of the 1890s and jiaoqi/beriberi from the 1880s onward, to see how these inter-regional outbreaks were observed, researched, understood, reframed, and managed by both Western and Chinese doctors and institutions.
This study attempts to show the differing roles of Western medical missionaries, Chinese doctors, patients, students and publishers in integrating western medical practice in the region. On the other hand the stories of the plague and jiaoqi/beriberi epidemics at the turn of the century will illustrate how a rapidly deteriorating epidemiological situation in the region challenged existing Western and Chinese framing of diseases and how new strategies of observation, therapeutics, management of patients had to be developed.
Speaker Biography
Angela Ki Che Leung, Director, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair Professor of History, Joseph Needham – Philip Mao Professor in Chinese History, Science and Civilization, University of Hong Kong. Author of Leprosy in China: A History (Columbia University Press, 2009).
The Global China: New Approaches lecture series is funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.
Cost: Free entry
Enquiries and booking
No need to book.