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Samuel C. Chu Memorial Lecture in East Asian Studies with Shigehisa Kuriyama

The Travel of Anxieties
September 24, 2015
All Day
Room 165, Thompson Library

Time: 4-6 p.m.
Event Host: The Department of History
Short Description: Samuel C. Chu Memorial Lecture in East Asian Studies with Shigehisa Kuriyama. He lectures on "The Travel of Anxieties: Rethinking the impact of Western medicine on Japanese conceptions of the body."


The Travel of Anxieties: Rethinking the impact of Western medicine on Japanese conceptions of the body

Historians of early modern Japan have long cited the appearance of the Kaitai shinsho (1774), a translation of a European anatomical text, as a critical turning point in Japanese studies of Western languages and science. But the importance of this text in the broad history of cultural transfer has, Kuriyama argues, long distorted interpretations of Japanese medical history. It has greatly exaggerated, on the one hand, the impact of Western anatomy, and has completely hidden, on the other, a far deeper transformation. For Japanese medicine before the end of the nineteenth century, the most significant change inspired by the encounter with Europe lay not, in fact, in altered notions of bodily structure, but rather in new fears of vulnerability.

Professor Kuriyama proposes, then, to sketch a radically different account of how conceptions of the body in Japan were affected by the West. But through this specific case study Kuriyama hopes, too, to suggest how studies of global science may need to look beyond just the circulation of ideas and practices, and consider as well the travel of anxieties.

Visit the Department of History website for more information and to register for the lecture.

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