Materialities of Medical Culture In/Between Europe and East Asia

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Thich his proposal is based on a two years’ cooperation between a group of German and Taiwanese historians of science and medicine, whose common interest is the history of materialities, material culture and the interlacing of material and epistemic cultures. For the future, we hope to include a small number of colleagues from other countries, if their research topics are in relationship with the group’s research focus. We will work on topics that link our countries‘/continents‘ histories by combining a small number of case studies with a continuing discussion in the network. These discussions will provide the basis for a deeper reflection on historiographical methodologies at the intersection of East Asian and European history of medical culture with a special emphasis on materialities. Out of the four thematic fields which we have elaborated so far, we have chosen two for the next three years‘ collaboration. We have identified two case studies, around which we will arrange workshop meetings and scholars‘ exchange in addition to the necessary stays in libaries and archives of our countries. The case studies are located at the intersection of the history of medicinal substances and the formations/transformations of health care policies. We propose two historical cases studies: a) „Between Social Medicine and Parasitology: Flukes, Worm Eggs and Mites in Discourses and Practices of Tropical Medicine in Southern China and Taiwan (1860s – 1910s)”, to be undertaken by a German postdoc, and b) a research project on the European-Asian travels of exemplary medicinal substances, to be undertaken by German and Taiwanese researchers. Both case studies will depend on the collaboration of German and Taiwanese colleagues on site, since some of the archival sources located in Taiwan are in German, some in English, Japanese or Chinese, and the ways that substances from East Asia took to Europe and back can be traced in archival and published sources written in German (and other European languages). The best way to understand the flow of information (also of non-information), matters and practical knowledge, is to approach the topic in mixed teams. For these reasons, apart from the two single projects, the project’s work will consist of a series of workshops, to be held alternately in Germany and Taiwan, and of long-term visits of researchers from Taiwan. The Taiwanese side will provide matching opportunities for German researchers.