Indigenous Knowledge? Rescheduled to April 2: The Politics of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Colloquium | November 19 | 4-6 p.m. | IEAS Conference Room, sixth floor | Canceled

Location: 2223 Fulton Street, Berkeley, CA 94720

Speaker: Judith Farquhar, Professor, Anthropology, University of Chicago

Sponsor: Chinese Studies, Center for (CCS)

Due to student protests and union strikes, this event has been rescheduled to April 2.

The classical tradition of medicine in China has been deeply altered by its engagements with Western science and nation-state development over the last 150 years. This presentation characterizes contemporary Chinese medicine as a weave of local historical constraints, global economic and epistemological pressures, and clinical and pedagogical pragmatics. When considered in relation to the global movement for the recognition and re-deployment of indigenous knowledges, Chinese medicine's emergence in the late 20th century as an influential -- yet always challenged -- "non-western science" is instructive. Several case studies of Chinese medical theory and practice under global challenge, reflecting a constitutive politics of scientific knowledge, will be explored.

Target audience: All Audiences

Open to audience: All Audiences

Event Contact: Elinor Levine, ccs@berkeley.edu, 510-643-6321