A Critical Essay on the Historiography of East Asian Medicines: New Horizons beyond Dichotomy and “Tradition” (2020)
One of the main topics discussed by historians, including those of science, in the late twentieth century is the historical introspection into “modernism,” a term based on a teleological view of the world. According to the conventional understanding of world history, the historical process to modernity that has led to the Civil Revolution, Scientific Revolution, and Capitalism is linear and universally inevitable, and this—in other words, Eurocentrism—implies that only the historical experiences of Europeans are relevant. This mainstream view of world history has spread the dichotomous analytic framework of historiography and reinforced cultural essentialism, which has eventually given a Euro- or Sino-centric hierarchical presentation of history. This type of world view rests on the assumption that there are intrinsic and incommensurable differences between cultures or localities, which a lot of commentators and scholars have constantly countered by arguing that that presumption does not comply with what historical sources say. Drawing on some trail-blazing scholarship of cultural studies and others, this essay turns away from this “conventional” framework of historiography and presents a world view that is framed in the context of trans-locality, interconnectedness, plurality, heterogeneity, polycentricity, and diversity. In recent years, in an attempt to search for new analytic frames, some endeavors have emerged in the field of cultural or science studies to go beyond just providing critical commentaries or case studies. Furthermore, researchers and scholars in the history of science, technology and medicine in East Asia have put an effort into conceptualizing and establishing such new analytic frames. Among those approaches are attempts to shed light upon the trans-local yet global interconnectedness (emphatically in pre-modern periods), diverse historical trajectories to modernities, and polycentric as well as plural landscape of scientific enterprises over time and across the world. On top of these new visions of world history, this essay further elaborates on and proposes some conceptive ideas: (1) “Tradition” as a set of recipes, which could replace the idea of the living yet dead tradition; (2) “Medicine 醫” as a problem-solving activity, which calls more attention to historical actors of East Asian medicine; (3) “East Asian medicines” as a family of trans-locally related practices in East Asia, which would lead to going beyond the nationalist historiography such as Sino-centrism; (4) “Problematique” as the system of questions and concepts which make up East Asian medicine, which should reveal what East Asian medicines have been about; (5) “Styles of Practice” for the historiography of East Asian medicines, as opposed to the cultural account, epistemological historiography or praxiography; and, as an illustrative example, (6) “Topological Bodies” for the history of anatomy in East Asia. Going beyond tradition and dichotomous historiography, these new methodologies or conceptual ideas will contribute to the understanding of the history of East Asian medicines.
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