The Science, Technology and Medicine Seminar (STMS) series, hosted by the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, promotes cutting edge cross-disciplinary research that straddles the arts, sciences, and medicine. The aim is to provide a friendly forum to debate and test new ideas, papers, chapters, book projects and grant proposals, as well as topical issues and individual research.

If you are interested in joining the seminars, please let us know.
We welcome suggestions for future presentations and discussion topics.

For further information about STMS activities,
please contact Dr. Ria Sinha at riasinha@hku.hk or on 3917 9073.

Upcoming seminar:

3 October 2024 (Thursday)  |  4:00 pm  | Room KKLG101 (KK Leung Building, Main Campus, HKU)

Title: “Mixed Medicine” Research Project

Abstract:
This seminar will discuss a new research project, Mixed Medicine, that will explore the complex, and at times fractious, relationship between Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Hong Kong, and the global exportation of TCM with various Chinese diasporas. This project aims to understand how these medical systems have co-evolved, collided, and influenced each other in different socio-cultural contexts. The proposed project will engage interdisciplinary scholars in a book series, symposia, workshops and potentially a digital humanities resource. Focusing on Hong Kong, the first edited volume will explore the parallel, yet asynchronous, development of TCM and Western Medicine in Hong Kong at critical junctures, often in response to different biosocial pressures. It covers different understandings of the body, hygiene, disease, and the impact of a torrid and unpredictable environment on health that fed medical imaginaries of causality. Additionally, it will explore the biopolitical implications of governing a diverse population and the societal impact of medical pluralism, including pertinent examples from the management of syphilis in the foundational years of the colony to controlling plague, influenza, SARS, school hygiene, reproductive technologies, management of the dead, as well as the construction of medical infrastructure and expertise. The significance of the project lies in its potential to fill gaps in the current literature on medical pluralism and biopolitics in colonial and post-colonial contexts. The seminar will serve as a valuable platform to discuss the project’s scope and future directions from multiple disciplinary perspectives to broaden and enhance its impact.

Bio:
Carol C. L. Tsang is Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. She is a historian of gender and reproductive health in Hong Kong and has published articles on prostitution and women’s medicine. She coordinates and teaches courses on gender studies, motherhood, and family. Her works on family planning in Cold War Hong Kong and hormone pregnancy test in East Asia will appear in Cold War History and Global Studies in Medicine, Science, Race, and Colonialism respectively. She was the recipient of the HKU Arts Faculty Teaching Excellence Awards (2017-2018).

Ria Sinha is a Lecturer in the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit at the University of Hong Kong where she coordinates History of Medicine teaching and learning. Trained as an infectious disease scientist, her research and teaching at HKU has expanded into interdisciplinary research that considers the complex and dynamic sociocultural, ecological, historical, technological, and medico-scientific determinants of disease emergence and management. She has curated a Covid-19 Archive Project to document the coronavirus pandemic, and is completing a book on the History of Malaria in Hong Kong.