While Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine represent two very distinct practices of medicine, thousands of years of cultural and economic exchange have led to numerous exchanges and overlap of theory, treatment modalities, and use of pharmacological substances.  By looking closely at this exchange of medicine, we can examine how trade and cultural contact influenced the use of medicine and its practice.  Linguistic correlation, language reconstruction, geographic distribution of plants, received and discovered medical texts, exploration of primary sources in Sanskrit and Classical Chinese will be used to create a clearer picture of the exchange of medicines in Antiquity and provide greater understanding of how these two ancient practices developed into the systems used today. 

For several hundred years, the traditional Korean society was governed by a group of upper-class scholars, called “Seon-bi.” Most of them were confucian philosophers (i.e. humanists), who read and interpreted Chinese confucian classics. These humanist scholars developed unique confucian virtues: humanity, humility, persistence, noble will, and courtesy. They trained their minds to make their lives coincide with these virtues. Some of them considered mathematics and harmonics to be an essential component of the training of humanist scholars, but the majority of them considered science and technology as a practical knowledge and as such to be secondary and inferior, which should be cultivated by the middle, not upper, class. Since the early 20th century, a handful of new intellectuals learned Western science and technology. Although they emphasized the utility of science and technology for decolonial nation-building and modernization, they still felt that science and technology, as practical knowledge, was regarded as inferior to the humanities and social sciences in Korea. In this context, several notable scientists such as Tae-Gyu Lee, Jang-Choon U, and Hyung-Sub Choi articulated moral virtues inherent in science such as frugality, honesty, disinterestedness, curiosity, and patriotism. These scientific virtues were proposed in such a way to resonate with traditional scholarly virtues, and they served to show that scientific activities are not simply practical, but are also deeply ethical, which are necessary for post-colonial Korea. 

 
The narrative that the “four great inventions” of ancient China – paper, printing, gunpowder, and the compass – changed the world, has been one of the most recognized tropes about China since the 16th century. Originating in Renaissance Europe, it was taken up by Francis Bacon and his contemporaries to express the idea that through invention, mankind could surpass the ancients. As Europeans became more convinced of their Chinese origin, this narrative shifted to one of European genius versus Chinese failure in developing modern science. Surprisingly, during the early twentieth-century this Western-born narrative migrated to China, where it became the most famous topic in the history of science. My research shows how the writing and dissemination of the “great inventions” narrative was shaped by the emerging spheres of nationalist politics, modern education and the commercial publishing industry in twentieth century China. Why did the narrative of the “great inventions” take root in modern China? How was it retold to serve the very different political aims of the iconoclasts, conservatives, and communists seeking to transform their country? How was it disseminated in popular culture? This presentation will sketch an intellectual and cultural biography of the “great inventions” from Renaissance Europe to twenty-first-century China, showing how it enabled intellectuals from Bacon to Mao to portray science and technology as a central force in world history, and therefore, the keys to national wealth and power.
 
 
 

 
 
 
My presentation focuses on the archaeology expedition conducted by American archaeologist Carl Bishop in China during the early twentieth century. Based on the archival material currently housed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Smithsonian Institution Archives, the Freer Gallery of Art, and the American Museum of Natural History, it details who Bishop was, his associations with the Smithsonian institution and the Freer Gallery of Art, how the associations as such brought Bishop to China, and how—and why—Chinese archaeologist Ji Li received Bishop’s incessant support. Although the history of field science has become a thriving subfield in the history of science, I argue that what concerns researchers largely remains what scientists in history had done in the field, instead of how they had constructed a site as a field for science. I argue that as long as researchers can scrutinize what constitutes a field from an ontological viewpoint, instead of confining themselves to what takes place in the field as if the field were merely a stage, they could better answer why “field” becomes such an important site for producing scientific knowledge.