Global Asian Studies (GAS) at the University of Tokyo will be holding a symposium in summer 2025 to discuss issues surrounding women and disease in medical and metaphorical transformations. Organized by GAS and Dr. Shu Yang from Western Michigan University in the United States, this post-Covid symposium aims to facilitate reflection on gender and medicine in a vibrantly Chinese context.

Symposium Abstract:

This post-pandemic era provides the ideal backdrop for rethinking the definition and regulation of disease and women’s place in it. Our Tokyo symposium brings together world scholars to discuss Chinese societies, past and present, through the lens of female dis-eased status. It is open to all relevant disciplines of any historical periods and geographical regions. A focus on medicine and womanhood is preferable. Topics related to pathology, sexuality, body, psychology, affect, workforce, domesticity, epistemology, science, (dis)pleasure, and more are all welcome.

Timeline:

Lodging:

Due to limited lodging options on campus in the summer, presenters should make hotel reservations by themselves in nearby areas. The following two hotels are close to the institute:

https://forest-hongo.jp/

https://www.hotelgp-tokyo.com/

For inquiries, please contact Prof. Shu Yang (shu.yang@wmich.edu). We look forward to receiving your abstracts!

About the Organizers:

Shu Yang is Associate Professor of Chinese in the Department of World Languages and Literatures at Western Michigan University in the United States. After publishing her recent monograph Untamed Shrews: Negotiating New Womanhood in Modern China (Cornell University Press, 2023), she has been working on her next book about the discourse of hysteria in Republican China.

Yuki Tanaka is Associate Professor of Chinese Philosophy at the University of Tokyo. Her research focuses on Chinese music and scientific philosophy. Publications: The Philosophy of Music in Ancient China: Zhu Zaiyu and Twelve-tone Equal Temperament (Tokyo, 2018); Chinese Music Theory and Twelve-tone Equal Temperament: The Philosophy of Music in Confucianism (Tokyo, 2014), and others.

Global Asian Studies (GAS) at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo is a program to promote an “inside-out” approach to Asian studies.