Works-in-Progress Series: Cold War Acupuncture: The Politics of Medicine in 1970s China and the United States, by Emily Baum

Department: Center for Medical Humanities

Date and Time: April 14, 2021 | 4:00 PM-5:00 PM

Event Location: Zoom

Event Details

Works-in-Progress Series:
Cold War Acupuncture:
The Politics of Medicine in 1970s China and the United States
Presented by Emily Baum, Associate Professor, History 

Operating room 
 

In the middle of the Cold War, a surprising therapy began to attract the attention of American patients, physicians, and legislators: acupuncture. Having been promoted as a revolutionary treatment in the People's Republic of China, acupuncture became an object of both fascination and disdain in the United States. This talk will examine the transmission of acupuncture from China to the United States in the 1970s, showing how the acupuncture needle was alternately used as a diplomatic tool, a symbol of anti-colonial liberation, and a therapeutic device that challenged conventional Western medical norms. I argue that the rise of acupuncture in the United States can only be understood in the context of a global Cold War that forced race and politics to the forefront of modern medical practice.

Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Time: 4-5 PM Pacific

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Co-sponsored by:  


Emily Baum
Associate Professor, History

Emily Baum is an associate professor of modern Chinese history at UC Irvine, where she researches and teaches on the social and cultural history of twentieth-century China and the history of medicine. Her first book, The Invention of Madness (University of Chicago Press, 2018), looked at changing conceptions of madness in early twentieth-century China. She is currently at work on two new projects: one on the brief global fascination with acupuncture anesthesia in the 1970s, and the other on fortune telling and divination in contemporary China. Her research has been supported by several grants and fellowships, including Fulbright-IIE, Fulbright Scholar, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Sciences Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, and a UC Hellman grant. At UC Irvine, she also directs the Long US-China Institute.