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KMID : 0389220200290020569
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Korean Journal of Medical History
2020 Volume.29 No. 2 p.569 ~ p.611
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A Critical Essay on the Historiography for East Asian Medicines: New Horizons beyond Dichotomy and “Tradition”
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Yi Kie-Bok
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Abstract
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One of the main topics discussed by historians, including those of science, in the late 20th century is the historical introspection into “modernism,” a term based on the 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 for historiography and reinforced cultural essentialism, which has eventually given a Euro- or Sino-centric hierarchical presentation of history. The world view of this sort 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 or else, this essay instead presents such a world view as framed in the context of trans-locality, interconnectedness, plurality, heterogeneity, poly-centricity, and diversity. In recent years, in a bid to search for new analytic frames, some enterprises have emerged in the field of cultural or science studies to go beyond just providing critical commentaries or case studies. Also, researchers and scholars in the history of science, technology and medicine in East Asia have put effort into conceptualizing and establishing such new analytic frames. Among those approaches are such attempts as to shed light upon the trans-local yet global interconnectedness (emphatically in pre-modern periods), diverse historical trajectories to modernities, and poly-centric as well as plural landscape of scientific enterprises over time and across the world.
On top of these new visions of the 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 against 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 conceptive ideas surely contribute to the understanding of East Asian medicine,
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KEYWORD
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History of East Asian medicine, dichotomy, Euro-centrism, connectedness, polycentrism, plurality, styles of practice
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