Sinologie

26.09.2025

Workshop: Beyond Professionalism: Global Knowledge of Health in the House, the Commune, and the Everyday

International & Interdisciplinary Workshop, 6–7 October 2025, Fürstenzimmer, Schloss Hohentübingen

On October 6 and 7, the workshop “Beyond Professionalism: Global Knowledge of Health in the House, the Commune, and the Everyday” will be held in Schloss Hohentübingen, Fürstenzimmer (entrance through the courtyard, right front tower). Flyer

Monday, 6 October

09:00 Welcome HUANG Fei & Emily Graf

09:15 – Keynote 1 Paul U. Unschuld (Charité Berlin University)
Beyond Professionalism: A View on the Status of Competence—Past and Present

10:15 Group Photo & Coffee/Tea Break

Medical Curses, Magic and Cosmology

Chair: Achim Mittag (Tübingen University)

10:45 CHANG Chia-feng (National Taiwan University)
Frightened by Strangers: Rethinking of Kewu in Pre-Modern Chinese Medical Literatures

11:25 ZHENG Xinyu (Tübingen University)
More Than Diagrams: Modeling the Cosmos in Medical Primers

12:05 Regula Forster (Tübingen University)
Magical Medicine: Islamic Medicine beyond Galen

12:45 Lunch (Catering on-site)

Healing Waters and Trees

Chair: Carola Lorea (Tübingen University)

14:00 HUANG Fei (Tübingen University)
Knowledge and Local Practice of Healing Springs in Early Modern China

14:40 Christina Brauner (Tübingen University)
Early Modern Spas as Sites of Contested Knowledge: A Small Place in the German-Dutch Borderlands and its Global Connection

15:20 Patrick Aberle (Tübingen University)
Oil Trees in Chinese Materia Medica (bencao)

16:00 Coffee/Tea Break

Integrating the Traditional and Modern

Chair: Karin Polit (Tübingen University)

16:30 XIAO Fulian (Fudan University)
Knowledge and the Frontier: Missionary Investigations and Writings on Local Medicine in Southwest China

17:10 Holger Cramer (Tübingen University)
Translating Traditions: The Integration of Traditional Medicine into the German Healthcare System

17:50 Gabriele Alex (Tübingen University)
Medical Diversity in South India: Practices, Choices, and Social Stratification 

19:00 Dinner: Restaurant Ludwigs, Uhlandstr. 1

Tuesday, 7 October

09:00 – Keynote 2 FANG Xiaoping (Monash University)
Beyond Professionalism within Professionalism: The Actors, Contexts, and Resilience of Folk Health Practices in Mao’s China and After

10:00 Coffee/Tea Break

Medical Pluralism on the Ground

Chair: Nadja Klopprogge (Tübingen University)

10:30 ZHANG Meng (University of Manchester)
Connecting Humans and Animals: The Mask-Muzzle Entanglement and the Vernacularisation of Health Technologies in East Asia (1880–1950)

11:10 Emily Graf (Tübingen University)
Gearing Up with the Bare Necessities: A Material Approach to the Barefoot Doctor’s Medical Equipment (1968–1983)

11:50 SU Jingjing (Peking University)
Reconfiguration of Breastfeeding Recommendations in China: Class Struggle and Politics of Lactation (1966–1976)

12:30 Lunch (Catering on-site)

13:45 General Discussion 

15:15 “Stocherkahn” (punting boat) along the Neckar River

16:00 City Tour

18:00 Dinner

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