Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
Accepted Paper:
"They Have Excellent Physicians": Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Accounts of the Early Modern Christian Missionaries in Asia
Ondřej Pazdírek
(Masaryk University)
The aim of this paper is to analyze how missionaries who worked in the early modern period in East Asia (more precisely in the Sinosphere) treat traditional Chinese medicine in their texts, especially with regard to the religious aspects of this phenomenon.
Paper long abstract:
The aim of this paper is to analyze how missionaries who worked in the early modern period in East Asia (more precisely in the Sinosphere) treat traditional Chinese medicine in their texts, especially with regard to the religious aspects of this phenomenon. In particular, I would like to focus on how, in the context of this particular instance of intercultural and interreligious contact, European missionaries who encountered Asian cultures distinguished between the traditional Chinese healing practices they considered non-religious (which were generally admired by them) and the healing practices they considered magical and condemned as witchcraft.