We meet fortnightly on Wednesdays, 11am–12noon in the Board Room of the Needham Research Institute (8 Sylvester Road, Cambridge, CB3 9AF). Please see below for the date, time and details of each event.
We will also send out a reminder and the online joining link to our mailing list every Friday before the session.
Enquiries about the group and the mailing list should be directed to Zhi-Yu Chen, Zhilin Chu or Fu Ge Yang.
Easter Term 2026
6 May
Talk by Dr Gao Shanshan (D. Kim Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, HPS, University of Cambridge)
Tracing the origins of qigong fever: Mao Zedong, quiet sitting, and the jingluo system (1914–1958)
This paper traces the origins of qigong fever by locating Mao Zedong's early practice of quiet sitting in 1916 within an intellectual lineage linking Jiang Weiqiao, Yang Changji, and Mao's classmates. Deeply rooted in the Neo-Confucian tradition of self-cultivation and the circulation of jingluo, Jiang's quiet sitting method was reinterpreted through Japanese hygienic languages during the Republican period, and later reframed in terms of Pavlovian neurophysiology in Maoist China. In 1954, Jiang's claim that his long-term qigong practice had verified the existence of jingluo coincided with Mao's renewed support for Chinese medicine. By legitimising the existence of jingluo through qigong practice, the circulatory jingluo system was codified into national Chinese medicine textbooks as the discipline's core theoretical foundation, thereby laying the institutional and epistemic groundwork for the post-Mao qigong fever.
20 May
Reading session: Contested medicines in modern China, 1920s–1940s
This reading group aims to explore the contested terrain of medicine in modern China through a close reading of both classic and more recent scholarship. In addition to revisiting some of the major and influential works in the field, we will also look at studies with more specific and localised points of entry. Together, these readings will help us think through how tensions between policy-making at higher levels and local medical practice were articulated, negotiated, and made visible in concrete historical settings.
Tuesday 2 or Wednesday 3 June
Cross-regional dissertation symposium in collaboration with Southeast Asia HPSTM Reading Group
A collaborative symposium hosted by the EA and SEA HPSTM Reading Groups. We welcome speakers to submit their title and abstract for the session. Look out for more details to come.