Naming The Local: Medicine, Language, And Identity In Korea Since The Fifteenth Century (harvard East Asian Monographs)

Naming the Local uncovers how Koreans domesticated foreign medical novelties on their own terms, while simultaneously modifying the Korea-specific expressions of illness and wellness to make them accessible to the wider network of scholars and audiences. Due to Korea's geopolitical position and the intrinsic tension of medicine's efforts to balance the local and the universal, Soyung Suh argues that Koreans' attempts to officially document indigenous categories in a particular linguistic form required constant negotiation of their own conceptual boundaries against the Chinese, Japanese, and American authorities that had largely shaped the medical knowledge grid. The birth, decline, and afterlife of five terminologies-- materia medica , the geography of the medical tradition, the body, medical commodities, and illness--illuminate an irresolvable dualism at the heart of the Korean endeavor to name the indigenous attributes of medicine. By tracing Korean-educated agents' efforts to articulate the vernacular nomenclature of medicine over time, this book examines the limitations and possibilities of creating a mode of "Koreanness" in medicine--and the Korean manifestation of cultural and national identities. Examines The Role Of Locality In Medical Innovations In Korea By Tracing The Origins Of Five Key Medical Terms. Emerging Within Specific Moments From The Fifteenth To The Twentieth Centuries, Each Term Represents Both The Aspirations And Limitations Of Registering The Local In The Existing Configuration Of Korean Medicine.-- Local Botanicals, Or Hyangyak: The Correct Name Of Herb And Self -- Eastern Medicine, Or Tongui: Imagining A Place For Medical Innovation -- Choson Koreans: The Colonial Identification Of The Local -- Lifesaving Water: Managing The Indigenous For Medical Advertisements -- Fire Illness, Or Hwabyong: Narrating Illness In The Vernacular. Soyoung Suh. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Examines the role of "locality" in medical innovations in Korea by tracing the origins of five key medical terms. Emerging within specific moments from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, each term represents both the aspirations and limitations of registering the local in the existing configuration of Korean medicine.-- Provided by publisher By tracing Korean-educated agents’ efforts to articulate the vernacular nomenclature of medicine over time, Soyoung Suh examines the limitations and possibilities of creating a mode of “Koreanness” in medicine—and the Korean manifestation of cultural and national identities.