Chun Chiu Lecture - Shiyung Liu , Academica Sinica, Taiwan
"Medical Practice and Policies in Japan-Ruled Taiwan, 1895–1945"
Thursday, May 8, 2008 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
This lecture will explore the construction of medical knowledge under Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan (1895–1945). The medical establishment in colonial Taiwan and the knowledge it disseminated
became a hybrid that combined German Staatsmedizin with the Japanese modification of modern medicine that took place after the 1910s. Given the centrality of the “politics of medicine” from
the early Meiji era onwards, Japan linked its colonial project to medical authority which, embodied in an empire-wide, integrated system of medical institutions, served as proof of a “civilizing
mission” of modern medicine.
Studies in the field of European colonialism emphasize that medical judgments stigmatized the colonized as backward, unsanitary, and disease-ridden, thus contributing to the construction of
discursive boundaries separating colonizer from colonized. However, the role of medicine in the Japanese colonial empire has not been conclusively defined. Scholars have studied individual cases of
epidemics, anti-infectious disease programs, and medical education, but still lacking is a comprehensive picture of how Japanized Staatsmedizin was applied to medical needs in colonial
Taiwan. Shiyung Liu’s research seeks to describe the localized formation of Japanese colonial medicine in Taiwan, to situate Taiwan’s experience in the international context where medical knowledge
was funneled through the Japanese imperial system, and to analyze factors shaping the blueprint of Japanese colonial medicine. His research links the colonial medicine of Taiwan not only to the
medical modernization of the Japanese Empire, but to the technological capability of modern Western medicine as well. In so doing, Liu’s project explains the complex relationship between merciful
modernization and brutal colonization, and the expansion of global discourse on modern medicine.
Shiyung Liu is assistant research fellow at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica in Taiwan. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000. He specializes in
modern medicine, Japanese colonial medicine, and historical demography. In recent years he has received support from important foundations including the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association (1998),
Japan’s Yonayama Foundation (2003−2004), and the Harvard-Yenching Institute (2006−2007). Liu plans to publish a series of articles and a book on colonial medicine in Taiwan. In addition, he has also
begun his new research project, which is on the transition standards of medical practice and education in Taiwan.
