Research Interests

History of East Asian medicine; global Chinese medicine; STS; graphic genre; medical metaphors; anatomical representation; histories of neuroscience; postcolonial science studies; race and racism in health care access

Bio

I am a historian of the body, focusing on medicine and health in global East Asia. My research engages with topics related to anatomical representation, theory and practice in Asian medicine, histories of acupuncture-moxabustion in neuroscience, and the relationship between medical education and race and racism in health care access. I received my Ph.D. in History, Anthropology, and Science Technology and Society Studies from MIT in 2016 and served as a Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University before joining the medical humanities program and department of history faculty at Rice University.

My first book manuscript, Body Maps: Improvising Meridians and Nerves in Global Chinese Medicine (under review at Johns Hopkins University Press), explores a visual history of mapping meridians onto peripheral nerves from the early modern period to the twentieth century. It offers a long global history of medicine through hand-drawn body maps and spans from the tenth to the twentieth centuries to re-think cultures of objectivity beyond normative geographies of science and medicine. The book contributes to ongoing debates between practitioners and historians on the metaphorical and imaginary components of Chinese medicine by drawing on insights from science studies, critical cartography, and medical anthropology. My second project centers on a transnational history of numbness, which situates numbness, or ma 麻, in categories of flavor and food before tracking its transformation into a pathological side effect.

In my role as Associate Director of Research at The Center for Black Brown Queer Studies, I direct the Medicine Race Democracy Lab, which trains students in exploring community health centers beyond large hospital systems and is home to the podcast series metastasis and Point Break. I am the co-founder and co-host of the exhibition Metaphors of the Mind with Dr. Alex Wragge Morley, I serve as the editor of eikon in positionspolitics.org, and I am the East Asian book reviews editor for Asian Medicine. My film and media work has led to collaborations with medical practitioners in Shanghai, Mumbai, São Paulo, New York, Boston, and Houston.

I teach courses related to the history of drugs, history of sensation, public health in East Asia, and graduate methods seminars. Students interested in histories of Asian medicine are welcome to contact me regarding undergraduate and graduate training.

CV: Lan_Li_CV 

Publications

Selected Articles

Li, L. “Numbing Aesthetics: Taste and Tempers of Peppercorn / Mountain Pepper / Sanshō.” Gastronomica. 20.4: 64-74.

Li, L. “Invisible Bodies: Lu Gwei-djen & the Specter of Translation.” Asian Medicine 13 (1–2): 33-68.

Li, L. “The Edge of Expertise: Representing Barefoot Doctors in Cultural Revolution China.” Endeavour 39, no. 3–4 (September 2015): 160–67.

Selected Chapters

Li, L. “Emotional Spleens: Death by Overthinking in Classical Chinese Texts.” In The Routledge History of Emotions in the Modern World. Katie Barclay and Peter Stearns (eds).

Li, L. “Escaping Immortality: Science, Civilization, and Lu Gwei-djen (1904-1991).” In (In)visible Labour: Knowledge Production in Twentieth Century Science. Jenny Bangham, Xan Chacko, Judith Kaplan (eds). (forthcoming)

Li, L. “Chinese Medical Illustrations and Communist Materialism (1950-1966).” In Making Sense of Medicine: Materiality and the Reproduction of Medical Knowledge. John Nott and Anna Harris (eds). (forthcoming)

Li, L. “Sunk from Sight: Mapping the Fluid Body.” In Fluid Matter(s): Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, edited by Natalie Köhle and Shigehisa Kuriyama. Asian Studies Monograph Series 14. Canberra, ANU Press, 2020. doi.org/10.22459/FM.2020

Li, L. “Medical Poetics: Global Health Humanities on Film and the Case of 心.” In The Routledge Companion to Health Humanities, eds P. Crawford, B. Brown, & A. Charise, 163–72. 2020.

Li, L. “Pinpricks: Needling, Numbness, and Temporalities of Pain.” In Imagining the Brain: Episodes in the History of Brain Research, 1st ed., 243: 205–29. Academic Press, 2018.

Selected Media

Podcasts

Point Break. Creator, Director (2022-)

Bermac Sessions. Creator, Director (2022-)

meta-stasis podcast. Creator, Director (2021-)

Exhibitions

re-building: methods in material culture. Editor (2020)

PULSES | PROCESSING. Director (2020-2021)

Metaphors of the Mind. Co-Creator, Executive Producer (2017-2021)

Filmography

Acupuntura (2021) Associação de Terapias Tradicionais: Acupuntura, São Paulo. Director.

Fear/Trauma. (2020) Director, Cinematographer. https://tinyurl.com/y4opvrdc

Weaving Knowledge: Banraijaisook. (2019) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/310724422

Weaving Knowledge: Thinking, Feeling, and Making. (2019) Director, Cinematographer.  vimeo.com/310888539

Weaving Knowledge: Looms of Banraijaisook. (2019) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/310728471

Inside the MitoLab. (2019) Director, Cinematographer. youtu.be/yuedBstEJCk

Metaphors of the Mind. (2019) Creator, Co-host. Interdisciplinary series on global representations of cognition, emotion, and mental states. mindmetaphors.com

Bird Talk. (2019) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/305859755

Thinking Organs. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/294418565

Alchemical Metaphors of Cognition. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/294418469

Sounding Pain in Japanese. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/294418521

Mind Reading. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/308147600

States of Mind. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/294418483

Cell Signals. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. vimeo.com/294418546

Merkel Cells Activate Sensory Neural Pathways through Adrenergic Synapses. (2018) Neuron. Director, Cinematographer. bit.ly/2WR1L92

Meditation and Healing at the Hospital and at Soji Zen Center. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. The Jivaka Project: Buddhist Health and Healing. jivaka.net/philly-meditation

Annual Medicine Buddha Ceremony at Minh Dang Quang. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. The Jivaka Project: Buddhist Health and Healing. jivaka.net/philly-healing-rituals

Songkran Festival at Wat Mongkoltepmunee. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. The Jivaka Project: Buddhist Health and Healing. jivaka.net/philly-food-health

Traditional Medicine and Spiritual Development at Won Institute. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. The Jivaka Project: Buddhist Health and Healing. jivaka.net/philly-traditional-medicine

Healing Community Trauma at Seabrook Temple. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. The Jivaka Project: Buddhist Health and Healing. jivaka.net/philly-social-dimensions

Buddhist Healthcare in Philadelphia. (2018) Director, Cinematographer. The Jivaka Project: Buddhist Health and Healing. jivaka.net/philly-mainstream-healthcare

Urban Temples. (2018) Director, Editor. Short film of urban temples in Philadelphia. bit.ly/2ImywPN

Making and Knowing. (2017) Assistant Director, Editor.  A tour of the Making and Knowing Lab with Professor Pamela Smith at Columbia University. bit.ly/2GzCmEJ

Weaving (2017) Assistant Director, Editor. Featuring the intersection of craft and cognition through a workshop-conference on weaving at Columbia University, titled, “Weaving: Cognition, Technology, and Culture.”  bit.ly/2q2F9z2

Global Histories of Music Theory (2017) Director, Editor, Producer. Exploring the material and methodological possibilities of examining music practice and theory.  bit.ly/2Ip0Kt1

Politically, Correct: Determining Scientific Truth and Legitimacy (2017), Director, Editor, Producer. Panel trailer on histories of knowledge production in India, Tibet, Japan, and China for the International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine.  bit.ly/2GxXkDK

On Aging: Liao Jialun b. 1928 (2017) Director, Editor. Beijing, China.  lan-a-li.com/on-aging

The Lung, The Elixir, and the Lancet: The Personal Paradox of Lu Gwei-djen (2013), Director, Editor, Writer. Screened at the Digital Short Films in the History of Medicine, American Association for the History of Medicine 87th Annual Meeting, University of Chicago Medicine. May 2014.  bit.ly/2uM6hYV

Osher (2013), Director, Videographer, Editor, Writer. Produced with Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  bit.ly/2Jiof8E

The Vital Other: Integrative Medicine and India (2012), Director, Videographer, Editor, Writer.  Produced with the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine, India.  Official selection for the Salem Film Festival Mass Reality Check.  bit.ly/2uJjIc6

Rocks, Bands, Logic (2012), Director, Videographer, Editor, Writer.  Winner of the Comparative Media Studies, Media Spectacle Graduate Documentary Award, 2012.  bit.ly/2EemKEt

Living Beyond Landscapes (2010), Director, Videographer, Editor. Grand Prize Winner, ExchangesConnect, United States State Department.  bit.ly/2H6P9Q5

Research Lab

Medicine, Race, Democracy Lab. Director

Teaching

ME.150.730: Methods in the History of Medicine

AS.001.190: FYS: Poisons! A History