Detailed Table of Contents
- Editorial
- Howard Chiang: Historicizing the Emergence of Sexual Freedom: The Medical Knowledge of Psychiatry and the Scientific Power of Sexology, 1880-1920.
- Abstract: This paper develops an historical analysis of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century discourse of sexology that accounts for its heterogeneity, attending to the complex interactions and distinctions between medicine and science. Between 1880 and 1920, I argue, the conceptual possibilities for the articulation of a modern notion of sexual freedom emerged from two stages of historical development: first, the psychiatric implantation of sexual psychopathology around the 1880s and 1890s that gave sexuality for the first time in history both a psychological and a pathological character under the name of medicine; and second, the subsequent sexological impulse in the 1900s and 1910s to deploy the existing vocabularies of perverse sexuality in a new system of normalizing and liberalizing scholarly endeavors under the name of science. It was not until this transition from the "psychiatrization" of sex to a more general "scientification" of sex around the turn of the twentieth century did people gradually adopt and participate in the making of a modern notion of sexual freedom that demarcated sexual desire from heterosexual obligations. This new sense of sexual self, positioned in a constant political struggle with its cultural legitimacy and intelligibility, would remain central to the concept of sexual freedom throughout the rest of the century.
- Author's Bio: Howard Chiang is the Founding Editor of the journal Critical Studies in History and currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Program in History of Science at Princeton University. His research interests include the history and historical epistemology of biology, medicine, and the human sciences. He is the recipient of the 2007 John C. Burnham Early Career Award, offered by the Forum for the History of Human Science, and the 2007 James A. Barnes Club Award for World and International History. His recent and forthcoming publications can be found in the Journal of the History of Biology, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Journal of the History of Sexuality, and East Asian Science, Technology and Society.
- Patricia J.F. Rosof: The Quiet Feminism of Dr. Florence Sabin: Helping Women Achieve in Science and Medicine.
- Abstract: This article recounts the quiet feminism of Dr. Florence Sabin (1871-1953), who took pride in women's achievements and did her best to help women in various fields of medicine and the biomedical sciences. She gave advice to women who sought it, and worked to help them get fellowship and research funds, as well as opportunities for post-graduate training. She brought attention when possible both to the pioneers in medicine and women's education as well as to the younger talented researchers. Her goals were modest but real: help the women who entered science receive the best education available; enable them to do research and publish in top journals; get them fellowships; make their accomplishments known to a broader public so that women's achievements in science would be seen as a norm. She did not succeed in all of even these modest goals. The Depression doomed her plans for a women's Hospital which would have given women post-internship training, and few journalists followed up sufficiently on her attempts to bring other scientists to the public eye. Nonetheless she remained optimistic about the improvements in possibilities since her graduate days.
- Author's Bio: Patricia J.F. Rosof, Ph.D., retired from Hunter College High School, where she taught Social Studies, and is now an Adjunct Professor at St. Francis College. She has published in journals on pedagogy and history, and most recently co-authored "Student Preparation Guide for the AP* European History Exam" to accompany the third edition of Hunt et al., The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures since 1340. She serves as a Consultant for the College Board and the Korea Society.
- Hsiao-wen Cheng: Authority or Alternative? Rethinking Gender and the Use of Medical Knowledge in Song China, 960-1279.
- Abstract: This paper seeks a new approach to studying gender in pre-modern China through a contextual study of Song medicine, in order to highlight the unstable aspects of gender history: the alternatives, the resistance, and the maneuvers, in contrast to the fixed institutional/ideological frameworks. I use medical publications, anecdotal stories, and doctors' notes to examine the nature of Song medical books, the use of medical knowledge, and the actual encounters between doctors and patients. I look for traces of doctors' frustration, patients' resistance, and how women participated in the use and the discussion of medical knowledge. As I observe from the materials, first of all, there is not a coherent or systematic gender differentiation/discourse in Song medical books. Song medical books are open and multi-vocal resources that provided patients with more choices. Second, the state-sponsored compilation and publication of medical books, instead of strengthening the authority of the medical profession, actually increased the accessibility of medical knowledge and exposed it to public discussion, in which women also participated. Finally, patients in the Song, including women, instead of listening to the doctor's words passively, appealed to various sources, did research by themselves, made choices among all the alternatives, and constantly challenged the doctor's authority.
- Author's Bio: Hsiao-wen Cheng is currently a PhD student in History at the University of Washington. She received both her B.A. and M.A. from the Department of Chinese Literature, National Taiwan University. She is currently completing her dissertation on representations of the gendered body and women's participation in medical and religious practices in 10th-13th century China.
- Tereasa Maillie: Tears of Blood and Sorrow: Depression and Women in Traditional China
- Abstract: This article examines the connection between women and depression in traditional China. By analyzing poems written by women from the 11th to the 18th centuries, the paper argues that these poems were used to express profound personal loss, sadness and depression. Over a span of eight hundred years, women used similar images and ideas when expressing their depression. As well, their depression was seen by the poets as a part of being a woman. This concept of depression is re-iterated by the medical practices that most physicians relied on curing physical illness, not mental illness. As a result, women were rarely treated for this mental condition.
- Author's Bio: Tereasa Maillie received her Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Her areas of research include Chinese and Mongolian history, the history of medicine and psychiatry, and the history of Canadian Aboriginal clinical experiences. Tereasa will complete her Master's in History in the Spring of 2009 at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. This paper is based on her research for that degree.
- Outlook