9789888876815
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Socializing Medicine
Health Humanities and East Asian Media
An analysis of the use of mass media as a tool to control healthcare.
Socializing Medicine explores the intersections of medicine, health, and East Asian media. Interweaving archival research, audiovisual analyses, and theoretical insights from the emerging field of Health Humanities, the contributors reveal the multifaceted ways in which mass media—including photography, film, television, and live streaming—has been deployed as a tool for controlling medicine and health, privileging those with power and authority since the early twentieth century. Adopting anti-colonial and anti-capitalist perspectives, the contributors in this volume challenge the dominant mediations of health against the backdrop of imperialism, Cold War geopolitical tensions, and neoliberal capitalism. Collectively, they advocate for alternative understandings of medical culture through media productions that envision accessible and equitable healthcare practices.
Socializing Medicine explores the intersections of medicine, health, and East Asian media. Interweaving archival research, audiovisual analyses, and theoretical insights from the emerging field of Health Humanities, the contributors reveal the multifaceted ways in which mass media—including photography, film, television, and live streaming—has been deployed as a tool for controlling medicine and health, privileging those with power and authority since the early twentieth century. Adopting anti-colonial and anti-capitalist perspectives, the contributors in this volume challenge the dominant mediations of health against the backdrop of imperialism, Cold War geopolitical tensions, and neoliberal capitalism. Collectively, they advocate for alternative understandings of medical culture through media productions that envision accessible and equitable healthcare practices.
272 pages | 19 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2025
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
History: Asian History
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments viii
List of Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Pao-chen Tang, Yuqian Yan, and Ling Zhang
Section I: Medical and Media Imperialism
1. Contagious Disease and Visual Media in Colonial Korea 31
Jeehey Kim
2. Ink on the Silver Screen: Medical Culture and Poetic Voices in Spring
on the Small Island 54
Kathryn M. Tanaka
3. Deformed Bodies in Nuclear Family Rhetoric: The Hiroshima Maidens
Project in the Early Cold War 79
Yuki Obayashi
Section II: Socialist Medicine in Revolution
4. A Battle for Life: Bacteriophage Therapy and Socialist Medicine in the
Great Leap Forward 97
Lu Liu
5. From Curing to Revolutionizing: The Politics of Disability in Chinese
Socialist Medicine and Media 114
Chao Wang and Yuqian Yan
6. The Mass Biopolitics of Medicine in Socialist Chinese Films 131
Ban Wang
Contents
vi Contents
Section III: Precarious Ecology and the Body
7. Ecological Crisis and Pathologies of Modernity in the South Korean Films
Crowded and Zero Woman 151
Max Balhorn
8. Beyond Locality: Ke Chin-yuan’s Environmentalist Documentary and
Cultural Nativism 169
Pao-chen Tang
Section IV: Digital Embodiment in Neoliberal Capitalism
9. Live Streaming and Present.Perfect.: Digital Able-Bodiedness, Liveness,
and Disabilities 191
Chang-Min Yu
10. “The Most Calming Thing You Have Done on the Internet”: Healing
Vlogs and the Aesthetics of Li Ziqi 209
Lilian Kong
Bibliography 227
Index 254
Acknowledgments viii
List of Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Pao-chen Tang, Yuqian Yan, and Ling Zhang
Section I: Medical and Media Imperialism
1. Contagious Disease and Visual Media in Colonial Korea 31
Jeehey Kim
2. Ink on the Silver Screen: Medical Culture and Poetic Voices in Spring
on the Small Island 54
Kathryn M. Tanaka
3. Deformed Bodies in Nuclear Family Rhetoric: The Hiroshima Maidens
Project in the Early Cold War 79
Yuki Obayashi
Section II: Socialist Medicine in Revolution
4. A Battle for Life: Bacteriophage Therapy and Socialist Medicine in the
Great Leap Forward 97
Lu Liu
5. From Curing to Revolutionizing: The Politics of Disability in Chinese
Socialist Medicine and Media 114
Chao Wang and Yuqian Yan
6. The Mass Biopolitics of Medicine in Socialist Chinese Films 131
Ban Wang
Contents
vi Contents
Section III: Precarious Ecology and the Body
7. Ecological Crisis and Pathologies of Modernity in the South Korean Films
Crowded and Zero Woman 151
Max Balhorn
8. Beyond Locality: Ke Chin-yuan’s Environmentalist Documentary and
Cultural Nativism 169
Pao-chen Tang
Section IV: Digital Embodiment in Neoliberal Capitalism
9. Live Streaming and Present.Perfect.: Digital Able-Bodiedness, Liveness,
and Disabilities 191
Chang-Min Yu
10. “The Most Calming Thing You Have Done on the Internet”: Healing
Vlogs and the Aesthetics of Li Ziqi 209
Lilian Kong
Bibliography 227
Index 254