RCCHC "Science, Technology, Society and Culture" Talk Series - A Rose is a Rose by Any Other Name: Digital Tools for Solving Polynymy in the History of Chinese Medicine and Beyond
RCCHC
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Date
31 Mar 2026
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Organiser
Research Centre for Chinese History and Culture, Department of Chinese History and Culture
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Time
16:30 - 18:00
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Venue
Online via Zoom
Speaker
Prof. Michael Stanley-Baker
Summary
Chinese medicine has a long tradition of thinking about the relationship between the places where drugs originate and this relationship to their efficacy, but it is troubled by the varied naming culture that emerges in multiple communities. New digital tools allow us to trace long chains of connections—from ancient Chinese documents and historical geography, through modern botany and biochemistry, as well as across different regional languages. These, in turn, invite new applications in conservation and medical agriculture, and the discovery of novel uses for these ancient drugs in their new environs. This paper introduces tools and solutions that can interconnect the early history of Chinese medicine, with its complex present and technological future.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Michael Stanley-Baker
Associate Professor
History and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine
Nanyang Technological University Singapore
Michael Stanley-Baker is an Associate Professor in History and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University Singapore. An historian of Chinese Medicine and Religion, he also has a clinical degree in Chinese medicine. He uses traditional philology and modern Digital Humanities approaches to research the intersections of Chinese medicine with different knowledge cultures, whether religion, botany, local communities, or modern bioinformatics. His editorial projects include: - the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine, -Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine (Manchester University Press) -the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine (Palgrave) among others. His monograph, Routledge Handbook of Chinese Medicine, situates practices within technical communities to sketch out the dynamics of medico-religious practice in the Six Dynasties period (220-589). His Digital Humanities project, Polyglotasianmedicine.com, includes digital maps of early Chinese pharmacopoeii, full-text historical archives and links traditional medicine with modern science. He serves as President of the International Association for the Study of Asian Medicine (IASTAM), and as the co-chair of the Healing Arts at the MIT Centre for Comparative Global Humanities. Most recently he consulted for the WHO at the Second Global Summit on Traditional Medicine on historical representation and on data management and governance.
