The Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh will present Michael SY Liu and his colloquium "International Health in East Asia" on March 20.
East Asia is an important historical case for international health between the 1920s and the 1960s. Prior to WWII, various organizations like The Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine (FEATM, 1910-1938), The League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO, 1921/24-39), and International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation (1913-51) all tried to dominate the arena. The competition ended in the second-half of the 1940s when new forms of medical aid appeared and the World Health Organization (WHO) was created in 1948. The expansion of state-governed international institutions alongside America’s emergence as a global superpower transformed the state-foundation relationship in profound ways. Professor Liu’s research attempts to demonstrate the changing infrastructures of international health in East Asia during this period, and reveals the possible linkage of U.S. medical aid in post-war East Asia and former activities of colonial medicine in the region. He hopes to provoke a discussion about the nature of American medicine in Cold War East Asia, what constitutes an international relationship in medicine, and whether to consider transnational medical projects in the post-WWII period as a Cold War version of colonial medicine.The talk begins at 4:00 pm in 4217 Posvar Hall (map) and is free and open to the public.