Edited Volume by Natalie Köhle
eds. Natalie Köhle and Shigehisa Kuriyama, Canberra, ANU Press, 2020
View the full collection (open access) here: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/asian-s... more View the full collection (open access) here: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/asian-studies/fluid-matters
Once upon a time, doctors across Eurasia imagined human beings in ways that strike us today as profoundly strange and alien. For over 2,000 years, they worried anxiously about fluids to which our modern doctors spare hardly a thought (such as sweat, phlegm and qi) and they obsessed over details (such as whether a person’s pores were open or closed) whose meaning and vital importance have now largely faded from memory. Through a series of case studies from Europe, India, China, Mongolia and Japan, Fluid Matter(s) suggests ways to make sense of this strange and dimly remembered past, and urges us to reflect anew on the significance of fluids and flows in the history of medicine.
The book also urges us, more generally, to reimagine the way in which we narrate history. The articles here are essays, in the original French sense. They are exploratory trials, experiments to illustrate some of the ways in which digital texts can go beyond the affordances of print. They test visual effects that are inconceivable on a paper page, but that are easily conjured on an electronic screen. Fluid Matter(s) is the first work of its kind: a study that narrates the body’s past in a form that embodies new futures for narrative.
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Articles by Natalie Köhle
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 97, no. 2 (Summer 2023), 197–226.
https://muse.jhu... more Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 97, no. 2 (Summer 2023), 197–226.
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/905729
Phlegm figures as a major cause and consequence of disease in late imperial Chinese medicine. Curiously, however, when we go back to the classics, the very notion of phlegm is entirely absent. The rise of phlegm is one of the fundamental transformations in the history of Chinese medicine. This article suggests that the little-known Yuan dynasty treatise On the Art of Nourishing Life (1338), which is notable for extending Chinese phlegm theory in unprecedented ways, was pivotal for this transformation. Noting a strong resemblance of the innovations of this treatise with Galenic medical theories, this article argues that they were inspired by an encounter with the Galenic medical tradition. It submits that these innovations radically altered pre-existing Chinese understandings of the body’s materiality and the nature of disease. And it calls for closer attention to the transcultural movements of theories and concepts in the historiography of Chinese and global medicine.
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Qi -- Zeitschrift für Chinesische Medizin, 2021
https://verlag-systemische-medizin.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/04-2021_05_Schwerpunkt_NKoehle_G... more https://verlag-systemische-medizin.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/04-2021_05_Schwerpunkt_NKoehle_Geist-Schweiss-und-Qi.pdf
Dieser Aufsatz ist eine Übersetzung von "Spirit, Sweat and Qi", meinem Essay in der experimentellen online Kollektion Fluid Matter(s): Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, welche ich zusammen mit Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama in 2020 editiert habe. Fluid Matter(s) ist ein Versuch, die Möglichkeiten des interaktiven, bild-basierten Storytelling zum fachübergreifenden Kommunizieren wissenschaftlicher Inhalte zu nutzen. Der schriftliche Text und die statischen Bilder, die hier im Druck wiedergegeben werden können, sind nur ein Bruchteil des Gesamtinhalts den "Geist, Schweiß und Qi" vermitteln möchte. Somit ist diese Übersetzung zum Mitlesen gedacht-in Kombination mit den gesamten, und interaktiven Bildinhalten der ursprünglichen Online-Version "Spirit, Sweat and Qi" (https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n7034/html/11-spirit-sweatand-qi/index.html). Als eine Open Access Publication der ANU Press, ist Fluid Matter(s) frei und kostenlos zugänglich.
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Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2016
This article investigates the origin and the earliest, formative period of one of the major conce... more This article investigates the origin and the earliest, formative period of one of the major concepts in post-classical Chinese medicine, the concept of phlegm, tan 痰. It is the first study that examines both Chinese- and Sanskrit-language sources in seeking to answer the question whether the development of the concept of phlegm in Chinese medicine is owed to Indic influences. Following traditional Chinese scholarship, it argues that the initial emergence of the substance tan 痰, which later was to become “phlegm,” should be understood as an indigenous development from the fluid yin 飲. The subsequent formation and development of the concept of phlegm in Chinese medicine, however, was influenced by Ayurveda. The influence hinges on the coincidence of Indic and Chinese intuitions about
digestion. Previous scholarship on early Chinese Buddhist translations of Indic terms for phlegm and the tridoṣa has either claimed that variations in the terminology betrayed the Chinese translators’ poor understanding of Ayurvedic concepts or that the translators creatively manipulated the terminology with a view to the cultural background of their intended audiences. By contrast, this article argues that the early terminology the Chinese translators crafted was highly accurate and faithful to their Indic source texts. It shows, by going back to the Indic classics, that the variations in Chinese terminology reflect an ancient and long-forgotten temporal shift in the perception of humors in India itself.
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Late Imperial China, 2008
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Reference by Natalie Köhle
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, Oxford University Press, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.749
The history of Buddhism in China is deepl... more https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.749
The history of Buddhism in China is deeply connected with healing. Some of the scriptures that were translated into Chinese discuss Indic conceptions of the body as an amalgamation of elements, and causes of illness in the tridoṣa, that is pathogenic body fluids and internal winds. Others discuss materia medica, and monastic rules on healing and hygiene in the monastery. Yet others set forth the ritual worship of the Medicine Buddha (Skt. Bhaiṣajyaguru; Ch. Yaoshi fo 藥師佛), the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin pusa 觀音菩 薩), and other deities that promise healing. Apart from the translated scriptures, there is a huge body of indigenous works that synthesized the wealth of information on Indic healing which arrived in China between the 2nd and 10th centuries ce. Foremost among those are Yijing's 義淨 (635-713) account of Indian monastic practices, Daoxuan's 道宣 (596-667) vinaya commentary, and Daoshi's 道世 (?-683) encyclopedia chapter on illness. Chinese compositions, such as Zhiyi's 智顗 (538-597) treatises on meditation, and Huizhao's 慧皎 (497-554) hagiographies bear witness to the hybridity to which the reception of Indic ideas in China gave rise. With the widening reach of Buddhism into every layer of Chinese society during the Sui and Tang dynasties, eminent Chinese physicians, such as Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (452-536), Chao Yuanfang 巢元方 (550-630), Wang Tao 王焘(670-755), and Sun Simiao 孫 思邈 (581-682) also began to incorporate Buddhist ideas into their medical treatises. Chinese Buddhist monasteries introduced hospital services to China, and certain lineages of monks continued to provide medical care to the laity in late imperial China. Their healing was based on Chinese medical theories, however, and there is no evidence that they persisted in applying Indic medical ideas.
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Book Chapters by Natalie Köhle
“Zihui zhu se: Gailun he zhongyi tanshi 滓秽诸色: 盖伦和中医痰史”, in The Classical Oriental Medicine Across... more “Zihui zhu se: Gailun he zhongyi tanshi 滓秽诸色: 盖伦和中医痰史”, in The Classical Oriental Medicine Across the Border: Dialogue and Interaction 跨越边际的古代东方医学, ed. Chen Ming 陳明, (Shanghai: Zhongxi shuju, 2024), 464–491.
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Fluid Matter(s) : Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, eds. Natalie Köhle and Shigehisa Kuriyama, Canberra: ANU Press, 2020
Please access the full chapter here (open access): https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press... more Please access the full chapter here (open access): https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n7034/html/02-introduction/index.html
Once upon a time, doctors across Eurasia imagined human beings in ways that strike us today as profoundly strange and alien. For over 2,000 years, they worried anxiously about fluids to which our modern doctors spare hardly a thought (such as sweat, phlegm and qi) and they obsessed over details (such as whether a person’s pores were open or closed) whose meaning and vital importance have now largely faded from memory. Through a series of case studies from Europe, India, China, Mongolia and Japan, Fluid Matter(s) suggests ways to make sense of this strange and dimly remembered past, and urges us to reflect anew on the significance of fluids and flows in the history of medicine.
The book also urges us, more generally, to reimagine the way in which we narrate history. The articles here are essays, in the original French sense. They are exploratory trials, experiments to illustrate some of the ways in which digital texts can go beyond the affordances of print. They test visual effects that are inconceivable on a paper page, but that are easily conjured on an electronic screen. Fluid Matter(s) is the first work of its kind: a study that narrates the body’s past in a form that embodies new futures for narrative.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Fluid Matter(s) : Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, eds. Natalie Köhle and Shigehisa Kuriyama, Canberra: ANU Press, 2020
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Power: China Story Yearbook 2018, eds. Jane Golley, Paul Farrelly, Linda Jaivin, and Sharon Stra... more Power: China Story Yearbook 2018, eds. Jane Golley, Paul Farrelly, Linda Jaivin, and Sharon Strange (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019).
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Prosperity : China Story Yearbook 2017, eds. Jane Golley and Linda Jaivin (Canberra: ANU Press, 2... more Prosperity : China Story Yearbook 2017, eds. Jane Golley and Linda Jaivin (Canberra: ANU Press, 2018).
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Control: China Story Yearbook 2016, eds. Jane Golley, Linda Jaivin, and Luigi Tomba (Canberra: AN... more Control: China Story Yearbook 2016, eds. Jane Golley, Linda Jaivin, and Luigi Tomba (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017).
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Online Exhibition by Natalie Köhle
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Book Reviews by Natalie Köhle
Journal of Chinese Religions 49.1, 2021
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Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 2011
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Film by Natalie Köhle
3 min video on the German photographer Hedda Hammer's diary and photographs of a 1934 trip to Jehol.
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Uploads
Edited Volume by Natalie Köhle
Once upon a time, doctors across Eurasia imagined human beings in ways that strike us today as profoundly strange and alien. For over 2,000 years, they worried anxiously about fluids to which our modern doctors spare hardly a thought (such as sweat, phlegm and qi) and they obsessed over details (such as whether a person’s pores were open or closed) whose meaning and vital importance have now largely faded from memory. Through a series of case studies from Europe, India, China, Mongolia and Japan, Fluid Matter(s) suggests ways to make sense of this strange and dimly remembered past, and urges us to reflect anew on the significance of fluids and flows in the history of medicine.
The book also urges us, more generally, to reimagine the way in which we narrate history. The articles here are essays, in the original French sense. They are exploratory trials, experiments to illustrate some of the ways in which digital texts can go beyond the affordances of print. They test visual effects that are inconceivable on a paper page, but that are easily conjured on an electronic screen. Fluid Matter(s) is the first work of its kind: a study that narrates the body’s past in a form that embodies new futures for narrative.
Articles by Natalie Köhle
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/905729
Phlegm figures as a major cause and consequence of disease in late imperial Chinese medicine. Curiously, however, when we go back to the classics, the very notion of phlegm is entirely absent. The rise of phlegm is one of the fundamental transformations in the history of Chinese medicine. This article suggests that the little-known Yuan dynasty treatise On the Art of Nourishing Life (1338), which is notable for extending Chinese phlegm theory in unprecedented ways, was pivotal for this transformation. Noting a strong resemblance of the innovations of this treatise with Galenic medical theories, this article argues that they were inspired by an encounter with the Galenic medical tradition. It submits that these innovations radically altered pre-existing Chinese understandings of the body’s materiality and the nature of disease. And it calls for closer attention to the transcultural movements of theories and concepts in the historiography of Chinese and global medicine.
Dieser Aufsatz ist eine Übersetzung von "Spirit, Sweat and Qi", meinem Essay in der experimentellen online Kollektion Fluid Matter(s): Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, welche ich zusammen mit Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama in 2020 editiert habe. Fluid Matter(s) ist ein Versuch, die Möglichkeiten des interaktiven, bild-basierten Storytelling zum fachübergreifenden Kommunizieren wissenschaftlicher Inhalte zu nutzen. Der schriftliche Text und die statischen Bilder, die hier im Druck wiedergegeben werden können, sind nur ein Bruchteil des Gesamtinhalts den "Geist, Schweiß und Qi" vermitteln möchte. Somit ist diese Übersetzung zum Mitlesen gedacht-in Kombination mit den gesamten, und interaktiven Bildinhalten der ursprünglichen Online-Version "Spirit, Sweat and Qi" (https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n7034/html/11-spirit-sweatand-qi/index.html). Als eine Open Access Publication der ANU Press, ist Fluid Matter(s) frei und kostenlos zugänglich.
digestion. Previous scholarship on early Chinese Buddhist translations of Indic terms for phlegm and the tridoṣa has either claimed that variations in the terminology betrayed the Chinese translators’ poor understanding of Ayurvedic concepts or that the translators creatively manipulated the terminology with a view to the cultural background of their intended audiences. By contrast, this article argues that the early terminology the Chinese translators crafted was highly accurate and faithful to their Indic source texts. It shows, by going back to the Indic classics, that the variations in Chinese terminology reflect an ancient and long-forgotten temporal shift in the perception of humors in India itself.
Reference by Natalie Köhle
The history of Buddhism in China is deeply connected with healing. Some of the scriptures that were translated into Chinese discuss Indic conceptions of the body as an amalgamation of elements, and causes of illness in the tridoṣa, that is pathogenic body fluids and internal winds. Others discuss materia medica, and monastic rules on healing and hygiene in the monastery. Yet others set forth the ritual worship of the Medicine Buddha (Skt. Bhaiṣajyaguru; Ch. Yaoshi fo 藥師佛), the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin pusa 觀音菩 薩), and other deities that promise healing. Apart from the translated scriptures, there is a huge body of indigenous works that synthesized the wealth of information on Indic healing which arrived in China between the 2nd and 10th centuries ce. Foremost among those are Yijing's 義淨 (635-713) account of Indian monastic practices, Daoxuan's 道宣 (596-667) vinaya commentary, and Daoshi's 道世 (?-683) encyclopedia chapter on illness. Chinese compositions, such as Zhiyi's 智顗 (538-597) treatises on meditation, and Huizhao's 慧皎 (497-554) hagiographies bear witness to the hybridity to which the reception of Indic ideas in China gave rise. With the widening reach of Buddhism into every layer of Chinese society during the Sui and Tang dynasties, eminent Chinese physicians, such as Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (452-536), Chao Yuanfang 巢元方 (550-630), Wang Tao 王焘(670-755), and Sun Simiao 孫 思邈 (581-682) also began to incorporate Buddhist ideas into their medical treatises. Chinese Buddhist monasteries introduced hospital services to China, and certain lineages of monks continued to provide medical care to the laity in late imperial China. Their healing was based on Chinese medical theories, however, and there is no evidence that they persisted in applying Indic medical ideas.
Book Chapters by Natalie Köhle
Once upon a time, doctors across Eurasia imagined human beings in ways that strike us today as profoundly strange and alien. For over 2,000 years, they worried anxiously about fluids to which our modern doctors spare hardly a thought (such as sweat, phlegm and qi) and they obsessed over details (such as whether a person’s pores were open or closed) whose meaning and vital importance have now largely faded from memory. Through a series of case studies from Europe, India, China, Mongolia and Japan, Fluid Matter(s) suggests ways to make sense of this strange and dimly remembered past, and urges us to reflect anew on the significance of fluids and flows in the history of medicine.
The book also urges us, more generally, to reimagine the way in which we narrate history. The articles here are essays, in the original French sense. They are exploratory trials, experiments to illustrate some of the ways in which digital texts can go beyond the affordances of print. They test visual effects that are inconceivable on a paper page, but that are easily conjured on an electronic screen. Fluid Matter(s) is the first work of its kind: a study that narrates the body’s past in a form that embodies new futures for narrative.
Online Exhibition by Natalie Köhle
Book Reviews by Natalie Köhle
Film by Natalie Köhle
Once upon a time, doctors across Eurasia imagined human beings in ways that strike us today as profoundly strange and alien. For over 2,000 years, they worried anxiously about fluids to which our modern doctors spare hardly a thought (such as sweat, phlegm and qi) and they obsessed over details (such as whether a person’s pores were open or closed) whose meaning and vital importance have now largely faded from memory. Through a series of case studies from Europe, India, China, Mongolia and Japan, Fluid Matter(s) suggests ways to make sense of this strange and dimly remembered past, and urges us to reflect anew on the significance of fluids and flows in the history of medicine.
The book also urges us, more generally, to reimagine the way in which we narrate history. The articles here are essays, in the original French sense. They are exploratory trials, experiments to illustrate some of the ways in which digital texts can go beyond the affordances of print. They test visual effects that are inconceivable on a paper page, but that are easily conjured on an electronic screen. Fluid Matter(s) is the first work of its kind: a study that narrates the body’s past in a form that embodies new futures for narrative.
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/905729
Phlegm figures as a major cause and consequence of disease in late imperial Chinese medicine. Curiously, however, when we go back to the classics, the very notion of phlegm is entirely absent. The rise of phlegm is one of the fundamental transformations in the history of Chinese medicine. This article suggests that the little-known Yuan dynasty treatise On the Art of Nourishing Life (1338), which is notable for extending Chinese phlegm theory in unprecedented ways, was pivotal for this transformation. Noting a strong resemblance of the innovations of this treatise with Galenic medical theories, this article argues that they were inspired by an encounter with the Galenic medical tradition. It submits that these innovations radically altered pre-existing Chinese understandings of the body’s materiality and the nature of disease. And it calls for closer attention to the transcultural movements of theories and concepts in the historiography of Chinese and global medicine.
Dieser Aufsatz ist eine Übersetzung von "Spirit, Sweat and Qi", meinem Essay in der experimentellen online Kollektion Fluid Matter(s): Flow and Transformation in the History of the Body, welche ich zusammen mit Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama in 2020 editiert habe. Fluid Matter(s) ist ein Versuch, die Möglichkeiten des interaktiven, bild-basierten Storytelling zum fachübergreifenden Kommunizieren wissenschaftlicher Inhalte zu nutzen. Der schriftliche Text und die statischen Bilder, die hier im Druck wiedergegeben werden können, sind nur ein Bruchteil des Gesamtinhalts den "Geist, Schweiß und Qi" vermitteln möchte. Somit ist diese Übersetzung zum Mitlesen gedacht-in Kombination mit den gesamten, und interaktiven Bildinhalten der ursprünglichen Online-Version "Spirit, Sweat and Qi" (https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n7034/html/11-spirit-sweatand-qi/index.html). Als eine Open Access Publication der ANU Press, ist Fluid Matter(s) frei und kostenlos zugänglich.
digestion. Previous scholarship on early Chinese Buddhist translations of Indic terms for phlegm and the tridoṣa has either claimed that variations in the terminology betrayed the Chinese translators’ poor understanding of Ayurvedic concepts or that the translators creatively manipulated the terminology with a view to the cultural background of their intended audiences. By contrast, this article argues that the early terminology the Chinese translators crafted was highly accurate and faithful to their Indic source texts. It shows, by going back to the Indic classics, that the variations in Chinese terminology reflect an ancient and long-forgotten temporal shift in the perception of humors in India itself.
The history of Buddhism in China is deeply connected with healing. Some of the scriptures that were translated into Chinese discuss Indic conceptions of the body as an amalgamation of elements, and causes of illness in the tridoṣa, that is pathogenic body fluids and internal winds. Others discuss materia medica, and monastic rules on healing and hygiene in the monastery. Yet others set forth the ritual worship of the Medicine Buddha (Skt. Bhaiṣajyaguru; Ch. Yaoshi fo 藥師佛), the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin pusa 觀音菩 薩), and other deities that promise healing. Apart from the translated scriptures, there is a huge body of indigenous works that synthesized the wealth of information on Indic healing which arrived in China between the 2nd and 10th centuries ce. Foremost among those are Yijing's 義淨 (635-713) account of Indian monastic practices, Daoxuan's 道宣 (596-667) vinaya commentary, and Daoshi's 道世 (?-683) encyclopedia chapter on illness. Chinese compositions, such as Zhiyi's 智顗 (538-597) treatises on meditation, and Huizhao's 慧皎 (497-554) hagiographies bear witness to the hybridity to which the reception of Indic ideas in China gave rise. With the widening reach of Buddhism into every layer of Chinese society during the Sui and Tang dynasties, eminent Chinese physicians, such as Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (452-536), Chao Yuanfang 巢元方 (550-630), Wang Tao 王焘(670-755), and Sun Simiao 孫 思邈 (581-682) also began to incorporate Buddhist ideas into their medical treatises. Chinese Buddhist monasteries introduced hospital services to China, and certain lineages of monks continued to provide medical care to the laity in late imperial China. Their healing was based on Chinese medical theories, however, and there is no evidence that they persisted in applying Indic medical ideas.
Once upon a time, doctors across Eurasia imagined human beings in ways that strike us today as profoundly strange and alien. For over 2,000 years, they worried anxiously about fluids to which our modern doctors spare hardly a thought (such as sweat, phlegm and qi) and they obsessed over details (such as whether a person’s pores were open or closed) whose meaning and vital importance have now largely faded from memory. Through a series of case studies from Europe, India, China, Mongolia and Japan, Fluid Matter(s) suggests ways to make sense of this strange and dimly remembered past, and urges us to reflect anew on the significance of fluids and flows in the history of medicine.
The book also urges us, more generally, to reimagine the way in which we narrate history. The articles here are essays, in the original French sense. They are exploratory trials, experiments to illustrate some of the ways in which digital texts can go beyond the affordances of print. They test visual effects that are inconceivable on a paper page, but that are easily conjured on an electronic screen. Fluid Matter(s) is the first work of its kind: a study that narrates the body’s past in a form that embodies new futures for narrative.