College of Social Studies
The College of Social Studies (CSS) is a rigorous, multidisciplinary major focusing on History, Government, Political and Social Theory, and Economics. Founded in 1959, the CSS is reading and writing intensive, encouraging intellectual independence with weekly essays, small group tutorials, and a vibrant intellectual environment.
The CSS Office, Lounge, and Library are now located on the third floor of the newly renovated Frank Center for Public Affairs at 238 Church Street.
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On Monday, October 28, we welcome Liya Xie, who will give the talk:Eastern Elixir, Folk Wisdom, or Charlatanism?
The Politics of Tibetan Medicine in Late Imperial St. Petersburg, 1890s-1210s
4:30 PM ~ Frank Center Room 001
Sponsored by The Center for East Asian Studies, The College of Social Studies, CSS, The History Department, The Religion Department, and Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies.
Liya Xie is a Ph.D. candidate in Russian and Eurasian history at Princeton University. She received her B.A. with University Honors from Washington University in St. Louis and her M.A. from Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg.
Click here to see more information on Liya Xie and this eventLiya Xie is a Ph.D. candidate in Russian and Eurasian history at Princeton University. She received her B.A. with University Honors from Washington University in St. Louis and her M.A. from Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg. Her dissertation is a cultural history of Eastern spirituality and healing practices in late imperial Russia (1880-1920). Her research is motivated by a broader interest in fin-de-siècle entanglements between Eastern and Western knowledge systems, and how these cross-cultural exchanges in the age of high imperialism shaped our understanding of “modernity,” especially the relationship between philosophy, religion, and medicine.
Talk Details
Late imperial Russian society was preoccupied with health and healing. Russian doctors heatedly debated in medical journals the scientific value and efficacy of popular types of folk treatments. As “scientific medicine” was gradually gaining ground in the second half of the 19th century, the struggle against charlatanism (znakharstvo) and traditional healing methods intensified among reform-minded Russian liberals. Tibetan medicine was one of the elephants in the room.
This talk recounts the popular presence of Tibetan medicine in St. Petersburg, with a special focus on controversies behind the private practice of the Tibetan doctor and tsarist courtier Pyotr A. Badmaev, Tsar Alexander III's godson and Rasputin's frenemy. By analyzing the reasons behind the Medical Council’s rejection of Badmaev’s petition to legalize Tibetan medicine, the talk aims to not only highlight specific anxieties that brought Eastern medicine to the foreground in late imperial Russian society, but also illuminate how the East as an epistemological category played an important role in demarcating science and pseudoscience in the age of positivism.