He Bian 邊和
Collaborator
Princeton University
Working groups: Modes of Knowing, Local Practices
He Bian is a historian of late imperial China and a historian of science. She got her Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard University in 2014. Her research interests span many topics pertaining to the question of authority and variation in China’s early modern knowledge culture, particularly medicine (1600-1900). She is also a historian of Qing China with regard to the use of Manchu as a written language and instrument for scholarly inquiry and governance.
Professor Bian’s first book, Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Early Modern Culture in China, 1500-1800 came out from Princeton University Press in Spring 2020. The book won Honorable Mention for the 2022 Joseph Levenson Prize awarded to the best scholarly book on China (Pre-1900).Her second book, The Manchu Mirrors and the Knowledge of Plants and Animals, co-authored with Mårten Söderblom Saarela (Ricci Institute), examines lexicography and encyclopedism at the Qing court during the 18th century. She is at work on her third book project, Live, and Let Live: A Social History of Medical Recipes in Late Imperial China.