Ying Zhang 张颖
Collaborator
Independent Scholar
Working group: Local Practices
Ying Zhang is an independent researcher. She received her Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University in 2017 and then taught at Hunan University from 2019 to 2024. She is currently completing revisions to her book manuscript, Household Healing: Rituals, Recipes, and Virtues in Late Imperial China. This project investigates China’s rich tradition of household healing practices and reinterprets these practices in the context of literati sociability, philanthropic activities, gender relations, and religious practices from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. This project investigates China’s rich tradition of household healing practices and reinterprets these practices in the context of literati sociability, philanthropic activities, gender relations, and religious practices from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The study investigates the wide range of texts people used in their daily healing practices, including daily-use encyclopedias, almanacs, recipes, novels, etc. These texts provided practical guidance for self-healing, serving as sources of information in people’s daily technical practices. The analysis demonstrates that recipes were an essential medium in circulating practical health advice for household use during this period. Finally, the project highlights the heterogeneity of household healing practices and the various ways in which the home served as a central site of healing technology during this period.