Wayne Soon
@waynesoon.bsky.social
Historian of Medicine, China, Taiwan, and Diaspora at the University of Minnesota. Associate Professor. Currently researching on global health insurance histories in East Asia. https://a.co/d/4tahHXR
Our program is hiring a one-year position in the History of 19th and/or 20th century Western medicine, with capacity for teaching courses related to women/gender and health history and the history of technology and medicine. Please share, and consider applying! Link: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/.
linkedin.com
I spoke to Josh Edbrooke at National Taiwan Normal University's International Taiwan Studies Centre about my book, In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan. Many thanks to Josh for the thoughtful questions and discussion audioboom.com/posts/879447...
In the Global Vanguard, with Professor James Lin
Professor James Lin from the University of Washington shares the backstory to his latest book and demonstrates how Taiwan's early development missions impacted Taiwan's own population in ways ...
audioboom.com
A podcast on my book Island Tinkerers is available today. Thanks to senior programs manager Adrienne Wu at Global Taiwan Institute for arranging the interview and publishing the podcast! 華府的智庫「全球台灣研究中心」幫我做了一個關於我的新書以及台灣科技產業的軟實力的訪談，是智庫的經理吳至芳主持的「台灣沙龍」這個節目的最新一集喔，歡迎大家線上收聽！謝謝至芳！ mailchi.mp/globaltaiwan...
I think the rise of an anti covid vaccine movement in Japan and the rise of Sanseito requires an in depth studies. I’ll be interested to read scholarly studies on the history of contemporary vaccines in Japan, in relations to the rise of right wing populism. 1/ www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/artic...
Sanseito retains populist message after silencing vaccine stance | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis
The minor opposition party Sanseito, which is projected to capture double-digit seats in the July 20 Upper House election, has muted some of its conspiracy theories.
asahi.com
Read Wayne Soon's review of Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia Edited by C. Michele Thompson, Kathryn Sweet, and Michitake Aso From the new issue of Technology & Culture, available at @projectmuse.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Project MUSE - <i>Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia</i> ed. by C. Michele Thompson, Kathryn Sweet, and Michitake Aso (review)
muse.jhu.edu
Wayne Soon@waynesoon.bsky.social · last yr.Pleased to share my review in T&C on the edited volume on Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia. @nuspress.bsky.social I enjoyed reading the essays in the volume, and learned a lot from them. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Review in Technology and Culture of "Fighting for Health" by @waynesoon.bsky.social: "In sum, this is an excellent volume that deserves to be widely read by scholars of the #ColdWar, military medicine, #healthcare, and (post)colonialism." Read: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Project MUSE - <i>Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia</i> ed. by C. Michele Thompson, Kathryn Sweet, and Michitake Aso (review)
muse.jhu.edu
Wayne Soon@waynesoon.bsky.social · last yr.Pleased to share my review in T&C on the edited volume on Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia. @nuspress.bsky.social I enjoyed reading the essays in the volume, and learned a lot from them. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Pleased to share my review in T&C on the edited volume on Fighting for Health: Medicine in Cold War Southeast Asia. @nuspress.bsky.social I enjoyed reading the essays in the volume, and learned a lot from them. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
Looking forward to Joan Judge’s forthcoming new book. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
The Politics of Common Reading
Examines the transformation of vernacular knowledge during a pivotal period of modern Chinese history, 1894 to 1954. In The Politics of Common Reading, Joan Judge examines an era of modern Chinese h...
press.uchicago.edu
Ebook version of my 2020 book, Global Medicine in China: A Diasporic History is on sale at $16 from @stanfordpress.bsky.social Consider buying a copy! www.sup.org/books/asian-...
Pleased to share my interview with the excellent team at the Infectious Historians podcast. I hope it will be useful for folks interested in incorporating the history of SARS and COVID in a non-western context in their classes! infectioushistorians.com/2025/05/09/c...
Episode 137 – Covid in Taiwan with Wayne Soon, Infectious Historians
Marian Devotion and Plague in Late Medieval Italy with Bianca Lopez Episode 134 - March 7, 2025 Bianca Lopez (Southern Methodist University) joins the...
infectioushistorians.com
Pleased to be sharing my review essay in HSNS on “New Directions in Global Health Histories of China and Taiwan”. I reviewed Mary Brazelton, Rachel Core, Fang Xiaoping and Yi-Tang Lin’s monographs & identified key themes in global health histories. online.ucpress.edu/hsns/article...
Enjoyed reading Tristan Brown‘s book. Pairs well with Rogaski’s new book on Knowing Manchuria, which I enjoyed reading too. 1/ @tristangbrown.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social
Read Rana Mitter’s piece in FP’s latest issue. I enjoyed it, but was also hoping that some of Sulmaan Wasif Khan’s insights in his recent book on US-China-Taiwan historical relations will make it more into the piece. www.foreignaffairs.com/china/once-a...
The Once and Future China
If you dropped in to China at any point in its modern history and tried to project 20 years into the future, you would almost certainly end up getting it wrong. In 1900, no one serving in the late Qin...
foreignaffairs.com
Do folks know of any presses that are open to publishing shorter monographs, besides Columbia Shorts and Cambridge Elements? Thanks!
I had a lot of fun teaching the Geopolitics of Chips session in today's HUDT3001 class using Honghong Tinn's fantastic new book, Island Tinkerers. I'm not sure whether my students understood the technical details I explained, but they recognize the centrality of high-end chips produced in Taiwan.
With Singapore's election in two days time, a couple of academic readings to recommend on Sg. Carl Trock's approach showed the impt of understanding the (post)colonial histories--control over raw materials & human resources were central themes of ruling authorities on the island 1/
Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control
This volume examines Singapore’s culture of control, exploring the city-state’s colonial heritage as well as the forces that have helped to mould its current social landscape. Taking a comparative app...
routledge.com
Anna Shields and I have organized the first China-Princeton Digital Humanities workshop! This week-long workshop on the digital humanities for Chinese studies will be held in person at Princeton University, June 16th to 20th! chinesedh2025.eas.princeton.edu
China-Princeton Digital Humanities Workshop 2025
chinesedh2025.eas.princeton.edu
Photos from talks at Luther College in Iowa (Wednesday), w/my host & the great poster another undergrad made for the event & at U of Minnesota (Thursday, photo t by @waynesoon.bsky.social), also spoke at Carleton (Tuesday), introduced there by Tun Myint (a local prof & someone I profile in my book)
I-mei, Wei-chuan foods, and Taiwanese food ind. are probably going to do very well in the short term; predict a surging export to the US, esp. to Asian supermarkets and restaurants stateside with the way the tariffs are structured. #surging www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/0...
The most surprising things Americans are panic buying amid tariff fears
Can you buy dried seaweed or imported cat food in bulk? Devoted shoppers have been trying to find out.
washingtonpost.com
Really enjoy Sunil Amrith’s new book (saw it in Barnes and Nobles) and I like how he integrated his observations growing up in Singapore in the book. China, India, Egypt, US, and Southeast Asia features prominently. wwnorton.com/books/978132...
The Burning Earth
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award<br /><br />One of <em>The New Yorker</em>'s 'Essential Reads' of 2024 • One of NPR's 'Books We Love' for 2024<br /><br />A brilli...
wwnorton.com
Beatrix Hoffman's New Book. Heard her @aahmhistmed.bsky.social keynote, and glad to see that the book is out! "Borders of Care Immigrants, Migrants, and the Fight for Health Care in the United States" (hopkinspress.bsky.social, 2025) press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
Borders of Care
Probes the relationship between the immigration and health care systems in the United States. For the roughly ten million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, federal health care cov...
press.uchicago.edu