Other-Worldly

“Other-Worldly eloquently shows the elusiveness of the “essence” or “authenticity” of traditional Chinese medicine…In tackling TCM’s globalization, knowledge production, and the politics of difference involved, Mei Zhan convincingly demonstrates the fluidity of TCM as a body of knowledge and a system of practice….This thoughtful book can be recommended to all students of history and anthropology of Chinese medicine and will also be enjoyed by nonspecialists.” - Angela Ki Che Leung, Isis

“Other-Worldly is accomplished, theoretically rich, and a pleasure to read. The inclusion of both San Francisco and Shanghai, the use of anthropological and feminist studies of science, and the focus on Chinese medicine ‘in action’ are particularly significant. Moreover, Mei Zhan achieves a marvelous balance between astute observation, her own experience, and the relational dimensions that emerge out of that experience.” - Linda L. Barnes, author of Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1948

“Other-Worldly is brilliant. It is a strong intervention into fields including China studies, medical anthropology, science studies, and studies of globalization. At the cutting edge of social theory, this theoretically dazzling ethnography argues that worlding is an ongoing process of encounters and displacements and translocality is a defining feature of traditional Chinese medicine rather than ancillary to it. Other-Worldly transposes questions of authenticity onto historically specific imaginations of the world and Chinese medicine’s place in it.” - Lisa Rofel, author of Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture

“Other-Worldly deconstructs some of the most foundational dualisms in a number of fields. . . . Other-Worldly offers deep insights into the intimacies and techniques through which global connections are imagined and forged.” - Timothy Choy, American Ethnologist

“A precious addition to medical anthropology, China studies, and globalization studies. Highly recommended.” - A. Y. Lee, Choice

“Anyone who thinks about the deeper meanings of China’s multi-layered engagement with the world should read this book, if only to grapple with the larger questions of what is knowledge and what the world may look like, as Chinese norms cross porous borders, both real and imagined.” - James Flowers, The China Journal

“I find Other-Worldly the best of the recent ethnographies of TCM for classroom use. Mei Zhan’s interest in the transnational situation of TCM beautifully depicts this system of medicine as thoroughly untraditional and deeply subject to whims that are neither Chinese nor originating in China. Additionally, as an anthropologist of the United States and of science and medicine, I am particularly interested in the possibilities which Zhan’s book suggests for future research on the transnational conditions of medicine and its many forms. . . . Other-Worldly helps to push discussions in the anthropology of medicine into important directions, and raises questions that demand our attention, as anthropologists and as scholars of medicine in its many forms and its translocal contexts of practice.” - Matthew Wolf-Meyer, Somatosphere

“This is a book that rewards the critical and thoughtful engagement of its reader. It is worth your time and that of your graduate students.”
- Carla Nappi, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute