
- Associated Scholar
- Hanson, Marta
- Prof. (Ph.D. in History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania)
- n. a.
- n. a.
- Video Statement
04.2025 – 03.2028: Principal Investigator, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU), Erlangen Germany, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation): “Wissende Hände: Chinesische Hand-Gedächtnis-Techniken & Handy-Wissen in Situation, Vergleich und Kontak” (“Knowing Hands: Chinese Hand-memory techniques and Handy Knowledge in situ, comparison, and contact”). Based at CAS-E (Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences), Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective, at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU), Erlangen, Germany
10.2024 – Present: Retired Faculty member of the Academy at Johns Hopkins
01.2024 – 06.2024: Visiting Professor, Hunan University, Yuelu Academy
06-09/2023 & 10.2021 – 10.2022: Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
2011 – 2021: Associate Professor, Department of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine (Retired as of July 1, 2021) (Joint appointment in Department of the History of Science and Technology)
2004 – 2011: Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine (Joint appointment in Department of the History of Science and Technology)
1997–2004: Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of California at San Diego
1997: Instructor, Religious Studies Department, Macalester College, spring semester
1995–1996: Lecturer, Complete and Practical Scholar Program, University of Minnesota
12.1997: Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, History and Sociology of Science, Dissertation: “Inventing a Tradition in Chinese Medicine: From Universal Canon to Local Medical Knowledge in South China, the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century.”
Marta Hanson was Assistant Professor of late imperial Chinese history at the University of California, San Diego (1997-2004), Associate Professor of East Asian medical history in the History of Medicine Department, Johns Hopkins University (2004-2021), and is now a retired faculty member of The Academy at Johns Hopkins (2025-present). She was senior co-editor of the journal Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity (2011-2016), President of the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (ISHEASTM, 2015-2019), and is currently Vice President of the International Society for the Critical Study of Divination (2023-present). She is on the editorial boards of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, East Asian Science, Technology, and Society, Asian Medicine, Chinese Medicine and Culture, Asian Journal of Medical Humanities, and International Journal of Divination and Prognostication.
She publishes broadly about the history of medicine in China, early modern Sino-European medical exchanges, and public health in East Asia. Her book is Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China (Routledge, 2011). Within cross-cultural medical history, she has an on-going scholarly collaboration with Gianna Pomata (early modern European historian) on 17th- to 18th-century translations of Chinese medical texts into European languages. This has resulted in several publications related to Specimen Medicinæ Sinicæ (1682), the first translation into Latin of Chinese medical texts. She is a member of the working group on Common Knowledge in Chinese Daily-use Encyclopedias in Department III at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. As part of the DFG-funded “Knowing Hands” project, she is completing a book titled Grasping Heaven and Earth: The Mind in Hand in Chinese Medicine about how Chinese healers and diviners used their hands to think with, divine, and heal.
Published:
04.2025 – 03.2028: Principal Investigator, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU), Erlangen Germany, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation): “Wissende Hände: Chinesische Hand-Gedächtnis-Techniken & Handy-Wissen in Situation, Vergleich und Kontak” (“Knowing Hands: Chinese Hand-memory techniques and Handy Knowledge in situ, comparison, and contact”). Based at CAS-E (Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences), Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective, at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU), Erlangen, Germany
10.2024 – Present: Retired Faculty member of the Academy at Johns Hopkins
01.2024 – 06.2024: Visiting Professor, Hunan University, Yuelu Academy
06-09/2023 & 10.2021 – 10.2022: Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
2011 – 2021: Associate Professor, Department of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine (Retired as of July 1, 2021) (Joint appointment in Department of the History of Science and Technology)
2004 – 2011: Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine (Joint appointment in Department of the History of Science and Technology)
1997–2004: Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of California at San Diego
1997: Instructor, Religious Studies Department, Macalester College, spring semester
1995–1996: Lecturer, Complete and Practical Scholar Program, University of Minnesota
12.1997: Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, History and Sociology of Science, Dissertation: “Inventing a Tradition in Chinese Medicine: From Universal Canon to Local Medical Knowledge in South China, the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century.”
Marta Hanson was Assistant Professor of late imperial Chinese history at the University of California, San Diego (1997-2004), Associate Professor of East Asian medical history in the History of Medicine Department, Johns Hopkins University (2004-2021), and is now a retired faculty member of The Academy at Johns Hopkins (2025-present). She was senior co-editor of the journal Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity (2011-2016), President of the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (ISHEASTM, 2015-2019), and is currently Vice President of the International Society for the Critical Study of Divination (2023-present). She is on the editorial boards of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, East Asian Science, Technology, and Society, Asian Medicine, Chinese Medicine and Culture, Asian Journal of Medical Humanities, and International Journal of Divination and Prognostication.
She publishes broadly about the history of medicine in China, early modern Sino-European medical exchanges, and public health in East Asia. Her book is Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China (Routledge, 2011). Within cross-cultural medical history, she has an on-going scholarly collaboration with Gianna Pomata (early modern European historian) on 17th- to 18th-century translations of Chinese medical texts into European languages. This has resulted in several publications related to Specimen Medicinæ Sinicæ (1682), the first translation into Latin of Chinese medical texts. She is a member of the working group on Common Knowledge in Chinese Daily-use Encyclopedias in Department III at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. As part of the DFG-funded “Knowing Hands” project, she is completing a book titled Grasping Heaven and Earth: The Mind in Hand in Chinese Medicine about how Chinese healers and diviners used their hands to think with, divine, and heal.
Published: