Entangled Trajectories of Modernization: Medicine, Science and Technology in Transwar East Asia

This symposium explores the critical transition from the 1930s to the 1960s, a period marked by colonization, war, and postwar reconstruction in East Asia. Focusing on Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the event highlights the intertwined development of medicine, science, and technology across imperial legacies, Cold War geopolitics, and rapid modernization. By bringing together historians of science, technology, and medicine, the conference seeks to uncover how shared histories and divergent paths shaped state-building, institutional reform, and knowledge production in these nations. Through comparative and transnational perspectives, the symposium invites new insights into the collaborative and contested processes that defined, and still define, the region’s future.