Faculty Profile
Evan Young
Associate Professor of History (2015)
Contact Information
Denny Hall
717-254-8170
Bio
W. Evan Young is a historian of medicine and science who also specializes in East Asian Studies. He teaches courses on the history of illness and therapy, the history of East Asia (including China, Korea, and Japan), and the history of gender and sexuality. His first book project, Family at the Bedside: Illness, Healing, and Knowledge in Early Modern Japan, explores how families dealt with ailments in eighteenth and nineteenth century Japan. His second major research project traces the history of medical knowledge in popular print, especially women’s magazines, from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. His work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Prange Collection and Miller Center for Historical Studies, and the D. Kim Foundation for the History of Science and Technology in East Asia.
Education
- B.A., St. Olaf College, 2005
- Ph.D., Princeton University, 2015
2026-2027 Academic Year
Fall 2026
EASN 120 History of East Asia
Cross-listed with HIST 120-01.
HIST 120 History of East Asia
Cross-listed with EASN 120-01.
EASN 262 Life & Death Samurai & Geisha
Cross-listed with HIST 262-01.
HIST 262 Life & Death Samurai & Geisha
Cross-listed with EASN 262-01.
HIST 404 The Social History of Medicine
This senior seminar is an exploration of the social history of medicine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from a global perspective. A key aim of the course is to understand the nature of medical knowledge as a social and cultural construct, as well as they ways in which illness and therapy have been woven into daily life and popular culture. We will consider a wide range of topics that have generated compelling intellectual dialogue, including the relationship between medical knowledge and authority, the agency of patients in determining their course of treatment, and the social and cultural meanings of illness and therapy. While reading landmark works in the field, we will also dedicate much of the course to the craft of research and writing. Students will contribute to scholarly debates by writing their own original research papers over the course of the semester. These papers will engage with scholarship in the students’ chosen geographic and thematic subfields and make new arguments based on original readings of primary historical sources.
Spring 2027
EASN 261 Medicine & The Body - E. Asia
Cross-listed with HIST 261-01.
HIST 261 Medicine & The Body - E. Asia
Cross-listed with EASN 261-01.
EASN 321 Gend/Sex in Mod Japanese Hist
Cross-listed with HIST 321-01 and WGSS 321-01.
HIST 321 Gend/Sex in Mod Japanese Hist
Cross-listed with EASN 321-01 and WGSS 321-01.
WGSS 321 Gend/Sex in Mod Japanese Hist
Cross-listed with EASN 321-01 and HIST 321-01.