Hilary A. Smith

Associate Professor

What I do

I study Chinese history and the history of science and medicine. Classes I teach include Imperial China, Modern China, Comparative History of Medicine, Disease in World History, Food in East Asian History, and Chinese Science. I am also Senior Editor for the journal Asian Medicine.

Professional Biography

Before coming to DU, I earned degrees in the history of science from Cambridge University (M.Phil.) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.), and taught at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In my teaching and research, I examine how people living in very different times and cultures from our own made sense of the natural world, including their own bodies. Studying those unfamiliar perspectives can help us understand what’s peculiar about our own views, and appreciate how social, intellectual, and political circumstances inform all knowledge, even modern scientific and medical knowledge.

Degree(s)

  • Ph.D., History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, 2008
  • MA, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, 2004
  • M.Phil., History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, 2000
  • AB, Religion, Princeton University, 1998

Licensure / Accreditations

  • Certificate in College and University Teaching

Media Sources