Chien-Ling Liu Zeleny

Biography

I am a historian of medicine, interested in cross-cultural medical encounters between Western Europe and East Asia, as part of the larger scholarship of world history in connection with contemporary issues in global health. My current research centers around the subject of immunity, its conception and validity that configure the relation of each individual or a collective entity with others in human societies.  I take immunity as the key component within public health across boundaries of geographical spaces, social groups, and scientific disciplines.

I  teach the history of science, technology and medicine at the Department of History and Institute for Society and Genetics at UCLA. With an interdisciplinary and transnational focus consistent with these crossover fields of study, my courses emphasize collection-based research, collective analysis, and embodied learning experiences that engage tangible and virtual objects of inquiry. These materials include ephemera, such as the patent medicine trade cards collection and the historical rare books and artifacts of anatomical representation, at the UCLA Special Collections and their digital interoperable manifestation at UCLA Digital Library and other digital collections; human cadavers from the Anatomy Lab at UCLA, as well as other collections such as dried and living plant specimens at UCLA Herbarium and Botanical Garden.