Contact Information
707 S Mathews Ave
Urbana, IL 61801
Office Hours
Research Interests
The social and cultural history of late imperial China
Global history of medicine and psychiatry
Legal history
Intersection of Medicine and Religion
Medical Humanities
Manchu texts
Research Description
Yujie specializes in the history of late imperial and modern China, with an emphasis on the intersection of crime, law and medicine. She is currently developing a book manuscript, Legal Justice, Medical Authority, and Madness in China, 1600-1930, which examines how medical and legal interactions addressed murder cases in which defendants claimed innocence due to mental derangement. Her other projects include comparative studies of Euro-Asian histories of insanity, doctor-patient relationships, the intersections of medical and religious cultures, Manchu medical texts, and the history of the pharmaceutical industry in East Asia. At the University of Illinois, she teaches a wide range of courses, including East Asia and traditional China surveys, and seminars on Qing China and the history of medicine in China.
Education
Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Grants
2025 National Science Foundation Travel Grant, History of Science Society
2025 Fellow of Inclusive Pedagogy Certificate Program, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, U. of I. and Urbana
Courses Taught
Lower-level courses
Contemporary East Asia (Spring 2026)
East Asian Civilization (Fall 2024, Fall 2025)
Chinese Civilization (Spring 2026)
Traditional China (ancient-1644) (Spring 2025)
Chinese Thought and Culture in Global Contexts (Fall 2024)
Upper-Level courses
China Under the Qing Dynasty (Spring 26, Spring 25)
Chinese Medicine and Healing (Fall 2025)
History of Medicine in China (Spring 2025)
Highlighted Publications
“From Elderly to ‘Patient’: Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s Diary of a Mad Old Man and Aging Narratives in 1950s–1960s Japan.” Journal of Medical Humanities (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-025-09980-3.
“Doctors in the Court: Bureaucracy and Medicine in Eighteenth-Century Homicide Cases Involving Insanity.” Late Imperial China. (revise and resubmit)
“Medicine and Law.” In The Cambridge History of Medicine, Vol. 3: Early Modern Medicine, c. 1450–1700, edited by Elaine Leong and Alisha Rankin, 6 vols. (under contract with Cambridge University Press).
Recent Publications
“From Elderly to ‘Patient’: Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s Diary of a Mad Old Man and Aging Narratives in 1950s–1960s Japan.” Journal of Medical Humanities (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-025-09980-3.