Yidong Gong
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Academic Appointments
Assistant Professor, New College of Florida
University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Irvine
Education
M.A., Ph.D., Duke University
M.Phil., University of Cambridge
B.A., Shanghai International Studies University
Yidong Gong is a cultural anthropologist working at the intersections of medical anthropology, global health, China Studies, and African Studies. He had worked as a bilingual journalist/editor and foreign correspondent before shifting his life trajectory in 2012 to pursue an academic career. He studies the transnational and transregional connections that involve China and South Sudan, from the perspectives of global health and global mental health.
His current book project examines China’s long-standing medical programs in South Sudan, which offer an alternative to the widely accepted logic and values of medical humanitarianism in places marked by “crisis” or “conflict”. His research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, American Council of Learned Societies, Duke Global Health Institute, among others. He has recently started a new research project on mental health, religion and youth, based on fieldwork and his training in psychoanalysis.
He teaches courses/tutorials in medical anthropology, mental health and culture, medical humanitarianism, future thinking, China/Africa relations, etc. He is a core faculty member of the interdisciplinary program Health, Culture, and Societies (HCS). At New College, he initiated Anthropology Commons, an intellectual community aimed at pushing the boundaries of anthropology and ethnography through monthly meetings. He was an inaugural fellow of the Nielsen Center for the Liberal Arts at Eckerd College.
Recent Courses
Medical Anthropology
Global Mental Health
Beyond the Body: Anthropology of Surgery
Anthropology of Medical Humanitarianism
Health, Culture, and Societies: Interdisciplinary Explorations
Professionalization Seminar for Health, Culture, and Societies (HCS)
Expert Knowledge, Design Thinking, and Posthumanism: Anthropology of Tomorrow
China, Africa, and Globalization
History of Anthropological Theory
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Introduction to Biological Anthropology
Recent Publications
2023. Gong, Yidong. “From ‘Medical Revolution’ to Techno-Politics: The Transformation of Chinese Medical Teams in Zanzibar.”. Global China Pulse 2, no. 1: 74-85. Special Section. “A Century of Global Medical Engagements.”
2023. Gong, Yidong. Review of Elisabeth Hsu, Chinese Medicine in East Africa: An Intimacy with Strangers (Berghahn, 2022). Medical Anthropology Quarterly. DOI: 10.1111/maq.12808.
2022. Gong, Yidong. “Non-Suffering Work: China’s Medical Interventions in South Sudan.” The China Quarterly 250: 464-85. DOI:10.1017/S0305741022000534. Special Issue. “Global China.”