Yimeng Wang

MA Student

Areas of Interest

  • 20th-century China
  • History of Socialism and Communism
  • History of Medicine and Public Health

Biography

Jenny Wang is a master’s student in modern Chinese history at the Department of East Asian Studies. She is interested in the relationship between socialist healthcare, the state’s biopolitical control over laborers’ bodies, and the production of clinical knowledge. Her master’s research explores the Mao-era healthcare through the three-pronged system: the state-financed medical care for public servants, workers’ labor insurance, and the cooperative medical scheme for the rural population. The project seeks to understand how Maoist healthcare contributed to the regulation and governance of individual bodies through policies that aimed to foster universal care with minimal expenditure.

Awards

Graduate Entrance Award, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, 2024

Jonathan N. Lipman Award, Department of Asian Studies, Mount Holyoke College, 2024

Anne Stewart Higham Prize, Department of History, Mount Holyoke College, 2024

 

Education

B.A. in History and East Asian Studies, Mount Holyoke College