Student spotlight: Jingya Guo

Graduate student research

By | Staff , Cornell University Graduate School

3/19/2025

Jingya Guo is a doctoral candidate in history from Hangzhou, China. She earned her B.A. from Zhejiang Normal University and M.A. in history and museum studies from Tufts University and now studies how historical actors contested and reconfigured the demarcation between pathology and health for female bodies in China under the guidance of TJ Hinrichs at Cornell.

What is your area of research and why is it important?

I study how diverse historical actors—medical practitioners, women, community members, and familial networks—contested and reconfigured the demarcation between pathology and health for female bodies in China from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. Through examination of the most corporeal and personal dimensions of women’s embodiment—myriad menstruation experiences, monstrous births, and pulses of their hands—I show the attempts to project a fixated notion of a healthy female body onto the past proved futile. I hope my research will inspire people to think creatively about questions regarding ourselves and our bodies. For instance, who determined that the only acceptable menstrual cycle falls within the narrow 28-30 day range?

What are the larger implications of this research?

This research explains the contested territories of medical knowledge through women’s embodied experiences in Chinese history, but it also has implications for contemporary discussions about women’s reproductive rights, the asymmetrical relationship between medical authority and patients, over-treatment, and the state’s control over women’s bodies. Historical narratives of women’s lived experiences, when placed in dialogue with contemporary concerns, reveal that today’s socio-political issues are deeply embedded in their historical-cultural contexts.

Read the full story on the Cornell University Graduate School website.