Luncheon Series: Nutritional Imperialism: How Science Turned Difference into Sickness in China 04.08.2026

Wednesday, April 8th
12:30-1:30pm
Denison Arts & Sciences, room 146

In this talk, Dr. Smith argues that starting in the early twentieth century, the acolytes of a new discipline called nutrition science began to research Chinese bodies and diets in ways that made them appear to be inherently deficient and even pathological. Seeking to explain the unequal power relations that underlay the imperialist world order, both foreign and some Chinese scientists blamed the Chinese nation’s political weakness and poor health on bad food choices. Although the age of formal empires is past, the traces of what she calls nutritional imperialism persist.  

Hillary Smith is a professor in the History Department at the University of Denver. In her research, she examines how people living in very different times and cultures from our own made sense of the natural world, including their own bodies. Studying those unfamiliar perspectives can help us understand what’s peculiar about our own views, and appreciate how social, intellectual, and political circumstances inform all knowledge, even modern scientific and medical knowledge.