Mia Chen Ma

My research focuses on a central question that has guided my academic journey: How can we deepen our understanding of the entanglement of the human body and the environment through the narratives of sickness? My approach is inherently interdisciplinary, bridging literature, sociology, environmental, and medical humanities to address real-world issues. I am particularly interested in exploring the parameters of non-data-driven knowledge on health-related issues. While data and knowledge can be synonymous in certain contexts, aspects such as pleasure, peace, healing, and health are not always quantifiable.

My broader intellectual project seeks to explore how literary narratives pose new questions about the reconciliation between humans and the more-than-human world beyond the constraints of anthropocentrism, existing socio-political structures, and spatial and temporal barriers, fostering new forms of resistance.

Having completed my PhD in Chinese and Inner Asian Studies at SOAS, University of London, I joined Strathclyde through the Wellcome Trust-funded Medical Humanities China-UK (MHCUK) Early Career Fellowship and am currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Social History of Health & Healthcare.

My first book, Ecocriticism in Chinese Science Fiction: Risk, Failure, and Solastalgia (forthcoming in 2025 with Brill in Open Access Model, supported by Wellcome Trust), is derived from my PhD thesis (funded by UCCL) and explores contemporary Chinese science fiction and its strong ecological themes. In addition to the monograph, my recent research projects have also examined care ethics, empathetic technology, international surrogacy, and Daoist futurity.

My ongoing research particularly focuses on narrative medicine and aims to address the research gap on Asian narratives in expanding the trajectory of medical-environmental humanities and developing new methodologies, conceptual frameworks, and teaching materials for the field.

I am committed to promoting diversity, inclusion, and equity through various public outreach initiatives that engage diverse audiences and partake in knowledge translation activities. I have collaborated with various institutions and community organizations to host and participate in a range of academic and cultural events.

• Literature and Medicine
• Ecocriticism and Speculative Fiction
• Narrative Medicine
• Emerging Technologies and Care Ethics
• Place Writing
• Risk Discourse and Alternative Futurisms
• Posthumanism and Daoism
• Convergence of Traditional and New Media