Matthew KohrmanView profile
Associate Professor
Matthew Kohrman is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, with courtesy appointments in Medicine (Stanford Prevention and Research Center) and as a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He also holds faculty affiliations at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions. His research and writing bring anthropological methods to bear on the interrelationships between health, culture, and politics, with a primary focus on the People's Republic of China. Kohrman engages multiple intellectual terrains including governmentality, gender theory, political economy, critical science studies, narrativity, and embodiment. His work spans two major research trajectories: disability advocacy in China and the biopolitics of cigarette smoking. Kohrman's scholarly output reveals consistent thematic patterns across his career, moving from disability studies to tobacco research while maintaining focus on how embodied human experiences become foundations for state apparatuses. His publications demonstrate interdisciplinary approaches that bridge medical anthropology, political economy, and critical public health studies, with particular attention to China's unique political and social context. Notable Publications: Bodies of Difference: Experiences of Disability and Institutional Advocacy in the Making of Modern China (2005) Poisonous Pandas: Chinese Cigarette Manufacturing in Critical Historical Perspectives (2018) Kohrman joined Stanford's faculty in 1999 and has established himself as a leading scholar in medical anthropology with a China focus. His work combines ethnographic depth with theoretical innovation, particularly in examining how health-related subjects are constituted through state practices and cultural formations.
