Jonathan
Spence, one of the foremost authorities on the history and politics of
modern China, will deliver the main address at the Founders Day convocation
on Thursday, Feb. 24, at 11:30 a.m. in Memorial Chapel.
Spence's talk, “Researching China: The Past and the Present,”
is free and open to the public.
He is to receive an honorary doctor of letters degree.
Spence, the Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, is the
author of more than a dozen books on modern China including The Gate of
Heavenly Peace, China in Western Minds and a new biography of Mao
Zedong.
A frequent contributor on Chinese issues for a number of national news
outlets, he is a frequent source for Time, the New Yorker, CBS
News and PBS. When Deng died, Spence wrote a historically-framed one-page
obituary for Time. He also wrote a review of entrepreneurship in
China for The New Yorker, and conducted a two-week seminar on China
for executives of CBS.
His books also include The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western
Minds, A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of
Twentieth-Century China, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly
Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan and The Death of Woman Wang.
Union's Founders Day convocation, celebrating the 205th anniversary of
the College's founding, will include an academic procession and the
presentation of the Gideon Hawley Teacher Recognition Award by four students
to their former high school teachers.