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Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture

The 2024-2025 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture 

Professor Patricia Ebrey smiles standing in front of book shelf
Patricia Ebrey, University of Washington

The East Asia Program is honored to have Patricia Ebrey, Professor Emeritus, History, University of Washington to give the 2024-2025 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture "From Research Assistants to Professors: Scholars from China as Experts on China, 1920-1960."

Thursday, September 26 from 4:45-6:15 p.m. Physical Sciences Building 401. The lecture will be followed by a reception until 7:30 p.m. Open to the public.

Lecture description: This talk will look at the growth of China studies as an academic field in the US with attention to its changing demography. China Studies was tiny in the 1920s, with few colleges offering anything, and returned missionaries or their children the main teachers. Graduate students were often sent to Europe, where Sinological training was more advanced. World War II brought more American men into the field, but the Cold War had even greater impact as the US government decided not to send Chinese foreign students back to China and funded numerous research projects that allowed many to retrain as China experts. That gave them time to find academic jobs as US higher education gradually expanded. The growing presence of faculty members who had grown up in China, while never part of a strategic plan, is one reason that the US leaped ahead of Europe in Sinological studies by the 1960s.

Bio: Patricia Buckley Ebrey is professor emeritus of history at the University of Washington. Her scholarship has focused on the imperial period, especially the Song dynasty. Among her best-known books are The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period (1993), The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (1996), and Emperor Huizong (2014). Her most recent book is a co-authored set of translations, Chinese Autobiographical Writing (2023).


History and Background

In 2014 on the 100th anniversary of Hu Shih's graduation from Cornell, EAP initiated an annual distinguished lecture in honor of the philosopher and statesman. Leading scholars of Chinese and East Asian studies are invited to speak on critical issues in their field of research. These lectures are archived as a resource for the Cornell community and beyond. Learn more about one of Cornell's most distinguished alumni, Hu Shih.

  • Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture videos and programs are permanently archived in the Cornell eCommons.

Past Hu Shih Distinguished Lectures


Hu Shih, the Greatest Cornellian

Sherman Cochran, the Hu Shih Professor Emeritus of Chinese History, presented the Cornell Contemporary China Initiative's inaugural lecture on November 20, 2015, making the case for Hu Shih '14 as the "greatest Cornellian." Cochran framed his lecture as a comparison between Hu Shih and other Cornell graduates, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg '54, novelist Thomas Pynchon '59, and professional football player and actor Ed Marinaro '72. Read more about the event.

The Hu Shih logo featuring Hu Shih against the Cornell seal and related text including his name in Chinese characters.