May 27, 2010 - Historian Jonathan Spence, a noted expert on Chinese history and culture, delivered the 39th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities in Washington, DC on May 20. The lecture was titled “When Minds Met: China and the West in the Seventeenth Century.”
The Jefferson Lecture is sponsored annually by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. The Jefferson Lecture is the Endowment’s most widely attended annual event. Past Jefferson Lecturers include John Updike, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Bernard Bailyn, Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, James McPherson, Barbara Tuchman, and Robert Penn Warren. The lectureship carries a $10,000 honorarium.
Additional information about Jonathan Spence, including the text of the lecture, is available on the NEH website.
