Two Ways of Knowing: The Shredded Blanket and The Memory Palace

The Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures at Indiana University presents Jonathan Spence.

Distinguished historians and master storyteller, Jonathan Spence will examine ideas about knowing the past as explored in two of his books, The Question of Hu and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. He calls the project "high versus low knowledge," or simply "matters of class." The lecture will focus on two men in each other's countries in the medium-remote past: Matteo Ricci in China in 1596 and John Hu in Paris in 1725.

Jonathan Spence is widely regarded as the foremost historian of China in the world today. He is the author of some twenty books, translated into more than a dozen languages. The Search for Modern China has established itself as the standard text on the subject. The fact that it was also a New York Times bestseller attests to Spence's reach beyond the academic world. His writing and his lectures are admired for the ways they combine meticulous scholarship, an unorthodox point of view, and literary flair. The Modern Library named another of his books, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, the Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980, one of the best non-fiction books of the twentieth century.

Spence has been the recipient of many fellowships, among them a MacArthur, has been awarded ten honorary degrees, and was the 2010 Jefferson Lecturer in Humanities, the most prestigious honor the federal government awards for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. He taught at Yale for more than forty years and retired from full-time teaching in 2008 as Sterling Professor of History.