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Cornell University

East Asia Program

Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture

The Annual Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture 2021-2022

Poster for the Annual Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture with portrait of Hu Shih and speaker Tim Brook

The Annual Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture welcomes Tim Brook, History, University of British Columbia.  He will speak on Government for the People: Troubling Legacies of the Confucian Statecraft Tradition. 

History and Background

Hu Shih

On the 100th anniversary of the world-changing philosopher and statesman’s graduation from Cornell, EAP initiated an annual distinguished lecture in honor of Hu Shih. Leading scholars of Chinese and East Asian studies are invited to give a lecture on critical issues in their field of research. These lectures are archived as a resource for the Cornell community and beyond.

Past Hu Shih Distinguished Lectures

  • 2020-2021 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture - Meir Shahar
    Chinese Animal Gods
    Shoul N. Eisenberg Chair for East Asian Affairs, Tel Aviv University
  • 2019-2020 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture - Dorothy Ko
    Gender and Material Culture: The Female Artisan Gu Erniang and the Craft of Inkstone-Making in Early Modern China
    Professor of History, Department of History, Department of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College
  • 2018-2019 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture - Victor Mair
    An Important Dunhuang Manuscript Formerly in the Possession of Hu Shih: Transformation Text on the Subduing of Demons
    Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania
  • 2017-2018 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture - Steven Sangren
    Filial Piety and Its Discontents
    Professor of Anthropology, Cornell University
  • 2016-2017 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture - Francesca Bray
    Hail the Maintainers: Rethinking Technology in Chinese History
    Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, and President of the international Society for the History of Technology (SHOT)
  • 2015-2016 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture - Evelyn Rawski
    Moving from Nation to Region: China in Northeast Asian History
    Distinguished University Professor, Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
  • 2014-2015 Hu Shih Distinguished Lecture - Benjamin Elman
    The Great Reversal: China, Korea, and Japan in the Early Modern World
    Gordon Wu '58 Professor of Chinese Studies, Princeton University

Hu Shih, the Greatest Cornellian 

Sherman Cochran, the Hu Shih Professor of Chinese History, emeritus, 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.