Jonathan Spence, one of the world's leading experts on Chinese history and culture, will deliver the 2010 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. The annual lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

 

Past Jefferson Lecturers include John Updike, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Bernard Bailyn, Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, James McPherson, Barbara Tuchman, and Robert Penn Warren.

 

"Jonathan Spence's scholarship has shaped the field of Chinese history," said NEH Chairman Jim Leach. "In a world in which mutual understanding has never been more important, Spence has helped Americans understand the culture of one of the world's oldest and greatest civilizations."

Spence will present the 39th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities on Thursday, May 20, 2010, at 7 p.m. at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. He will explore the many ways that one of the first Chinese travelers to reach Europe shared his ideas with the Westerners he met. Though the contacts were brief, they showed the possibilities for a real meeting of the minds between the two dramatically different cultures, and help us chart the value of the humanities in that distant era.

 

Although this lecture is already full, we encourage you to visit neh.gov for more information on Jonathan Spence and his work.

Recommended Reading 

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri 

 

DHF takes great pride in being able to offer many public programs free of charge to people of all ages. No one knows better than a professional non-profit staff member or a scholar that finances are a factor when a person plans his or her leisure time agenda!
 
We also know, from anecdotal experience and advice from experts, that offering a program free and open to the public can result in a lower turnout than an event that involves even a small admission price, a formal RSVP process or even an exclusive invitation list. Marketing professionals will tell you that "your price is your value," and that "if something comes too easily to us, we don't value it." Of course, psychology is not a humanities subject, but neither is marketing, and we must consider the advice of experts when planning our programming.
 
We empathize with our colleagues in the field of public education. Even though the American commitment to public schooling was borne out of the principles of democracy set forth by our founding fathers (in 1899 educational philosopher John Dewey said: "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.") it is often undervalued BECAUSE it is free.
 
The founders of public education sought to teach more than the three Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic) to American children: they thought public school would teach children how to be responsible citizens, would improve social and economic conditions, enrich lives, dispel inequities in education and ensure a basic level of quality among schools. However, without those three Rs in place, the other benefits cannot take hold.
 
We still value those principles laid out by our founding fathers and believe that the humanities are what augment the three Rs in a person's education. DHF will continue to do what it can to bring value to Delaware's population--through free programs such as our Visiting Scholars program which offers scholars for use in elementary, middle and high-school classrooms, and through public programs which reach broad populations.
 
We hope you will remember that our price is not our value, and that we base the success of our programs on whether we can connect YOU to other people, cultures and ideas, not on how much income we generate.