Jesuit Heritage Lecture to Explore Missionary Scientists in China

WORCESTER, Mass. – Florence C. Hsia, author of Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), will give a lecture titled “Saints and Mandarins: Science, religion and Jesuits in late imperial China,” Thursday, Sept. 30, at 4:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library, Smith Hall, at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is part of the Presidential Colloquia on Jesuits and the Liberal Arts, sponsored by the president’s office and the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture. It is free and open to the public.

The most enduring guise that Jesuits assumed in the course of the old Society of Jesus' mission to late imperial China is arguably the most peculiar: that of the missionary as a man of scientific expertise, Hsia explains. While the French Jesuits of the 17th and 18th centuries represented themselves as conduits for Western science, introducing their maps, clocks, astrolabes and armillary to the Chinese, Hsia suggests that the missionary-scientists brought back more knowledge to Europe than they likely imparted to the learned men of the Qing empire.

Hsia is associate professor of the history of science and integrated liberal studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. A book project under way is tentatively titled Darkness at Noon: Chinese Astronomy and the Origins of European Sinology.

Following Hsia’s talk, Janine Shertzer, professor of physics at Holy Cross, will offer a short response.

To learn more about this program and other Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture events and to listen to lectures online, visit holycross.edu/crec.

About The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:

Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College's commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope.  The Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.