Liu is Peterson Lecture Series Speaker at UW-River Falls

October 23, 2014— Xiaoyuan Liu, David Dean Professor of East Asian Studies and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, will speak at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls on Tuesday, Nov. 4, as part of the annual Edward N. Peterson Lecture Series. The lecture will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Kinnickinnic Theater in the University Center and will be preceded by a reception at 4 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.  

As a leading scholar in the field of Chinese-American relations in the 20th century and East Asian international history, Liu has published several books in the Cambridge University Press and Stanford University Press about China's ethnic-frontier affairs in international politics. His lecture, "Time, Space, and China's Tibetan Frontier in the 20th Century," is based on his current research about the Tibetan-Chinese relationship during the Cold War and how that relationship has been perceived and interpreted in the West. 

In his lecture, Liu will argue that since the early 18th century, when Tibet became a "frontier dependency" of the Qing Empire, the Tibetan frontier of China has assumed an important position in both China's foreign and domestic affairs. From the recent past to our own time the so-called Tibetan question is never ending but its connotation has changed several times in temporal and spatial senses. In addition, Liu will highlight a number of historical junctures of the 20th century when the Chinese, Tibetan, and other interested parties—including the United States and India—took different political stances on the Tibetan question and defined the question in dissimilar time frames and geographic areas. 

Liu's lecture is one of the many events featured in UWRF's Year of China program, a program that is part of the global initiative of the university's strategic plan and an effort to apply a multidisciplinary approach to better understand and appreciate the cultures of different nations in the world, such as Germany, China, Mexico and Brazil.  

Professor Edward N. Peterson taught history at UWRF from 1954 until his death in 2005. To honor his memory and his achievement in teaching and research, the UWRF History and Philosophy Department established the Peterson Lecture Series program as an annual forum for leading scholars to present their scholarship on war and peace, abuses and limits of power, and the struggle for democracy in the 20th century, issues that Peterson taught about and wrote about during his long career as a historian. The series is funded by an endowment made possible by the generous donations of students, alumni, faculty and friends, collected over many years.   

Additional information about the Edward N. Peterson Lecture Series and this year's event is available at https://www.uwrf.edu/HIST/Events/PetersonLectureSeries/Index.cfm. For more information, call 715-425-3164.