Next Thursday, September 26, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine, will come to CU to talk about the Boxer Crisis of 1900. This illustrated talk will looked at how this crisis has been linked to “catastrophes” of different sorts. A drought, interpreted by the anti-Christian Boxers as sent from local gods angered by the worship of a foreign deity, touched off this crisis. Once the Boxers laid siege to the foreign legations in Beijing, some Western commentators began discussing the catastrophic impact the rising could have on Christiandom worldwide. Finally, the efforts to put down the rising had catastrophic consequences for the entire country. Professor Wasserstrom will talk about how the catastrophes connected to the Boxer crisis have been dealt with in both China and the West. He will also explore the way that memories and stories about the Boxers have affected Chinese relations with the West up to the present.
This talk will be at 5:00 p.m. in Humanities 250. Please click here for more information.