UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Xiangyun Xu, a graduate student in the Department of History at Penn State, will present “American Servicemen's Transnational Experience in the China Relief Expedition of 1900” at 12:15 p.m. March 28 in 157 Burrowes Building at University Park.
The lecture is free and open to the public, and light refreshments of cookies, tea and coffee will be provided.
Xu obtained both his bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in history from Peking University in China. During his studies there, he developed an interest in American encounters with the outside world in the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition to his research, he also writes about American history and politics for a general audience in China.
Xu’s presentation will discuss the joint operation launched in June 1900 by the United States and several other nations, including Great Britain, Japan, Russia, France and Germany, to relieve the Chinese Boxers' siege of Western personnel and Chinese Christian converts in Tianjin and Beijing. After these multinational forces accomplished their goal, they occupied both cities for more than a year. Although the United States withdrew its forces in May 1901 for the ongoing conflict in the Philippines, the time in China still left a mark on American servicemen. Fighting alongside other forces, American servicemen formed unique opinions of other nationals, Chinese officials and civilians. Xu will discuss how these perceptions resurged in later warfare and modified the racial stereotypes of Asians in the United States.
The Center for Global Studies Brown Bag Lecture Series highlights faculty and graduate research in global fields. For a complete listing of more brown bag events, as well as all Center for Global Studies’ events, visit the events page at http://cgs.la.psu.edu/events.
For more information, contact Sarah Lyall-Combs at 814-867-4697 or email at cgsinfo@psu.edu.