This event is hosted by Royal Asiatic Society, Beijing (RASBJ)

Event Time

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Lecture

8:00 pm-9:00 pm

Participation Format 

Registration is required to receive the ZOOM access link, which will be sent shortly to your registered email or phone number. Please enter the Zoom room 15 minutes before the starting time. Once the Zoom room reaches full capacity, latecomers will not be able to join the event. 

Registration and Fees

Registration
Please click “HERE” further below to register. Please send an email to yalecenterbeijing@yale.edu if there are any problems. 

Ticket: Free for RASBJ members; RMB 50 for invitees of Yale Center Beijing; RMB 100 for regular admission.

The language of the event will be English. 

The Event

Ever since the publication of The Great Divergence by Kenneth Pomeranz PhD ’88 in 2000, Chinese and European historians have been analysing the different trajectories of the two societies after 1750. Why do Western historians of China follow Japanese historian Naitō Konan and view the Song dynasty (960-1276) as early modern, while European historians believe the early modern era started around 1450 or 1500?

On September 17, Valerie Hansen, Stanley Woodward Professor at Yale University, will be joined by Jeremiah Jenne, writer and historian, for an online lecture that shifts the focus from the end of the early modern era to its beginning.

The Speaker

Valerie Hansen
Stanley Woodward Professor of History, Yale University

Valerie Hansen is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale, where she teaches premodern Chinese and world history. Her most recent book, The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—and Globalization Began (Scribner, 2020) has been translated into fifteen languages so far. She is currently working on a book project about the modernity of the Song dynasty.

The Moderator

Jeremiah Jenne
Writer
Historian

Jeremiah Jenne is a writer and historian who was based in Beijing for over two decades. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and taught Late Imperial and Modern Chinese History in Beijing for 17 years. Now in Geneva, Switzerland, he is the lead columnist for "The Archive Picks" section at the China Books Review and hosts the podcast "Barbarians at the Gate".