Bulletin No. 1, 2014

32   Chinese University Bulletin No. 1, 2014 P rof. Yau Shing-tung, Distinguished Professor-at-Large of CUHK, Wolf Prize laureate and Fields medalist, was invited to deliver a CUHK 50th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture titled ‘150 Years of Mathematics at Harvard’ on 23 December 2013. In the 20th century, American mathematicians began to make critical advances in a field previously dominated by Europeans. Harvard University’s mathematics department was at the centre of these developments. Professor Yau, concurrently a mathematics professor at Harvard, gave a lively and accessible account of the pioneers who trailblazed a distinctly American tradition of mathematics, including Benjamin Peirce, Eliakim Hastings Moore and George David Birkhoff, their research journey, the heady mathematical concepts that emerged, and the people who shaped them, including Marston Morse, Hassler Whitney, Marshall Stone. Distinguished Lectures P rof. Leo Ou-fan Lee , Sin Wai Kin Professor of Chinese Culture, CUHK, was invited to host the University’s 50th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture ‘The Role of Scholars/Intellectuals in the Age of Globalization’ on 29 November 2013. Professor Lee began his lecture by citing the late literary theorist Edward Said’s definition of intellectuals, stressing that a public intellectual is someone whose place is to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma, and whose raison d’etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug. He went on to trace the development of the concept of intellectuals in Britain, Continental Europe and China. Professor Lee pointed out that the role of intellectuals has been changed by the academic system. These academics, according to Professor Lee, are unable to play the role of intellectuals as defined by Said. Intellectuals in the Age of Globalization 150 Years of Mathematics at Harvard