January 25, 2016
The annual Driedger Lecture Series, hosted by the Department of History, was inaugurated in style on Monday, January 25th, 2016 at the University of Lethbridge. Eminent historian of China and the globe, Prof. Timothy Brook of the University of British Columbia, delivered a memorable first lecture, Charting from the Water: The Making of the Selden Map. The lecture and reception were made possible by the Driedger family who made a generous donation of $100,000 to support the study of history through student scholarships and special events. A captivated audience well in excess of a hundred people including students, faculty, administration, and members of the local community filled room L-1060.
Departmental Chair Dr. Chris Burton welcomed the audience before President Dr. Mike Mahon thanked the Driedger family for their exemplary gift to support history students. Dr. Gerhard and Mrs. Hilda Driedger, along with their sons Peter and Walter, and daughter and son-in-law Maria and John Kimber were introduced. Peter spoke of his family’s passion for history which causes them to “debate vehemently” on historical topics. The family’s inspiring story was narrated by Dr. Gideon Fujiwara from History.
Gerhard and Hilda grew up in the Free State of Danzig, now northern Poland, and persevered under Nazi rule in World War Two, while he volunteered at hospitals and she worked as a teacher. After the war, the two married and Gerhard completed medical school. The young family immigrated as refugees from war-torn Germany to Canada in 1951, where they became Canadian citizens and Lutherans. Gerhard worked at the Haig Clinic and practiced as an orthopaedic surgeon for years. Wanting to “give back,” the couple worked for a year in Papua New Guinea as medical missionaries, and served the Lutheran Church there as well as in Lethbridge and across Canada. The couple have passed important lessons of history onto their children, and Gerhard insists, “I will not say that the politician will learn the facts of history before they engage in warfare, but we can inform people to look at history, so they do not go blind into that adventure.” Such lessons led the four siblings, including Dr. Bernhard Driedger, to make this donation in honour of their parents.
In his lecture, Prof. Brook shared insights from his research on an old Chinese paper map unearthed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The map, roughly dated to 1608, depicts East Asia as no other Chinese map has ever done, with startling accuracy and detailed data about shipping lanes. The map was bequeathed by a London lawyer, Mr. John Selden, whom Prof. Brook also identifies as the first Orientalist scholar of England and one of the founders of the law of the sea. This lecture explored map-making of this period in China and Europe to ask how this map came into being, and revealed China’s involvement in global trade in the seventeenth century.
While acknowledging that states then and now have clashed in violent conflict, Prof. Brook showed how a colourfully-decorated porcelain bowl produced in China demonstrates the “intercultural sharing of ideas” at the “level of normal society.” He emphasized that such an interconnected relationship between China and the globe continues to evolve now and will do so well into the future. Prof. Brook also captured this sentiment by making reference to the late Dr. Chester Ronning, an Albertan who worked to strengthen diplomatic ties between China and the United States and Canada, and later served in the Lutheran mission in China. Dr. Ronning was a close friend of the Driedger family, and members of his family were also in the audience.
Prof. Brook combined new findings with materials more familiar to readers of his recent works, Mr. Selden's Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer and Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global Age, two of the eleven books he has authored.
This special evening was a celebration of inspirational lives, and the study of history and the humanities. The event also recognized the growth of the History program in its new introductory course, "World History," and through collaboration with other emerging programs in the Asian Studies Minor Program, the Institute for Child and Youth Studies, and the Centre for Oral History and Tradition.
Indeed, the Driedger Award will keep on giving to students and to the local community for years to come, and this Inaugural Lecture has sparked discussions which will continue for many years, together with this lecture series.