Qiu Jin, professor of history at Old Dominion University, will speak at Washington and Lee University on Thursday, Nov. 30. Her lecture, "The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident During the Cultural Revolution," will be given at 8 p.m. in Leyburn Library's Northen Auditorium.

Jin is the author of The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident in the Cultural Revolution. Jin is the daughter of General Wu Faxian, the Chinese air force's commander-in-chief at the time of the incident. Charged with helping Lin, her father was held incommunicado for nearly 10 years and then, in 1980, sentenced to 17 years in prison. The rest of her family also suffered greatly as a result of the incident. The rest of her family also suffered greatly as a result of the incident. Hence, her research and writing of this book was driven by a "determination to set the historical record straight." Thanks to her "insider" status, Jin was able to interview a number of important sources, most notably Lin Doudou, Lin Biao's daughter. In her book, Jin challenges the official explanation of the incident and, in doing so, revises current interpretations of the Cultural Revolution. In addition to her book, she has published several articles and delivered numerous papers on the Cultural Revolution in the United States, China, Korea and Europe.

Jin received a B.A. in English (1982) and an M.A. in linguistics (1987) from the Beijing Normal University. She also holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Hawaii.