Papers of Joseph F. Fletcher, Jr.

Joseph F. Fletcher, Jr. received a B.A. in 1957 and a Ph.D. in 1965 from Harvard and taught at Harvard from 1966 to 1984. Fletcher was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1934. He attended Groton School and then Harvard, earning a B.A. in 1957 and a Ph.D. in Far Eastern Languages in 1965. Fletcher gained proficiency in Latin, Greek, and French at Groton and later mastered Mandarin, Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, and German. Harvard professor Francis W. Cleaves was an important influence on Fletcher’s studies and acted as his Ph.D. advisor. While at Harvard, Fletcher was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows from 1962 to 1966, Assistant Professor of Far Eastern Languages from 1966 to 1972, and Associate Professor from 1971 to 1972. In 1972 he became Professor of Chinese and Central Asian History. At various times he chaired the Committee of Inner Asian and Altaic Studies, the Committee on Regional Studies – East Asia, the Subcommittee on History and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Committee on the Language Requirement for the Undergraduate Degree. With his knowledge of several languages, Fletcher gained expertise on the history of Inner Asia, focusing his studies on the Mongols and Manchus as well as the Uzbeks and Khojas. He searched for parallels in historical developments in different regions – Europe, the Middle East, Inner Asia, India, China – what he called “integrative history.” This approach came across in his course Social Sciences 20 on Inner Asia 1200 to the Present. Fletcher was a global scholar, forging international contacts where his research took him, lecturing in the United States and abroad, and frequently interacting with book dealers in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Among his most important published writings are the Cambridge History of Inner Asia and the Cambridge History of China, along with many other significant articles and book reviews. Fletcher studied Islamic fundamentalism and he lectured on its roots in Inner Asia and elsewhere. He also studied Naqshbandiyya, the Sufi brotherhood, and studied documents from North Yemen that demonstrated that Chinese Muslim leaders had joined Naqshibandiyya and brought its teachings back to China. In order to learn Arabic, Fletcher went to Cairo and studied intensively at the American Research Center on a fellowship in 1977. In 1978 he presented a paper on Tanistry (leadership succession) at a Ford Foundation-sponsored conference on the Theory of Democracy held in Bellagio, Italy. On his last lecture trip he traveled to the Inner Mongolian University. Fletcher had a son, Edward Sears Fletcher. In 1983, Fletcher was awarded the Levenson Award for excellence in the teaching of undergraduates. Fletcher died on June 14, 1983 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.