'I Love This Course'

Various wise people told me I shouldn't come in and try to do this."-Joseph F. Fletcher Jr. '57

But he did

Fletcher, professor of Chinese and Central Asian History, walked slowly, steadily into William James Hall yesterday, his head and right shoulder tilted slightly downward.

Smiling broadly and often as he faced his class for the first time in more than a month. Fletcher began speaking in measured tones through an amplified microphone- not on his specialty, the history of inner Asia, but on his physical "collapse."

"One thing that happens when you face death, as I did and do, is you discover what your priorities are It's important to have fun--lots of us forget that.

"Infacing my priorities, I realized I love teaching this course ...Under the influence of morphine and pain, your faces kept appearing to me."

The 48-year-old Fletcher entered Brigham and Women's Hospital in November for treatment of cancer of the intestine. He was forced to cancel three weeks of lectures in his course. "Empire of the Mongols" (Historical Study B-14).

Fletcher returned to his 46 students yesterday from his hospital bed in Stillman Infirmary, where he is undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. After his one-hour lecture, he went back to the hospital.

"I was dragged off stage at a time when many things [in the course] were left hanging." Fletcher told his class. He then took off his wire rim glasses and began discussing the decline of the Mongolian empire. He glanced occasionally at prepared notes, but spoke mostly extemporaneously.

Fletcher, a native of Raleigh, N.C., who received tenure in 1972, is considered one of the world's leading experts on inner Asia, which includes parts of China, various central Asian states and the Islamic world.

"He's been writing a history of that region for the first time His major works are still in the process of being written:" Edwin A Cranston, Chairman of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, said yesterday.

Fletcher now suffers bouts of high fever most afternoons that prevent him from continuing his work. Cranston said "He was struck down at the very prime of his productivity," Cranston said. "There is no one at Harvard to replace him."

In a shoes interview yesterday, Fletcher said he first became interested in the Mongolian empire while studying the relations between China and the Soviet Union: "the peoples and territory they shared, their developing importance in global history."

"It's a very difficult course, lots of reading from original sources." Jeffrey Richardson, a student in Fletcher's class said yesterday after the early morning lecture. "It's very courageous for him to come back. Obviously he's gone through a pretty rough ordeal."

Fletcher apologized to his students for requesting them to attend classes during reading period. He has scheduled three more sessions to finish his syllabus.

Fletcher studied as a Junior Fellow in Harvard's Society of Fellows from 1962 to 1966. He received his Ph.D. in Fat Eastern Languages in 1965. He has a son, Edward.

"It's bad to get cancer," Fletcher said a few minutes after receiving applause from his students and motioning them to stop "But one of the gifts is this realization of your priorities.

"I couldn't leave the course where it was. Your heart is always in a course, and there are all these people who have devoted significant time.

"I feel a lot better after having done it and gone through it.