Susan Thurin began a life of travel with a family trip to the Wisconsin Dells and her interest in other cultures started with childhood reading. Tutoring a Japanese exchange student in college was soon followed by two years in Liberia as a Peace Corps teacher and next at a boys’ prep school in England. Her career as a college English teacher in Wisconsin included exchanges in China and Sweden. Besides teaching both American and international students, Charles Dickens, women writers and travel literature were the subject of her many essays. Her books Victorian Travelers and the Opening of China, 1842-1907 and Nineteenth-Century Travels 1835-1910: The Far East study the accounts of English men and women whose writings about their sojourns in China and Japan influenced public opinion of those countries. A China Retrospective: Living and Teaching in Beijing 1986-1987 is her most recent book. Her Retiring Minds: Life after Work is a collection of essays about work, volunteerism, travel and life in retirement.
Susan Thurin 