| About Center
In the twenty-first century where the impacts of the migration of peoples and individuals, globalization, and advances in technology and the sciences dominate scholarship as well as public discourse, the relevance of the humanities and the social sciences is evident. Culture, literature, the other arts, society and its processes and thus the study of these fields of human activity needs to be one of the priorities of institutions of higher learning as well as of society at large. The developments in the sciences and technology will be possible to integrate in society meaningfully only with the incorporation and maintenance of knowledge available in the humanities and social sciences. Similar to universities world wide where centers for the humanities and the social sciences have been established in order to provide a place and space for research and scholarship, the aims and scope of the National Sun Yat-sen University Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences include work towards promoting interdisciplinary collaboration in fields of inquiry located within and outside of the humanities and social sciences; to develop the internationalization of the University; to work with scholars within and outside of Taiwan; to collaborate nationally and internationally with institutions of higher learning in research projects; to hold national and international conferences; and to disseminate the Center's results in research and academic activities.
The Center's foci in research and in its academic activities include Early Modern and Renaissance Studies, Chin Dynasty Studies, Trans- and Intercultural Studies, and Ethnicity and Diaspora Studies. The Center's five- year project starting 2006 focuses on comparative ethnic studies. Research clusters include: diaspora in literature, development of national languages and dialects, and oceanic culture, etc. This center invites and appoints scholars to conduct research at the Center from the National Sun Yat-sen University, from other universities in Taiwan, as well as scholars at universities abroad. The Center's foundation year is 2006 following the administrative approval of the Center by the University's colleges of Liberal Arts, Science, and Management on 1 August 2007. The Center is with an International Advisory Board, a National Sun Yat-sen University Committee of Advisors, an academic faculty of permanent and term appointments, and administrative staff.
| Future Development and Prospect
Based on the structure of the International Humanities Center, the center is also developing in these two directions. The following is a breakdown:
1 Academic research Both the research project group and the book project are research oriented. The purpose of the research project group is to enable our professors to do research with academic masters and outstanding academics in order to consolidate the academic atmosphere and network, and indirectly can increase the academic visibility of the school. Book plans and ideas are based on the necessity of humanities. Books in science and engineering are generally textbooks. If humanities are solely aimed at publishing journals, they will lose the core value of humanities and academics, because many classics of humanities are often A single scholar's writing, or a subject-related article edited by a well-known scholar, therefore the latter's multiple perspectives have received much attention in the academic world.
2 Academic activities
(1) Organizing and co-organizing international conferences The organization of international conferences will be another way for academic development of the center. The center will organize research teams and actively participate in international conferences to increase the popularity of the school. All research projects belonging to the center will focus on the research direction of the team, guide international scholars to publish papers, assemble books under this theme, and actively cooperate with first-class higher education institutions.
(2) Deepening humanistic academic activities (literature lectures) Policy and social commentators of the Ministry of Education agree that deepening humanistic activities is the primary task of education. The Center plans to hold a lecture on the department of modern literature and art once a year. Promote the deepening of cultural and humanities activities.
(3) Visiting Scholars / Research Fellows of the Center (fellow) The Center intends to invite visiting scholars from abroad for short-term visits to conduct research work, which can also increase the opportunities for future cooperation with foreign universities. The center intends to set up researchers, who will hold lectures, academic research workshops for a long time, and assist in the implementation of short-term teaching courses and research at university and research institutes. International scholars who visited in 2007 were Professor Zhang Zhenhuan (Zhang Cuo), visiting scholars in other literary fields Steven Totosy and Stanley Rosen (now professors at the Department of Political Science and Director of the East Asian Studies Center of the University of Southern Canada) and Professor Zhang Cuo. Foreign Advisory Committee. Visiting scholars are a gateway to the internationalization of Sun Yat-sen University, and they can make intelligent use of academic resources. Visiting professors such as Academician Zheng Jinquan and Academician Li Oufan in the past two years; invited lectures include Academician Wang Dewei, Academician Huang Jinxing, Academician Jonathan Hart (Canada), Academician Claude Rowson (USA), and others. In addition, Assistant Professor Li Zhizhi of Laman University of Malaysia is scheduled to come to our center as a visiting scholar from September to December 2015. Post-doctoral researchers include Zhang Zhiwei and Ye Ziqing. (Note: The setting of the center's researcher requires more funding. The setting of this researcher will depend on the funding.)
The Humanities Research Center is committed to cross-cultural and cross-domain "characteristic" research, with active members and high publishing efficiency. We sincerely thank a number of academics from the Central Academy (such as Academician Zheng Jinquan, Li Youcheng, Distinguished Researcher of the European and American Research Institute, Shan Dexing, Director of the European and American Research Institute, Li Rengui, Adjunct Researcher of the Linguistics Research Institute, Liu Shiji, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Center, etc.) and others Scholars (such as Sandra Bermann, president of the American Comparative Literature Society, Robert E. Bjork, director of the Arizona State University's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Centers, etc.) have long-term support for the center's programs, participating in academic activities or thematic discussions organized by the center, and jointly boosting Academic energy, and continuously improve the academic research standard and visibility of the center.
