Social Theory in China, Social Theory of China

Chinese society has undergone enormous change since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. Sociology in China has also gone through distinctive phases of development, manifesting characteristic intellectual styles during the 1930s and 1940s, suspended from higher education institutions from 1952, then reinstated in the 1980s and soon flourishing to become the vibrant and growing discipline that it is today. At the present time sociology in China is diverse, technically sophisticated, global in its reach, and indigenized in its conceptual and theoretical formations. This session will examine from different perspectives both the types of social theory generated in China's universities and social science institutes, and also the ways in which Chinese society might be theoretically apprehended. As a regular session, there shall be no more than five presentations, each lasting up to 20 minutes.