Major Issues in Humanities and Social Sciences for the 21st Century

Author: Organizing Committee of this book
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-04-01
Features: The 20th century was the most turbulent, dynamic, and diverse century in human history. During this period, various humanistic and social phenomena were complex and ever-changing, posing many challenging and difficult major issues for the study of humanities and social sciences. At the turn of the century, people sought to summarize history and look ahead to the future, proposing rational reflections and judgments to better engage in theoretical exploration and practical endeavors as the new century dawned. Mobilizing academic forces from all sides to conduct a large-scale concentrated reflection on the current status, trends, and prospects of different aspects of humanities and social sciences could provide a broader perspective and comprehensive, authoritative references for further academic research. Due to the planning of this book, special requirements were placed on the selected issues. We adopted the practice of ensuring both the author's high caliber and the high quality of the articles. Therefore, like 100 Scientific Challenges for the 21st Century, this book also only features an Organizing Committee without an Editorial Committee. For the sake of specialization, the Organizing Committee was responsible for selecting authors and preliminarily setting the direction of the issues, while the final determination of the issues was left to the authors themselves. In the process of organizing this manuscript, over 160 experts were contacted, and after discussions with the Organizing Committee members and consultations with various parties, more than 140 issues were initially set based on the standard of "directly related to the cultural and civilizational direction of humanity and the various fields of social life in the 21st century and unavoidable." Over the course of more than a year, with repeated adjustments, changes in personnel, and shifts in topics, the final 100 issues were determined by 106 authors and organizers. This absolutely does not mean that we believe there are only 100 major issues in the humanities and social sciences facing the 21st century. On the contrary, during the drafting process, we deeply realized that there are countless major issues in the field of humanities and social sciences. Some of them were considered and arranged during our planning, but ultimately, due to various reasons, they were not completed. Given that we cannot exhaust all major issues and are unable to provide a reasonable ranking for them—even if such a ranking is fundamentally impossible. Therefore, presenting these 100 issues, if they can draw attention from all sides to major issues, remind scholars to focus their efforts on researching them, and guide young students to develop an awareness of major issues during their studies, our fundamental goal would be achieved.