Asian-African Language Institute-Tunisia Studies Center held the third lecture of "Thought Sailing" series

On the evening of October 29th, the third lecture of the "Thought Sail" series of the School of Asian-African Languages-Tunisia Studies Center invited Professor Sun Xiaomeng from Beijing Foreign Studies University to give an academic lecture with a title of "National and Regional Studies in the Context of 'New Liberal Arts': Perspectives" , Theories and methods". Zhang Jingshu, deputy dean of the School of Asian-African Languages and Director of the Tunisian Studies Center of the University of Foreign Studies, presided over this lecture. Leaders of the Department of Scientific Research and Graduate Studies of Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Russian Studies Center, Ukrainian Studies Center, Armenian Studies Center, and Kazakhstan Studies Research Center, Tunisian Studies Center, Northeast Asian Studies Center, Irish Studies Center and other institutions, as well as teachers and students from the School of Asian-African Languages, School of International Relations, School of English, and School of Russian participated in the lecture. Also presented at the lecture were experts from Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University, Yunnan University, Heilongjiang University, Shaanxi Normal University, and China Public Security University. The number of lectures was about 230.

Professor Sun Xiaomeng is a senior researcher at St. Anthony's College, University of Oxford, a researcher at the Secretariat of University Country and Regional Studies, and a "Xiaoxiang Scholar" Chair Professor at Hunan Normal University; currently the vice president of the Chinese Society of African History and the National Global Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Special researcher of think tank, executive director of China Association for African Studies, vice president of China Non-common Language Teaching and Research Association, director of London Confucius Institute, etc.; presided over and participated in a number of National Social Science Foundation projects; published translations and monographs, and won The second prize of National Teaching Achievement Award of the Ministry of Education and the first prize of Beijing Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award.

Professor Sun Xiaomeng started with the social background, needs of the times and key tasks of the construction of "New Liberal Arts", and stated that the construction of "New Culture" aims to cultivate comprehensive talents who are suitable for the country to further open up to the outside world, and cultivate talents in the National Belt and Road Initiative. National and regional research talents, cultivate high-end talents who are engaged in the comparison of Chinese and foreign civilizations, cultures, characters, and languages, and cultivate high-end talents who interpret Chinese civilization, system, and development. The construction of "New Liberal Arts" will focus on the construction of new majors or new directions, exploring new models, building new courses, and new theories, so as to stand in the new era, respond to new needs, and promote the integration, modernity, sinicization and internationalization of liberal arts , Leading the new development of humanities and social sciences, and serving people's modern goals. Then, Professor Sun took "Asian-African Regional Studies" as an example to specifically introduce the four characteristics of the combination of macro and micro, the combination of foundation and application, strong empirical studies, and cross-discipline of national regional research.

Afterwards, through describing the characteristics of country and region research, everyone fully understood the necessity of country and region research, and explained in detail the development process of China in the three stages of country and region research. Afterwards, Professor Sun took SOAS University of the School of Asian-African Languages at the University of London as an example to illustrate the need for interdisciplinary, global focus, and refinement of the direction of discipline construction, combined with the strength of the research center; and the development of the African Studies Center of Zhejiang Normal University and Tsinghua University as an example of national research projects to introduce China’s current advanced experience in national and regional research disciplines. Through a general introduction to these national and regional research projects, it leads to professor Sun’s position on the future development of national and regional research. Views and hopes on issues, talent training, and think tank construction.

Finally, Professor Sun Xiaomeng interacted with the participating teachers and students. Teachers and students actively asked questions about national and regional research. Professor Sun carefully answered questions about the need to pay attention to and evade national and regional research in field research. She also answered how national and regional research can serve national politics, and the future direction of the research. With national and regional studies as a subject platform, under which different first-level subjects converge, the mode of undergraduate talent training will be gradually improved.

In the summary, Dean Zhang Jingshu thanked Professor Sun Xiaomeng for her wonderful explanation, and said that this lecture has built a good communication and recognition platform for teachers and students. Through this lecture, it has built a rich theoretical system of national and regional studies. As a Chinese researcher, you should base yourself in China, care about the world, achieve the sum of depth and breadth, and actively make due contributions to the construction of the "new liberal arts". (Li Han)