Last weekend, the Center for Social Sciences and Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) hosted an academic salon with the Shenzhen Social Science Federation. Scholars from more than ten universities from China and around the world came to SUSTech to discuss cultural heritage and social identity.

Center for Social Sciences Director Zhou Yongming welcomed all the attendees to the academic salon, before Deputy Director Wang Xiaokui discussed the main idea behind the academic salon. He highlighted the intertwining relationship between cultural heritage and social identity, pointed that heritage is the result of people’s values of past cultural events relative to current situations and requirements. In a mass-media era of diversified values, explaining the relationship between cultural heritage and social identity is critical to the development of society.

Through providing a deeper understanding of the formation of cultural heritage, the academic salon sought to analyze the theories and practices behind the identification and formation processes of cultural heritage.

Participating scholars discussed topics like cultural heritage theory & institutional research, cultural heritage protection & regional cultural identity, cultural heritage & the inheritance of folklore, cultural heritage & modern lifestyle reconstruction, and the creative cultural economy.

Attending scholars were pleased to be a part of this academic salon, which further promoted the development of the new liberal arts at SUSTech.