Chinese Social History Research Center of Shanxi University, founded in 1992, is the earliest research institute named by social history in China. Pro. Qiao Zhiqiang, the late famous social historian, was the first director. Pro. Xing Long now takes the place of him and Pro. Hao Ping is the executive director. The center is a primary research unit and a major research base of humanities and social science in Shanxi’s colleges and universities. At present, there are 9 full-time scientific researchers , mainly at middle-young age and in doctoral degree, including 3 professors, 5 associate professors and a lecturer, who consist of a team full of energy and spirit of innovation.
With the revival of social history research in the past 30 years, scholars in three generations follow the tradition, serve as a link between the past and future, make tracks for research and achieve the accepted accomplishment in academic circles step by step. Therefore, the center has been honored as one of the most important social history research departments in China. A number of research results with higher academic quality have received highly attention in academic community. Chinese Modern Social History (People’s Press,1992), written by Qiao Zhiqiang, the first systematic social history research work, is known that the social history research “Takes the first step from theoretical study to practical operation” . Xing Long’s work Walking toward Field and Society (Beijing Joint Press,2007) was praised as the masterpiece of social history research on “the new integral history”. It is “A Miniature of Exploring Chinese Social History Study in the past twenty years and it is also one of the landmark achievements of tending to localization”. So far, the teachers and students have published more than 20 kinds of academic works, published about five hundred academic theses of all kinds, and completed more than forty projects, including the international cooperation projects, the national social science fund for key bidding project , the major national social science fund project , general project , youth project and humanities social science fund project from the Ministry of Education.
Besides academic researches, the center also emphasizes on the combination between scientific researches and teaching practice, fully realizing the sound interaction between them. In 1993, a lecture called “building a new system of Chinese modern social history subjects” given by Mr. Qiao Zhiqiang, won a prize for outstanding teaching achievement in former national educational commission. From 2007 to 2008, Pro. Xing Long successively won the prizes of “The National Excellent Course of Regional Social History Introduction” and “The National Excellent Teaching Team of Regional Social History Studies”. His book An Introduction to Modern Chinese Social History has also been listed as a planned textbook in the twelfth Five-Year Plan of the Ministry of Education.
For many years, the center advocates the academic concept of “Walking to field and society”. In October 2008, based on tens of millions of collection of Shanxi rural social grassroots files from the collectivization era archives , we initially held a comprehensive exhibition named "Rural Society in the Collectivism Era " in the integration of academic research and teaching, “What abundant and specific materials, amazing”! The exhibition shows the remarkable achievements in Chinese rural research data construction in the collectivism era and pushes the research into the academic forefront.
In recent years, the center has promoted mutual communication and exchange visits with domestic and foreign academic circles. Since 2003, combined with the forefront of social history research and practice, the center has regularly held at least one academic seminar every year. Some of them are given great attention such as “Regional social history comparative research on young and middle-aged scholars international academic seminar”, “The population, resources, environment and social changes international academic seminar” , “The theory and method of Chinese social history research and in memory of Mr. Qiao Zhiqiang’s 80th birthday seminar”, “The first international seminar of Chinese rural social study in the collectivism era ”, etc., all of which promoted the further development of Chinese social history research. It also establishes a long-term cooperative research and exchange relations with Toyo library of China and the Chinese University of Hong Kong research service center, and other research institutions. As a result, the internationalization degree has been enhanced.
The center has abundant amount of knowledge which has been passed down from generation to generation. Relying on Chinese postdoctoral research moving station, modern Chinese history doctoral station and the first subject of history master station, with the standard of history, the center fully absorbs the theories and methods of multi-disciplinary such as sociology, anthropology, folklore and historical geography, actively carries out a long period of modern Chinese social changes, integral history, and especially highlights the regional features. Refining localized academic theory, the center also precisely grasps and understands the integral Chinese social history and strives to build a data center, research center and personal training center with a high reputation both at home and abroad.
Currently, the center is located on the first and second floor of Jianzhi Building with an area of more than 1,000 m2. The comprehensive exhibition of the Rural Society in the collectivism era , the meeting room and the experts’ room are on the second floor; the material room, the archive room, the academic report room, the first, second and third research rooms and the postgraduates working room are on the first floor.
The researchers of the center are: Xing Long, Hao Ping, Zhang Junfeng, Hu Yingze, Han Xiaoli, Ma Weiqiang, Chang Libing, Li Ga and Zhao Zhongya.
Archivist: Feng Yanhua
Address: 92#, Wucheng Road, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province
Website: http:// rccsh. sxu.edu.cn