On July 12th, 2024, Professor Liu Sida, a noted professor at the Faculty of Law and an Honorary Professor at the School of Sociology at University of Hong Kong, visited CDUT for an exchange and academic discussion. The symposium was chaired by Tan Quanwan, Secretary of the CPC CDUT Committee and a professor of CDUT.
During the symposium, the attending faculty engaged in profound discussions on different topics including the characteristics and boundaries of law and sociology, the research subjects of disciplinary inspection and supervision studies, the impact of generative artificial intelligence on academic research, research methodologies in interdisciplinary fields, and the optimization of teaching methods in legal sociology.
Professor Liu Sida recommended that legal sociologists should express their findings in a manner that is accessible to a broader audience, reconciling the tension between interpreting theoretical concepts and analyzing specific phenomena. He also encouraged the young faculty of CDUT to solidly grasp the research methods and paradigms within their disciplines, to embrace generative artificial intelligence actively, and to utilize intelligent tools to enhance their academic research outcomes.
In conclusion, Professor Tang Qingli, Deputy Secretary of CPC CDUT Committee and Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission, emphasized that academic research should not be insular and should “reach out” to broaden perspectives. He expressed his hope that all teachers and students of CDUT will continue to strive and forge ahead. Moving forward, the School of Humanities and Law will continue to strengthen external exchanges and cooperation, intensify talent acquisition, and lead with disciplinary construction to promote the high-quality development of CDUT.
Profile of Professor Liu Sida:
Liu Sida is a professor at the Faculty of Law and an Honorary Professor at the School of Sociology of the University of Hong Kong. His research interests encompass legal sociology, Chinese law and society, criminal justice and human rights, law and globalization, and legal sociology theory. He has conducted extensive empirical research on various aspects of Chinese legal reform and the legal profession. Beyond empirical studies, Professor Liu has also focused on theoretical writings concerning law, profession, and social spaces. His representative works include With or Without the Law: The Changing Meaning of Ordinary Legal Work in China, 1979-2003 (Peking University Press, 2008), The Logic of Fragmentation: An Ecological Analysis of the Chinese Legal Services Market (Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2011), Criminal Defense in China: The Politics of Lawyers at Work (co-authored with Terence C. Halliday, Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Asian Journal of Law and Society (co-authored with Lynette J. Chua and David M. Engel, Cambridge University Press, 2023). He has contributed numerous articles to internationally renowned legal and social science journals. Professor Liu Sida has held positions such as visiting researcher at the American Bar Foundation, visiting scholar at the Asian Law Institute of New York University Law School, and visiting scholar at the Center for the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He also serves as Vice Dean of the China Law and Society Research Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has served as President of the Law and Society Section of the American Sociological Association and as a board member of academic organizations such as the Law and Society Association, the Asian Law and Society Association, the Canadian Law and Society Association, and the Consortium for Undergraduate Law and Society Programs. Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong, Professor Liu taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a Bachelor of Law degree from Peking University Law School and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton during the 2016-to-2017 academic year.
