Taking the Social Sciences & Humanities to greater heights

The second International Symposium on Social Sciences & Humanities (ISSSH) under the theme ‘Development Towards Sustainability’ will be held on December 12 and 13 at the Waters Edge hotel in Battaramulla.

The symposium is organised by The National Centre for Adva n c e d Studies in Humanities & Social Sciences ( NCAS) along with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Higher Education Ministry.

The conference will highlight 13 tracks: arts, music, culture & heritage, language, literature & linguistics, history, civilisations & population dynamics, green economy, eco-tourism & sustainable development/ mass media, entertainment & recreational activities, education & technology, physical education, tourism & hospitality, accounting, finance, human resource development, entrepreneurship, taxation, environment conservation, rural development & good governance, law & the legal system, constitution & democracy, human rights, gender studies, counselling, rehabilitation & social development, religious studies, philosophy, applied psychology & human psychology, sociology & social work, worklife balance, changing life-styles, beliefs & value systems/ geo-politics, world peace, national security, administrative & political reforms and other issues of interest related to the development of social sciences and humanities.

John D. Rogers, Director of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and a former member of the South Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies will be the key note speaker.

He is an executive board member of the Society for Advancing the History of South Asia. He has held research awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council and the National Science Foundation.

Dr Rogers has written the book Crime, Justice & Society in Colonial Sri-Lanka (1987) and many articles on the modern social and legal history of Sri Lanka as well. The plenary speakers will be Foreign Secretary R av i n a t h a Ariyasinghe, Prof. Chandra Kent Sharma, Head of the

Institute of Agriculture Sciences at SAGE University, India and Dr Mir Abdul Sofique, an alum of the University of Burdwan, India.

“For five years this symposium was a national conference. Last year it became an international platform and we received about 160 research abstracts. We selected about 120 abstracts, and presentations were conducted on 60 abstracts, at the conference,” said NCAS Director Prof. Lal Mervin Dharmasiri.

“This year we received more than 200 abstracts. Some of them are from countries like Israel, Nigeria and different regions of India including Rajasthan, West Bengal, Hydrabad and Delhi.”

“We will select the best 60 abstracts for the presentations and they will be further developed and published in the Sri Lanka Journal of Advanced Social Studies, which we are currently working on.”

Chief Guest Indian High Commisioner Taranjit Singh Sandhu and Guest of Honour Higher Education Ministry Secretary Anura Dissanayaka at the ISSSH Symposium.