On the evening of June 23, 2026, an academic lecture titled "Toward Interdisciplinary Research Integrating Law, Social Sciences, and Humanities" was successfully held in Room 434, Xingmin Building, Xianlin Campus of Nanjing Normal University. The lecture was delivered by Professor You Chenjun from the Law School of Renmin University of China and was chaired by Professor Fang Le, Dean of the Law School of Nanjing Normal University. Associate Professor Zhang Chujia served as the discussant. Undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students from all levels of our college attended the lecture, creating a strong academic atmosphere.

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At the beginning of the lecture, Dean Fang Le extended a warm welcome to Professor You Chenjun and introduced his outstanding achievements in the fields of legal culture, sociology of law, and legal history.

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Professor You Chenjun opened his lecture by invoking Mr. Ge Zhaoguang's pedagogical philosophy in the humanities—"providing undergraduates with common knowledge, graduates with methods, and doctoral students with perspectives"—and noted that this lecture aimed to equip the graduate students present with the methodological tools and academic vision necessary for conducting research in their respective fields. He began by comparing the Chinese "Social Sciences of Law" movement with legal dogmatics, as well as the "Social Sciences of Law" movement in China with the "Law and Society Movement" in the United States. This led him to introduce Lawrence Friedman's concept of "socio-legal history," revealing a crucial yet often overlooked research trajectory within the American law and society movement—namely, the historical research path as distinct from empirical research.

Professor You then turned his attention to the development of the Social Sciences of Law movement in China. He pointed out that in 2005, both the "Social Scientific Research of Law" symposium and the "Law and Humanities" symposium were convened. However, while the academic discussions initiated by the former have continued to deepen to this day, the latter has gradually declined. In contrast, research on "Law and Humanities" in the United States is flourishing. Professor You argued that there is vast research space in this area in China as well. Taking the use of emojis in online communication and the judicial cases arising from them as an example, he pointed out that the same symbol may be interpreted quite differently by different individuals, and such cognitive divergence itself may become the root of disputes and even litigation. The film The Gua Sha Treatment has long since vividly presented the conflicts arising from cultural cognitive differences. He thus proposed that, against the backdrop of increasingly frequent global population mobility, understanding the legal issues arising from cross-cultural exchanges is equally worthy of in-depth exploration—issues of this kind precisely constitute vibrant material that cannot be overlooked in future legal research.

Professor You Chenjun further pointed out that legal research can accommodate a wide range of research approaches and draw upon a wealth of research materials. However, the depth of interpretation of relevant materials currently remains insufficient, requiring sustained attention and breakthroughs. He emphasized that research in law and humanities appeals to a nuanced understanding and interpretation of the internal mechanisms and deep-seated logics of legal phenomena. This approach cannot be reduced to quantitative indicators, yet it precisely constitutes the indispensable humanistic foundation of legal research.

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During the discussion session, Associate Professor Zhang Chujia observed that this lecture offered both a retrospective reflection on academic history and a profound reconsideration of interdisciplinary research, revealing the humanistic foundation beneath the "Law and Social Sciences" movement. She noted that Professor You's presentation embodied the refined research style of a leading scholar in jurisprudence and legal history, and that his subtle academic observations are well worth absorbing and learning from for scholars in specialized fields of law.

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In the open discussion session, students enthusiastically raised questions on topics such as the challenges of interdisciplinary approaches in judicial practice, how to evaluate the dispute resolution capacity of ancient Chinese county offices, and the writing conventions and research methods for papers in law and humanities. Professor You Chenjun responded to each question in detail. He argued that legal research should adopt diverse and competitive approaches to research and interpretation, and that law and humanities scholarship precisely pursues those contextual understandings that are difficult to quantify but are essential to the deep logic of legal practice.

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