ISA Regional Conferences.

This article highlights regional conferences of the International Sociological Association (ISA) as of May 1997. The conference entitled the Future of Sociology in Eastern Asia, was attended by many sociologists from many countries of the region. The papers encompassed contributions of authors coming from the Korean Republic, Japan, continental China, Taiwan, Hong-Kong and the U.S. The introductory speech of I. Wallerstein, the president of ISA, opened the crucial discourse by a critical analysis of Eurocentrism in sociology. Wallerstein, on the other hand, defended certain universal contributions of European sociological thought, and on the other hand, stated his hitherto prevailing inability to prevent the separation of social science from philosophy and the humanities--that is, the search for good and beauty, of scientific knowledge from social and political action, and consequently, the insufficient critical approach to the dominating capitalist social and economic system. An analogous regional conference, The Building of an Open Society and the Prospects of Sociology in Eastern and Central Europe, organized in September 1996, somewhat differed from the model pre-supposed by the leadership of the ISA.