Viewing posts for the category digital humanities

MARKUS update and new tools

Posted by: Hilde de Weerdt in digital humanities 6 years, 7 months ago

 

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Conference on Middle Period China, 800-1400

Posted by: mchu in member presentations conference chinese history networks digital humanities 7 years, 3 months ago

Team members Hilde De Weerdt and Chu Ming-kin participated in the “Conference on Middle Period China, 800-1400” at Harvard University on June 5-7, 2014. Discussion panels were based on time periods, themes, disciplines and modes of analysis. In her paper “War and Peace in the Civil Examinations”, which was part of a panel on military history, Hilde discussed the production and reception of military geographical knowledge and the application of a particular kind of historical reasoning in official and elite discussions of Song military conflicts with Jurchens, Tanguts, and Mongols. She argued that military and border policies became a central concern of the literate elite during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In his paper “Writing Letters to Qin Gui’s Clique: A Study of Zheng Gangzhong’s Epistolary Network” that was part of a panel on the political and economic power of elites, Ming-kin offered a case study on the relationship between early Southern Song literati and the chief councilor Qin Gui through an analysis of Zheng Gangzhong’s epistolary writings. He showed how Zheng Gangzhong attempted to build a good rapport with the people surrounding the councilor Qin Gui in order to maintain his position in Sichuan, discussing in particular the relationship between Zheng’s epistolary network and Qin’s long tenure as chief councilor.

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Two frameworks for understanding spatial control and political integration in Chinese history

Posted by: Hilde de Weerdt in chinese history networks digital humanities 7 years, 6 months ago

Two frameworks for understanding spatial control and political integration in Chinese history

Hilde De Weerdt

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Isn't the Siku quanshu enough? Reflections on the impact of new digital tools for classical Chinese

Posted by: Hilde de Weerdt in chinese history digital humanities 7 years, 7 months ago

Isn't the Siku quanshu enough?
Reflections on the impact of new digital tools for classical Chinese

At a recent workshop a Chinese cultural historian whom I hold in high esteem raised the following question: "Isn't the Siku quanshu enough?" The implication was that the search functionality of one of the largest digital corpora of classical Chinese texts has made a great contribution to Chinese cultural studies, that this is sufficient, and that no more precious research time should be spent on the creation, application, and revision of digital tools. The position is representative of a good proportion of humanities scholars. We have all become avid users of databases and search engines but we are concerned about the digitization of everything. Below I respond to the specific question regarding the Siku quanshu; the points I raise can also be read as a response to the more general question why humanities scholars should not rely on a limited set of large commercial text databases and why they should take an active interest in the question of which databases and which tools can best serve humanities research questions and methods in the future.

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Digital Interpretations

Posted by: Hilde de Weerdt in digital humanities 7 years, 8 months ago

Digital Interpretations

This post is based on an apology for my ecclectic use of digital research methods in the final part of a forthcoming monograph (Hilde De Weerdt, Information, Territory, and Networks: The Crisis and Maintenance of Empire in Song China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center). I first review the historical roots of historians' fears about the digital and proceed with an explanation of some potential and real benefits of digital methods for philological and historical inquiry.

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