Guest Speakers
Ms. Haihui Zhang
Head of the East Asian LibraryUniversity of Pittsburgh Library System, USA
-
Presentation title:
The Contemporary Chinese Village Database Project
Abstract:
Chinese local gazetteers are a unique primary resource with a long history in China. They include narratives and qualitative data for China’s most basic administrative unit. Data at this level of detail can only be found in village gazetteers. The Contemporary Chinese Village Gazetteer Data Project (CCVG Data) www.chinesevillagedata.library.pitt.edu is a project initiated and conducted by the East Asian Library (EAL) of the University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS). In August, 2019 CCVG Data project completed its first stage as a pilot project and open the first 500 village data for teaching and research of Chinese studies. In August, 2022 2,500 villages’ data were extracted, entered, and opened to the public in September. Our presentation will include workflow, data structure, indexing and extraction, quality control, user platform, etc. From book to dataset, CCVG Data is not only support Chinese studies but also a meaningful exploration of digital humanities. CCVG Data does answers some questions such as quantitative studies to support humanities studies, librarians collaborate with scholars on DH project, librarians collaborate with scientists to build database and interactive platform, etc.
Ms. Sarah Zhang
Librarian for Geography, GIS, and MapsSimon Fraser University, Canada
-
Presentation title:
A Legacy of Race and Data: Mining the History of Exclusion
Abstract:
The Canadian government imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants entering Canada between 1885 and 1923 in order to restrict immigration. While a print register was created to keep track of the influx of migrants, the detailed recording unintentionally produced years of demographic information about the immigrants which is now a rich source of data for researchers. These original records were painstakingly transformed into a digital spreadsheet which includes 97,123 registrants, a project led by history scholars at the University of British Columbia (UBC) from 2005 to 2007. Following that, a project was initiated to normalize various transliterations of the immigrants’ origins in the data, which lays the groundwork for more in-depth research. But to what extent have scholars dug into this data? This question has been driving our work. In this talk, I will summarize our analysis of the data employing the methodology of network analysis and statistical analysis. The implications of the study include raising awareness among DH researchers of the substantive untapped potential of the Chinese head tax data and providing testimony to librarians capable of sourcing a goldmine of digital scholarship. I will also discuss the possible directions for how the data can be further studied, particularly in the context of open science.
Dr. Thomas Mazanec
Assistant ProfessorDepartment of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
University of California, Santa Barbra, USA
-
Presentation title:
Dynamic Literary History: On Digitally-Assisted Geographic, Social, and Textual Analysis of Late-Tang Poetry
Abstract:
Literary history has long been plagued by the problem of scale. How can close readings of exemplary literary works account for vast, changing systems of relations among texts; between texts, people, and the world; and among the critical, social, political, intellectual, and material conditions that shape the production of texts? The answer, I propose, is a combination of macro- and microscopic analysis that would highlight the dynamism and agency of these texts, their producers, and their audiences. Using examples from my forthcoming book Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China, I demonstrate how geographical data, social-network analysis, and statistics on the usage of certain literary techniques can shed new light on previously overlooked corners of the archive of late Tang poetry. In this way, I propose that digital methods should be used in dialectical combination with analogue ones, honing literary historians’ questions and pointing them to neglected materials. Digital methods are a beginning, not an end, to literary research.
Dr. Martin Grandjean
LecturerHistory Department
University of Lausanne, Switzerland
-
Presentation title:
Historical Network Analysis: Understanding the Structure of the League of Nations Archives
Abstract:
This contribution proposes a reflection on the use of network analysis in history on the basis of a complex case study: how to account for the structure of interpersonal relationships in an archive of several tens of thousands of documents? The archives of the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations, are fascinating material for studying the political and administrative logic of such an institution in the 1920s and 1930s. Focusing on one section in particular, we show that network analysis allows us to highlight the singular role of certain unexpected personalities in the exchange of information. Writing the history of such an institution using these methods not only allows for the exploration of new research questions but also creates new links between archival and historical issues.
HKBU Faculty Speakers
Dr. Kin Sum Sammy Li
Associate Professor, Department of History- Kin Sum (Sammy) LI 李建深, is associate professor at the Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). He obtains his B.A. and M.Phil. degrees in Translation and East Asian Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Ph.D. degree in art and archaeology from Princeton University. He is interested in the history of mass production in the ancient world and he attempts to study industrial art with the assistance of science and technology. He is working on articles and a book manuscript on the arts of ancient China. Recently he develops an interest in the study of tea history.
Project to be discussed in his presentation: Teaching Chinese History with 3D Models of Artifacts
Dr. Xinzhi Zhang
Assistant Professor, Department of Interactive Media- Dr Xinzhi Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Interactive Media at Hong Kong Baptist University. His research focuses on political communication, digital journalism, and digital humanities. His work on digital media's production and social effects has appeared in top-tier journals such as Computers in Human Behaviour, Social Media + Society, Digital Journalism, Social Science Computer Review, Health Communication, International Journal of Communication, and Journalism. He was awarded two competitive research grants under the General Research Fund (GRF) from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of the Hong Kong SAR (in 2019 and 2020, respectively). He serves as the Editorial Board Member of Digital Journalism.
Project to be discussed in his presentation: Sci-fi blockbusters’ representation of cyborgs and its impacts on audiences’ perception of human-machine communication
Prof. Helan Yang
Professor, Academy of Music- Prof. Yang’s research is cross-cultural and interdisciplinary, ranging from nineteenth-century American symphonic music to contemporary Chinese music, both “serious” and “popular” in style and appeal. She has received numerous research grants, including two General Research Fund (GRF) grants from the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong. She is currently working on a number of projects, including a co-authored volume with Simo Mikkonen and John Winzenburg entitled Networking the Russian Diaspora: Russian Musical Activities and Musicians in Interwar Shanghai (on advance contract by the University of Hawaii Press) as well as on a book on cover songs and creativity.
Project to be discussed in her presentation: Resounding the Scores - Music Office Chinese Ensemble Music Collection
