Digital China is a new initiative promoting the adoption of digital tools and practices in Chinese studies.
Initiatives
China Biographical Database
A freely accessible relational database with biographical information on over half a million individuals in Chinese history.
Latest Research
Transforming the Work of Literary Sinitic Studies Through Generative AI: A Q+A with the Digital China Initiative’s Kwok-leong Tang
For the great majority of Fridays during this Fall semester,…
Norbu Ketaka: An AI Journey Through Ancient Tibetan Manuscripts
“Norbu ketaka,” Tibetan for “cleansing jewel,” refers to a gem…
Reengaging with Chinese Universities – Professor Peter K. Bol Takes the China Biographical Database (CBDB) on the Road
In late October and November, as part of the initiatives…
Fellowships
Since 2014, the Fairbank Center has supported digital humanities and social sciences through postdoctoral fellowships, including our An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship. Past postdoctoral fellows focusing on digital methods in Chinese Studies include:
2014-2015: Paul Vierthaler, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
Paul Vierthaler’s research focuses on late Ming and early Qing literary representations of recent events, late Imperial print culture and history, genre analysis, and authorship studies. His research incorporates a combination of close reading and traditional critical analysis with natural language processing, corpus linguistics, machine learning and unstructured/structured data analysis.
2015-2017: Donald Sturgeon, 2015-2016 Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, and 2016-2017 An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
Donald Sturgeon’s research project, “Big Data and Early China: Corpus-Assisted Interpretation of Classical Chinese,” develops and evaluates fully automated methods for analyzing the contents of pre-modern Chinese documents and their relation to a large existing corpus of pre-modern Chinese writing.
2017-2018: Ameila Ying Qin, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
Amelia Ying Qin’s research includes anecdotal narratives, biji (brush jottings), and traditional print culture. Her project at the Fairbank Center includes performing distant reading of around three thousand anecdotes through quantitative analysis, with the goal of visualizing and incorporating her results into a book manuscript.+
Our Experts
Courses
2014-2015: Paul Vierthaler, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
Paul Vierthaler’s research focuses on late Ming and early Qing literary representations of recent events, late Imperial print culture and history, genre analysis, and authorship studies. His research incorporates a combination of close reading and traditional critical analysis with natural language processing, corpus linguistics, machine learning and unstructured/structured data analysis.
2015-2017: Donald Sturgeon, 2015-2016 Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, and 2016-2017 An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
Donald Sturgeon’s research project, “Big Data and Early China: Corpus-Assisted Interpretation of Classical Chinese,” develops and evaluates fully automated methods for analyzing the contents of pre-modern Chinese documents and their relation to a large existing corpus of pre-modern Chinese writing.
2017-2018: Ameila Ying Qin, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
Amelia Ying Qin’s research includes anecdotal narratives, biji (brush jottings), and traditional print culture. Her project at the Fairbank Center includes performing distant reading of around three thousand anecdotes through quantitative analysis, with the goal of visualizing and incorporating her results into a book manuscript.+
International Chinese Studies Virtual Events Clearing-House
