Conference: Patterns and Networks in Classical Chinese Literature: Notes from the Digital Frontier

Twelve scholars from around the globe will present examples of the groundbreaking research taking place at the intersection of digital humanities and classical Chinese literary studies. Covering poetry, prose, fiction, history, linguistics, and philosophy over the course of two millennia, these studies will show how computing technologies can help researchers uncover previously unseen patterns and networks in their materials, shedding new light on premodern texts.

Keynote Address by Michael Fuller (East Asian Languages and Literatures, UC Irvine), “Digital Humanities and the Discontents of Meaning,” on Friday, February 9 at 4:30 PM.

Free and open to the public.

Conference participants include:
JING CHEN (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), TIMOTHY CLIFFORD (Bryn Mawr College), MICHAEL FULLER (UC Irvine), YI-LONG HUANG (National Tsing Hua University), CHAO-LIN LIU (National Chengchi University), CHEN LIU (Kyoto University), THOMAS MAZANEC (UCSB), EVAN NICOLL-JOHNSON (University of Alberta), DONALD STURGEON (Harvard University), JEFFREY THARSEN (University of Chicago), ZHAOPENG WANG (South Central University for Nationalities), BINGYU ZHENG (Princeton University), MARIANA ZORKINA (Universität Zürich)

Event Schedule:

February 9

8:30-9:00 Breakfast (open to all attendees)

9:00-9:15 Opening Remarks

9:15-10:15 Panel 1: Bibliography

• Jing CHEN (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), “Rethinking Influences: Calculating and Ranking ‘Impact Factors’ of Pre-Tang and Ancient-Style Poetry Anthologies in Late Imperial China”

• Evan NICOLL-JOHNSON (University of Alberta), “Drawing out the Essentials: Historiographic Annotation as an Intertextual Network”

10:45-11:45 Panel 2: Rhetoric

• Jeff THARSEN (University of Chicago), “Comparative Analyses of Early Chinese Literary-Historical Texts: Visualizing Phonorhetorical Passages in the Zuozhuan and the Guoyu”

• Yi-long HUANG (National Tsing Hua University), via Bingyu ZHENG (Princeton University), “New Frontiers of Electronic Textual Research in the Humanities: Investigating Classical Allusions in Chinese Poetry through Digital Methods”

12:00-1:30 Lunch (open to all attendees)

1:45-2:45 Panel 3: Language Choices

• Mariana ZORKINA (Universität Zürich), “Describing Objects in Tang Dynasty Poetic Language: A Study Based on Word Embeddings”

• Chao-lin LIU (National Chengchi University), “Exploring Chinese Poetry with Digital Assistance: Examples from Linguistic, Literary, and Historical Viewpoints”

3:15-4:15 Panel 4: Shared Texts

• *Timothy CLIFFORD (Bryn Mawr College), “Visualizing Alternative Literary Canons in Ming Dynasty China (1368-1644): A Preliminary Case Study”

• Donald STURGEON (Harvard University), “Text Reuse in the Early Chinese Corpus”

4:30-5:45 Keynote Address

• Michael FULLER (UC Irvine), “Digital Humanities and the Discontents of Meaning”

5:45-6:30 Reception (open to all attendees)

February 10

9:00-9:30 Breakfast

9:30-11:00 Panel 5: Social Networks

• Zhaopeng WANG (South Central University for Nationalities), via Thomas MAZANEC (UC Santa Barbara), “Spatial Distribution and Displacement of the Poetic Landscape in the Tang-Song period: A Data Analysis Based on ‘A Chronological Map of Tang-Song Literature’”

• *Chen LIU (Kyoto University), “Epistolary Network and the Rise of Letteret as a Literary Genre: A Case Study of the Letters of Su Shi and Huang Tingjian”

• Thomas MAZANEC (UC Santa Barbara), “Networks of Exchange Poetry in Late Medieval China: Notes toward a Dynamic Literary History”

11:30-1:00 Lunch and Concluding Discussion (open to all attendees)

Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the College of Letters & Science, Humanities and Fine Arts, the Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, Center for Taiwan Studies, the East Asia Center, the Center for Information Technology and Society, and the Departments of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, and History.