Welcome to the latest edition of the Editor’s Digest, a recurring feature introduced this academic year. This installment aims to provide a comprehensive recap of publications within specific areas of study. We’ve heard from Jonathan Robker, who launched this new series with a digest on Middle Eastern and African Studies, which was followed by Mariana Zorkina’s on Chinese Studies, and James Harry Morris’ on Northeast Asian Studies. As we conclude this year’s series, let’s take a retrospective look at the contributions from the Central and South Asian Studies team.
This year marked a significant expansion of our team, with the addition of eight new and guest contributors. Their collective expertise has added depth and breadth, covering an even wider range of topics, tools, and methodologies. While it’s impossible to delve into each piece in the detail it deserves, I hope this digest will offer a glimpse into the dynamic and diverse nature of our team.
Alice Casalini has continued her exploration of digital reconstructions within Asian art historical practice, beginning with an insightful interview with Dr Zhenru Zhou, who specialises in Buddhist art and architecture across China and the Silk Roads. Their discussion delves into Zhou’s work on the Dunhuang caves and reflects on the transformative potential of digital tools in architecture. Casalini’s subsequent post extends her exploration to the applications of AI in restoring damaged artifacts and reconstructing ancient structures. Through addressing prevailing fears and probing AI’s capacity to enrich scholarly pursuits, her analysis contributes to a more nuanced discourse on the benefits and challenges associated with intergrating ever-advancing technologies into art history and cultural heritage studies.
The vicinity of the Northern Colossal Image Cave, the Mogao Caves (Dunhuang, China). Various sources, photocollage by Dr Zhenru Zhou.
Expanding further into the fields of digital reconstruction and visualisation, our new contributor, Agnes Sung, presents examples of online exhibitions spotlighting the Silk Roads, leveraging advancements in technology to broaden scope and accessibility. While Sung’s focus is on the Silk Roads, her work will resonate with curators and educators engaged in digital initiatives with cultural artifacts. In her serialised second post (part two is here), Sung meticulously examines various tools and techniques employed in digital reconstruction – including digital archiving and GIS mapping – while introducing a selection of current projects and initiatives as illustrative case studies.
Facilitating access to cultural heritage was also explored by Daniel Wojahn, another new addition to our team, in his post on Transforming the Way We Interact with Digital (Text) Collections with IIIF. Beyond being a mere framework for sharing structural metadata about digital materials, Wojahn considers IIIF’s potential as a versatile tool for bridging storytelling with research, to create interactive learning materials, thereby opening possibilities for materials to be explored and engaged with in more creative and thought-provoking ways. While undoubtedly of interest to those within GLAM institutions, it is also highly recommended for educators and researchers seeking innovative approaches to engaging students and public audiences alike. In his second post, Wojahn shifts focus to a hands-on perspective on the opportunities and considerations involved in teaching digital humanities, drawing from his recent experience of co-running a one-day workshop at Wolfson College, Oxford.
An example of applying annotations to IIIF; the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō Canon of Buddhist Scriptures with detailed annotations.
Returning contributor Rohan Chauhan continues to write comprehensive guides as part of his ongoing and popular series on training custom OCR/HTR models. These guides are especially interesting for those who are exploring options outside of Transkribus and/or don’t know where to start with testing different options. In his posts this year, Chauhan walks through the steps involved in training text recognition and segmentation models using Kraken.
New contributors bring fresh perspectives and insights, sharing not only their expertise but also the tools and digital landscapes that facilitate their work. For example, Orestis Georgalas delivers a comprehensive exploration of various digital platforms and collections, shedding light on the connections between the global Cold War and decolonization. While, Roshane Shahbaz navigates through the digital archives and resources that have enriched her research on the 1947 Partition of Punjab, including unconventional outlets like social media accounts. Both contributions offer a wealth of valuable resources for anyone engaged in these fields of study.
Zezhou Yang’s debut post delves into the dynamic realm of social media, spotlighting the evolving representations of the Himalayan region, particularly Nepal, as portrayed in contemporary Chinese vlogs. Yang probes and challenges current approaches to alternative knowledge productions like vlogs, highlighting their potential as powerful tools for public engagement and for extending the impact of academic research within the field of Area Studies. His next post, scheduled for May, looks at video games as effective tools for engaging with alternative voices and histories.
A still from a vlog by Daming (大明).
Erica Biagetti joined us as a guest contributor this year, bringing insights into Computational Linguistics, which are rarely featured in DO. Her debut post introduces Sanskrit WordNet, part of a family of WordNets that are being developed within the project Linked WordNets for Ancient Indo-European Languages. Her second post jumps a couple of thousand years forward, introducing another project Biagetti is involved with, Modi Treebank, which will create a multilingual parallel treebank of speeches by Narendra Modi. These posts serve as accessible introductions for those interested in using computational methods for contrastive linguistics and/or a fine-grained analysis of linguistic features and phenomena. Biagetti promises to provide updates on progress in the next academic year!
Syntax tree created Erica Biagetti using Syntax Tree Generator.
Anna Batzeli contributed a guest post on Indian-Yugoslavian relations in the 20th century, specifically on Tito’s visit to India in 1954 and how the state visit was received and portrayed by Greek media. Batzeli provides useful historical context before introducing the online archives used in her research, which house an impressive collection of 131 Greek newspapers. Contributions such as this point to the interdisciplinary and transnational connections that shape our understanding of historical interactions across regions, providing novel perspectives.
Soni Wadhwa offers a fascinating glimpse into the creation of a digital archive in her piece P G Sindhi Library: A Digital Archive for Sindhi Writing Published in Post-Partition India. Through her detailed account, Wadhwa provides interesting insights into the challenges and motivations behind the archive’s development, shedding light on the complex linguistic and cultural landscape of the Sindhi community in India. As she navigates the process of digitising and curating the collection, Wadhwa’s account offers valuable lessons for anyone interested in the preservation and dissemination of minority language literature. Her second piece, which is scheduled for May, will be a review of Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller’s Linked Data for Digital Humanities.
Metadata from the P G Sindhi Library in Roman, Perso-Arabic, and Devanagari Scripts
In addition to pieces by our contributors, we are excited to be publishing the proceedings of The Digital Orientalist’s 2023 conference in April and May—another new addition to our calendar. Some of these overlap with the region’s focus, for example, this week’s contribution by Alex Gardner and Catherine Tsuji presents the ongoing efforts to ensure the sustainability of the Treasury of Lives, an online biographical encyclopedia focused on Tibet and associated regions. With a history spanning seventeen years, their insights offer valuable perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of digital humanities projects.
Next week, Daniel Wojahn and I will explore the theme of sustainability in the Oral History of Tibetan Studies project, discussing the delicate balance between innovation and preservation in digital archive projects. Then, on May 8th, Anastasia Pineschi will discuss the newly re-launched International Dunhuang Project (IDP) website. Through innovative adaptations and collaborations, IDP continues to evolve as a leading platform for preserving and researching Silk Road artifacts.
In wrapping up this edition of the Editor’s Digest, it’s clear that the posts from our Central and South Asian Studies team span the breadth of digital humanities. From computational linguistics to social media analysis, and from digital reconstructions to text analysis, these diverse contributions expand our understanding of the field in new and exciting ways. As an editor, I have found immense enjoyment and value from delving into topics that stretch way beyond my own expertise, discovering new avenues for research and teaching. I hope these contributions have similarly sparked curiosity and exploration among our readers!
The Digital Orientalist 