This is a guest post by Rose Ting-Yi
Conference slides can be viewed here
On March 3rd, 2025, I hosted a hybrid Digital Humanities workshop in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto. The in-person event was targeted towards EAS students, while Zoom attendance was open to all students, faculty, and scholars who are interested in DH.
My motivation for organizing this workshop was twofold: to reach out and connect with Asian Studies scholars who practice digital humanities, and to address the very limited DH resources and initiatives relevant to Asian Studies, especially premodern research. The DH courses offered at our university are only available to undergraduate students and none of them are specifically related to Asian Studies, so I was entirely self-taught (and am still actively learning). This situation might be faced by many Asian Studies scholars and students, so online and hybrid events can help engage a much wider audience.
After carrying out a couple of projects using DH methods like text markup and data visualization, I came to realize how DH can assist and even transform humanist research. I discovered that some peers and faculty members are also interested in or practice DH, but we had not had any DH related events other than an AI-focused workshop taught by Dr. Kowkleong Tang a few weeks before my workshop, arranged by our East Asian Library. So I decided to organize a workshop to start this initiative.
To engage with a broad audience, I designed the three-hour workshop to include a general overview of what “digital humanities” is, and two expert guest talks given by specialists in DH scholarship in sinology: Dr. Paul Vierthaler (Assistant Professor, Princeton University) and Peichao Qin (PhD Candidate, Cambridge University), both joining via Zoom.
I began with an overall introduction of digital humanities both as a research field and as a methodology. I define the latter as using quantitative research methods and analytic tools to investigate humanist questions, issues, and materials; the main focus of this workshop is on DH methods. Then, I briefly evaluated the strengths and limitations of DH as a research method and went over the technical aspects of data collection and data analysis, and introduced commonly used archives and programs for data collection and analysis, particularly those pertaining to sinology, highlighting the rapidly developing LLM-based GenAI technology.
Dr. Vierthaler’s talk, titled “Machine learning and uncovering source material in the late Ming novel Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 (Plum in the Golden Vase)”, gave us an intensive view of his current project on using computational analytic programs for detecting intertextuality among the classic Ming dynasty novel and other literary works such as the canonical Shuihu Zhuan 水滸傳 (The Water Margin). Dr. Vierthaler demonstrated his work on using quantitative tools such as Principal Component Analysis to identify clustering of keywords that indicate distinct style of individual authors, and using Text Classification models to cross compare a large corpus of texts.
Peichao Qin’s talk is titled “From Image to Text: Automatic Information Extraction and Processing for 2D Artifact Images via Computer Vision”. Peichao discussed his major DH project on digitizing Oracle Bone Inscriptions, resulting in an optimized, standardized computer font for Oracle Bone Scripts, and a comprehensive digital platform “Jingyuan 鏡原甲骨數字平台”; he also explained the relevant processes and tools for OCR and image processing, clarifying the pros and cons of different options with a live demonstration. (Peichao has previously published with The Digital Orientalist on this project: Part 1, Part 2).
Reflecting on this workshop, I think that the hybrid format is great for including a wide range of audiences and for inviting guest speakers, especially when financial resources are limited (which I presume would be relatable for many humanities departments). The workshop was well attended; we had a particularly large online audience. At the same time, it is challenging to balance the content for an audience whose research areas vary significantly.
Looking forward, I am hoping to continue this initiative and engage with more DH learners and specialists whose work falls within Asian Studies. From audience feedback within the university, I found that many students and faculty are very interested in DH, but they are impeded by limited time and resources to explore DH methods on their own. I feel that getting into DH methods is a lot more accessible now with the assistance of widely available AI chatbots – an introductory workshop can easily start a scholar’s DH journey; all one needs to know is what tools are available out there.
Currently, I am planning to develop an introductory course for our EAS undergraduates, and I hope that in the near future we can organize longer workshops with more intensive hands-on experiences for our graduate students and faculty.
