Training Workshop on Digital Approaches to Pre-Modern Chinese Texts: Theory and Practice

As its first event, the TEXTCOURT Project organised a two-day training workshop on Digital Approaches to Pre-Modern Chinese Texts: Theory and Practice, which was held at University College Oxford (Wednesday, 8 January 2020) and the University of Oxford China Centre (Thursday, 9 January 2020).

The workshop had a twofold aim: to function as a platform to discuss and explore the application of digital methods to the study of pre-modern Chinese texts and to provide relevant training in Digital Humanities to members of the project team. Two Digital Humanities experts co-led the workshop together with Tian Yuan Tan, the project’s PI: Erich Kesse, Special Collections Digital Archivist at SOAS, University of London, and Donald Sturgeon, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities at Durham University and founder of the Chinese Text Project. Richard Carpenter, IT Officer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, was invited as a special guest to contribute to the discussion sessions.

While the second day of the workshop was for project team members only, the first day was open to graduate students and early career researchers selected through a call for participants. The call for participants and the workshop programme are both available to download below.

Call for Participants

Workshop Programme

In his welcome notes, Tian Yuan Tan encouraged reflection on the impact of recent developments in Digital Humanities on the field of Sinology and emphasised the increasing importance for contemporary sinologists of being aware of digital methods.

The first day of the workshop consisted of two main parts:

1. a close look at broader issues in the field of Digital Humanities through two presentations by Donald Sturgeon and Erich Kesse

2. an introduction to the TEXTCOURT Project by Tian Yuan Tan, Lucrezia Botti, and Ewan Macdonald, using the project as a case study for the application of digital methods to the study of pre-modern Chinese texts.

In addition to a general discussion session at the end of the day, short Q&A sessions were held at the end of each presentation. Discussions between project members and invited speakers continued informally over dinner in preparation for the second day of the workshop.

On the second day, Donald Sturgeon delivered a hands-on session on crowdsourced editing and interactive text mining with the Chinese Text Project. After creating an account on ctext.org, workshop attendees were guided by Dr Sturgeon on how to navigate the website and how to use some of its main functionalities.

The discussion session at the end of the workshop mainly revolved around the following topics: the effectiveness of OCR, obtaining materials, copyright of materials, data storage, and how the TEXTCOURT team can collaborate with the Chinese Text Project. Discussions continued informally over lunch, which was followed by a debrief meeting among the project team members.

Special thanks go to the Domestic Bursary team at University College for providing catering and assistance for the first day of the workshop and to the University of Oxford China Centre for providing the venue for the second day of the workshop.