February 13, 2025
Digital Scholarship Series Highlights Innovation in East Asian Studies
Assistant Professor Gian Rominger presenting his talk, “On a Computational Analysis of Early Chinese Poeticity” January 22.
Throughout the 2024/2025 the Tateuchi East Asia Library (TEAL) is hosting the TEAL Digital Scholarship Series, a dynamic program showcasing cutting-edge research by faculty in the fields of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese (CJKT) studies. This series highlights how innovative digital tools and methodologies are transforming East Asian scholarship, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, and broadening the impact of research within and beyond academia.
The 2025 TEAL Digital Scholarship Series features four distinguished speakers from the University of Washington’s East Asian Studies faculty. This year’s lineup is particularly meaningful, as it highlights the groundbreaking research of our own faculty in digital humanities and their significant contributions to the field of East Asian studies. The upcoming lecture by Dr. Jing Xu for example explores how researchers are using social network analysis and large language models artificial intelligence among other techniques, to analyze unpublished field notes from late anthropologist, Arthur Wolf.
 |
|
The workshop launched as a pilot program in autumn 2019, representing a cornerstone initiative of the Tateuchi East Asia Library to support research in East Asian studies. Generously funded by a three-year grant from the Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Foundation, the series aimed to enhance scholarly engagement through innovative workshops, lectures and community-building events. The inaugural workshop, led by Japanese Studies Librarian Azusa Tanaka, was a resounding success, drawing a large and engaged audience.
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a pivot to online programming, which expanded the series’ reach to a global audience. Virtual formats enabled the inclusion of international speakers and participants, fostering transnational scholarly collaboration. New components, such as the Digital Scholarship for East Asian Studies Community Coffee Hour, were introduced to promote informal exchanges among scholars. The series also adopted thematic programming, with topics like geospatial analysis, textual encoding, and creative geovisualization.
The series was designed to provide graduate students, faculty, and researchers in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese studies with hands-on experience and theoretical insights into digital scholarship methods.
This popular series has hosted numerous events featuring contributions from UW faculty, students, librarians, and international collaborators. Notable UW faculty partners included Professors Bo Zhao, Clair Yang, Jin-Kyu Jung who provided valuable expertise and consultation. The workshops covered a wide range of digital tools and methods, from ArcGIS StoryMaps to TEI (Textual Encoding Initiative), and showcased innovative research applications. The popularity of the series over the past five years underscores the continued interest in learning about the intersection of East Asian Studies and digital scholarship.
“The Tateuchi East Asia Library staff are committed to supporting innovation, scholarship, and collaboration in the evolving field of digital humanities through this series, through our work in the libraries and in partnership with faculty and students,” says Hyokyoung Yi, Director of the University of Washington Tateuchi East Asia Library and the Korea Studies Librarian. “We look forward to the upcoming series and to exploring new ideas for the future.”
The Tateuchi East Asia Library plans to continue the series, featuring cutting-edge research with a strong focus on East Asian studies, fostering interdisciplinary and international research collaborations.
For questions and more information on this program, please contact: Hyokyoung Yi (hkyi@uw.edu