Organizer and Chair: Lewis Lancaster, University of California, Berkeley
Discussant: Karl Longstreth, University of Michigan
One of the major programs available for scholars in digital technology is the Geographic Information Systems software. The papers presented in this panel demonstrate current research within this environment. The presenters are members of the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative, which is an international group working to prepare a dataset that will allow scholars to structure large amounts of information by time and location. Using maps and timelines, scholars in the field can now access a wide range of data and relate it to specific queries. As the papers will demonstrate, the use of GIS software and the format of the electronic atlas allow the productive use of resources that are difficult to access. The speakers are making use of these approaches in their specific fields of research. They describe how these research tools have enhanced the use of the material they have been consulting over the years. Such strategies of research now allow them to have a level of intellectual control over large amounts of data that significantly increases the availability of these sources for research and interpretive descriptions. In particular, the three speakers will show that displaying data in a map form for a particular date or period, with immediate update when the date range is changed, allows one to have knowledge about transitions and transition processes which are not available in conventional two dimension maps. The panel has been suggested by the AAS group SEER (Scholars Engaged in Electronic Research). The topics covered in the panel deal with China: biographies, historical data, and local gazetteers. This constitutes both a report on research work accomplished and a demonstration of techniques that can be used by other scholars.
Robert M. Hartwell’s Chinese Medieval Studies Software
Peter Bol, Harvard University
One of the important research projects dealing with Chinese history has been the work of the late Robert Hartwell. For more than three decades he and Marianne Carlson Hartwell compiled a database of some 35,000 officials and their kin networks. The references cover the middle-period Chinese history. Professor Hartwell wisely choose to geo-reference his data and this allows us to make use of the GIS software. This talk will introduce the data, the structure of the program, and assess its value. As a conclusion, there will be an announcement of plans to make it available to the scholarly public and to build on Hartwell’s work.
Underworld of Han: A GIS Approach
I-chun Fan, Academia Sinica
This paper will be a report on the first project of using Chinese historical data in the Electronic Cultural Atlas. Using rasterized and vecterized Han dynasty maps from the Historical Atlas of China, edited by Tan Qi-xiang, it is possible to demonstrate the use of this technology for research. The maps cover the West and Eastern Han, as well as the north and central coastal region. A search engine has been created to make a cross-section check between these maps and various databanks. For example, the electronic version of the 25 Dynastic Histories has been connected to the maps. Users will be able to find the textual data related to place names on the maps or vice versa. In addition, the databanks such as the archaeological sites located in the north and central coastal region and the related pictures of excavations, remains, stone rubbings, research bibliography have been connected to the electronic maps. In this way, we can now have examples of how the multimedia of spatial and temporal data can be integrated and used for easy sorting and checking.
Mapping Chinese Sacred Sites: On the Integration of Different Material Types
Thomas Hahn, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Sacred sites, or sites of worship and reclusion, can be found almost all over China. They are of a stunning variety: monastic entities vie with hermitages, holy mountains form superstructures that embrace a host of sub-entities, and networks of caves serve as reference points for pilgrimage routes. The material dealing with these sites is equally varied: textual evidence competes with archaeological findings, modern photography documents not only physical constructions, but also reliably catches people related to these sites.
This presentation attempts to bring the various types of materials together under the "tutelage" of a digital map of a daoist pilgrimage network dating back to at least the Tang. In this prototype, bibliographical (i.e. textual) material is matched with non-textual material, all being linked via one online system through which the user can navigate from place to place, from information kernel to kernel.