Digital Humanities Initiative - Networks of Poems and Books: Leveraging Network Analysis for Studying Premodern Chinese Poetry Anthologies
Network analysis has long been acknowledged as a powerful tool for studying premodern Chinese culture, enabling scholars to uncover, visualize, and investigate diverse new patterns. This talk begins by reviewing recent applications of network analysis in the field of classical Chinese literature, showing how it offers fresh perspectives that encourage us to reconsider literary texts and literary history. Then, this talk focuses on the specific example of premodern Chinese poetry anthologies. Drawing from a database containing over 7,000 poem entries from more than 20 late imperial poetry anthologies, this talk employs various algorithms and computing tools in network analysis, revealing novel insights into the networks of poems and books in late imperial China.
Dr. Jing Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese History and Culture at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on classical Chinese poetry and poetics, print culture, literary anthology, and the application of digital tools to the studies of premodern Chinese literature. Currently she is working on two Digital Humanities projects that explore the citation network of Chinese poetry anthologies and the poetry exchange network among late imperial women poets.