oliver-mann-photography_east-asia-buddhism-4-of-5

Cluster Leader:

Yinggang Sun (Zhejiang University) – 2017

Chen Jinhua (UBC) – 2018

This cluster project examines ways in which the transition from manuscript to print and the development of a range of technologies and reading techniques in premodern Asia may inform our understanding of the current global transition from print to digital media. We will focus on transformations in the culture of writing and reading in East Asia as a “distant mirror” (in the words of the European medievalist Barbara Tuchman) to reflect on current developments in the digital humanities and our changing relationships to texts.

Today, as education moves toward online platforms and newspapers are replaced by blogs, we are experiencing a change not unlike the one faced by our counterparts in medieval East Asia when print took hold amid a strong and enduring culture of manuscripts. Lacking a central authority, today we produce, edit, and distribute online texts that in their fluidity recall the hand-copied productions of our predecessors. At the same time, the printed book, particularly the printed codex, presaged some fundamental revolutions brought about by the internet-based “hypermedia”: an expandable network of sharing and distributing information stored in and transmitted through a specific medium.

While considering reading, writing, and media today alongside Asian traditions of the past, we will also look ahead toward ways of preserving and transmitting the past, including demonstrations of digitization in the fields of education, library studies, journalism, history, literature, and religion.

The training aspect of this cluster is aimed at familiarizing students and junior scholars with some general patterns by which one form of knowledge transmission was transformed to another. Through a series of field trips, undertaken in the Wutai shan area and the Jinci museum, student participants were trained in collecting different types of research data (e.g. images, photos) associated with different media, including oral narratives (among religious believers), manuscripts, stone/metal inscriptions, printed texts, and digital texts.

 

Field Visit Report

Read 2018 field visit report

 

Data Collection

View 2017 digital data collection

View 2018 digital data collection

 

Cluster Participants

Affiliated Researchers Associated Researchers
Baycroft, Anne (University of Saskatchewan) – 2017 An, Yi (Chinese University of Hong Kong) – 2017
Bryson, Megan (University of Tennessee) – 2018 Bass, Emma (Queen’s University) – 2017
Chen, Jinhua (University of British Columbia) – 2018 Crowther, Alice  (Renmin University) – 2017
Kim, Jongmyung (Academy of Korean Studies) – 2018 Lin, Jiao  (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing) – 2017
Lin, Weiyu (Trinity University) – 2018 Paletskiy, Denis  (Chinese Academy of Social Science) – 2017
Mitchell, Maggie (University of British Columbia) – 2017 Tou, MinHui (National Taiwan Normal University) – 2017
Sun, Mingli (Tsinghua University) – 2018 Zhang, Bowei  (Wuhan University) – 2017
Sun, Yinggang (Zhejiang University) – 2017 Zhang, Shubin (Chinese Academy of Fine Arts) – 2017
Zhang, Meng (Zhejiang University) – 2018 Zhen, Fan (Fudan University) – 2017
He, Shuyue (McGill University) – 2018
Jing, Ren (Peking University) – 2018
Li, Yier (Fujian Normal University) – 2018
Zhang, Shubin (University of Zhejiang) – 2018

 

Field Visit Sites

Cluster 1.1

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Mount Wutai 五臺山: 38.935242, 113.643745
Jinci Temple 晋祠: 37.728600, 112.475000
Zhenguo Temple 鎮國: 37.189800, 112.176200
Shuanglin Temple 雙林寺: 37.189800, 112.176200
Duofu Temple 多福: 37.870600, 112.548900
Chongshan Temple 崇善: 37.870600, 112.548900
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Mount Wutai 五臺山
Cluster 1.1 2017 - description

Cluster 1.1 2017 - Mount Wutai 五臺山 data collection

Mount Wutai 五臺山, Shanxi, China
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Jinci Temple 晋祠
Cluster 1.1 description

Cluster 1.1 2018 - Jinci Temple (Taiyuan City) data collection

Jinci Temple 晋祠, Shanxi, China
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Zhenguo Temple 鎮國
Cluster 1.1 description

Cluster 1.1 2018 - Zhengguo Temple 鎮國 data collection

Zhenguo Temple 鎮國, Shanxi, China
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Shuanglin Temple 雙林寺
Cluster 1.1 description

Cluster 1.1 2018 - Shuanglin Temple (Taiyuan City) data collection

Shuanglin Temple 雙林寺, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
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Duofu Temple 多福
Cluster 1.1 description

Cluster 1.1 2018 - Duofu Temple 多福 (Taiyuan City 太原市) data collection

Duofu Temple 多福, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
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Chongshan Temple 崇善
Cluster 1.1 description

Cluster 1.1 2018 - Chongshan Temple 崇善 (Taiyuan City) data collection

Chongshan Temple 崇善, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China