Publications

Abstract: CR/10 is a digital oral history platform that aims to collect and preserve cultural memories of China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–76). With a rhetorical analysis of the design features and curation processes of the CR/10 website, this article discusses the functions of CR/10 as a Warburgian memory atlas that shape the nonlinear, multifaceted narratives of a historical incident. Alongside this rhetorical analysis, I also conducted three sets of user experience studies with over thirty participants both within and outside the academy, including an ethnographic conference observation, a virtual ethnography of an online book group, and several semi-structured interviews, to examine CR/10’s usability and propose new design opportunities to empower the interface. This article offers a strong case for the datafication of cultural memories and contributes to digital archives and humanities interface design with an innovative theoretical lens.

Abstract: The use and effects of visual representations in knowledge production have been a charged topic in scientific research. In the field of humanities studies, however, this topic remains under-examined despite the increasing applications of data visualization in the field. This paper aims to understand how visual representations facilitate narrative construction in published articles in the emerging field of digital humanities (DH). Through the methods of content analysis and close reading, we analyzed the narrative functions of visualizations in the argumentation process with a selected sample of research articles published in the Journal of Cultural Analytics from 2017 to 2019. With four observations from the analysis, this study presented a preliminary yet innovative examination of DH’s visual language and proposed suggestions on integrating existing functional frameworks of data visualization with the research contexts of digital humanities.

Abstract: This paper presents an exploratory research project that investigates data practices in digital history research. Emerging from the 1950s and ‘60s in the United States, digital history remains a charged topic among historians, requiring a new research paradigm that includes new concepts and methodologies, an intensive degree of interdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and international collaboration, and experimental forms of research sharing, publishing, and evaluation. Using mixed methods of interviews and questionnaire, we identified data challenges in digital history research practices from three perspectives: ontology (e.g., the notion of data in historical research); workflow (e.g., data collection, processing, preservation, presentation and sharing); and challenges. Extending from the results, we also provide a critical discussion of the state-of-art in digital history research, particularly in respect of metadata, data sharing, digital history training, collaboration, as well as the transformation of librarians’ roles in digital history projects. We conclude with provisional recommendations of better data practices for participants in digital history, from the perspective of library and information science.

Abstract: The Book of Hours is a type of book artifact that was produced and circulated in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Its name is from the fact that each book contains a sequence of prayers that were recited hourly throughout the day. This study examines the visualization of a dataset of Books of Hours collection, which was curated and digitized at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. We performed a data cleaning and manipulation procedure on this manuscript dataset and created information visualization using the R programming language. Aiming to communicate to the wider audience the rich history of Books of Hours with meaningful visualizations, we focused on the temporality, spatiality, and decoration aspects of the resource. This project serves as a point of departure to engage in broader topics at the intersection of information visualization, digital humanities, and manuscript studies, especially how to leverage humanistic interpretations of data into visualization practices.

Abstract: This thesis studies the poetry-story relationship with an analysis of Cui Hu's 崔護 poem and its resonance in the story of "renmian taohua" 人面桃花 (Beauty and Peach Blossoms). More specifically, I discuss how a Tang Dynasty poem inspired the formation of "renmian taohua" as a literary trope while various forms of adaptation of Cui Hu's romance shaped the cultural implications of it from late Tang Dynasty to the present. First appearing in Benshi shi (Storied Poems) 本事詩, a late Tang anthology of anecdotes edited by Meng Qi 孟棨, Cui Hu's poem was represented in a romantic story, which evolved into different genres across different periods. By tracing the evolution of the romance and particularly focusing on one drama adaptation by the playwright Meng Chengshun 孟稱舜 (1598 – 1684) in late Ming Dynasty, I argue that the interaction between poetry and story narratives contextualized a dialogic context where a "collective memory" of the poem was shaped and represented in the form of a commonly used literary trope. Drawing upon Bakhtin's notion of dialogism, I follow two threads in this study: one is the phrase "renmian taohua" as a multi-cultural discourse of romance and women; the other is the significance of a poetic genre that was popularized in the Ming-Qing period, which I define as "embedded poems" in this essay.