Explore the concept of digital text analysis and examine which concepts that relates to the first encounter in love stories.

How does love affairs start in Chinese literature? The right to choose one's partner was one of the most charged issues of Chinas social policy in the first half of the twentieth century.

In recent decades, there have been significant advances in gender equality in China, but choice of partner and premarital sex are still hot topics. What can we learn about modern Chinese notions of sex and romance by examining Chinese popular literature?

A question that relates to this concerns with conceptualizations regarding bodily proximity and sexual attraction. Researchers have previously noted that romantic affairs (especially of an illegitimate kind) in 18th-century Chinese literature often involved flowing body fluids, presumably tapping into medical notions of the body's flowing energy systems. Do we see a similar reference of sexualized meaning to (body) fluids in modern Chinese literature?

Purpose

The purpose is to sow seeds of curiosity in students from Asian Studies around trends and technologies in digital humanities and its application in the analysis of Chinese popular literature.

Target group

The target group is students from Asian Studies

Learning experience

The participants can get:

• A nice informal academic learning experience
• A knowledge of genre features of Chinese Literature
• A knowledge of and understanding of pipelines in digital text analysis:
  • Webscraping
  • Word frequency, n-grams, collocation, correlation, and keyword-in-context

Time and place

The workshop will run over two days:

• 4. November from 1 pm. - 4 pm.
• 11. November from 1 pm. - 4 pm.

Software

Python, Jupyter Notebook, and Voyant Tools is the software for the workshops. The software is installed on six computers in the Datalab at KUB South Campus. Participants can share these computers, but I would also be so fine if participants would bring their own computer. Just be aware that Anaconda have to be installed prior to the workshops. Download Anaconda from this page: https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual  

Instructors

Bo Ærenlund Sørensen, postdoc at UCHP with knowledge of digital text analysis, Chinese culture, literature, and politics

Lars Kjær, information specialist at CUL with knowledge of digital text analysis and experience with teaching digital humanities to the target group

Participants must prepare for:

• that there are two workshops and that the instructors expect them to participate in both workshops
• that the workshops are voluntary and that no ECTS points is earned

Contact the instructors if you want to participate.