FILE PHOTO: The home page of “Shidianguji”

Digital humanities is a field at the intersection of the humanities and digital technology, wherein digital humanities resources are produced and new organizational models of humanistic knowledge, new methodologies, and new epistemologies emerge. Over the past ten years, the development of digital humanities has driven the deepening and expansion of literary and art studies along three dimensions.

Database construction

Over the past decade, the construction of digital humanities databases in China has witnessed two key trends. One is the integration and upgrading of lower version databases, with projects undertaken by large libraries such as the Shanghai Library, the National Library of China, and Peking University Library. The other trend involves building databases with “big data” characteristics, such as the “Smart Ancient Books Platform” created by Zhejiang University and “Shidianguji” (a platform for digitizing Chinese classic books) co-developed by Peking University and ByteDance.

A specific type of database deserves special consideration: those constructed through quantitative research on image aesthetics and emotional relationships based on experimental psychology and artificial neural networks. For example, the Communication University of China has developed the “Database for Emotion and Aesthetic Analysis of Traditional Chinese Paintings,” which provides tools with semantic analysis capabilities for studying Chinese art history through data-driven approaches. This type of database typically functions as a platform, offering a substantial amount of data alongside various embedded tools and interfaces for expanding research, allowing researchers to create their own research “scripts” on the platforms.

Knowledge production

Digital technology drives the evolution of knowledge production in literary and art studies. First, the application of digital technology in database construction involves not only digitizing existing literary and artistic resources, but also establishing a new set of methodologies and epistemologies for knowledge organization, mapping, and construction, which encompasses knowledge graphs, visual mapping, data mining, information retrieval from hypertext, semantic generation, and human-computer interactive Q&A. In this regard, notable progress has been made in the history of ancient Chinese literature. Quantitative and semantic analysis of changes in poetic prosody, word frequencies, literary genres and styles, and rhetorical rhythms has broadened the scope of traditional empirical research regarding literary history.

Second, data-driven literary and art studies are shifting from the traditional text-driven approach to data-driven approaches, giving rise to two categories of literary and art studies that are widely recognized by the international academic community. One is the distant reading approach (using computational methods to analyze literary texts) proposed by Italian literary scholar Franco Moretti in contrast with the traditional close reading approach in literary studies. If the traditional framework is considered “individual (reader) + textual experience + interpretation,” distant reading can be described as “data resources + research scripts + data search + result mapping.”

The other category is the application of computer vision in art history. Just as telescopes and microscopes extend human vision, computer vision can display artistic images with higher resolution than the original piece while also offering data analysis and measurement functions. Many researchers have applied computer vision and computer graphics to study art history, such as for mathematically describing various features of artistic images.

Third, data-driven literary and art studies outperform text-driven studies with regard to “big humanities”, “long term,” and “grand trends,” as the former can reveal patterns that elude traditional literary studies, as well as unseen yet influential mechanisms of meaning generation. For example, researchers have used the China Biographical Database to create social network graphs and visual mapping for Chinese historical figures, presenting spatial relations in a novel fashion. Research relying on the China Historical Geographic Information System and other historical GIS projects has expanded literary geography and the study of literary and artistic “space.”

Digital art production

If digital humanities database construction represents the reorganization of literary and artistic resources, then data-driven literary and art production should be regarded as authentic original resources. Renowned artists and excellent works are already emerging in fields such as digital cinema, digital painting, digital sculpting, digital installation art, and digital graphic design. Research on original digital artwork has emerged as a new landscape in literary and art studies. While research on online literature is centered on its dissemination and audience reception, research on original digital artwork has ushered in media technology studies. This field, underpinned by media theories elaborated by Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan, is focused on how media technology extends modes of perception and epistemology, which has transformative implications for literary and art studies.

Shan Xiangqun is a librarian at Renmin University of China Libraries.