The Center for Digital Humanities has selected six faculty research projects for development awards.

The projects will  combine research in a humanities discipline with cutting-edge technology, like data visualization, digital storytelling, motion capture, 360-degree immersive video, digital mapping and augmented reality.

Director Bryan Carter describes the Center for Digital Humanities as a “dedicated research and innovation incubator,” purposefully structured with a unique collaborative framework to support research projects by faculty members.

The development awards are for pilot projects that can then be documented as working prototypes in larger external grant application. The projects involve a collaboration between the faculty members and student developers in the Tech.Global program.

The Spring 2019 development awards go to the following projects:

Robert Groves, Assistant Professor of Classics, to create a digital, online visualization using GIS-based mapping of the journeys described in ancient Greek novels. Using the interactive map, students can explore embedded visual and textual resources to learn more about the complicated histories and geographies of these novels and characters who voyaged across the ancient Mediterranean to Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, and Ethiopia.

Barbara Kosta, German Studies Department Head, to showcase immigration stories of German artists, filmmakers, authors, composers who fled Hitler’s Germany and who sought refuge in the Los Angeles area. The project will create a digital, multilingual platform combining interactive mapping and digital storytelling.

Tani Sanchez, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, to use motion capture, virtual reality and augmented reality to help students identify, compare and analyze how characters are textually structured as “black” in traditionally stereotypical ways in cinema and film.

Robert Stephan, Lecturer in Classics, to construct a database that models the linkages between ancient financial data and a graphical interface that allows users to visualize return on investment results. The project will help make Roman economic history – a field laden with quantification and statistics – intelligible, approachable and engaging for humanities scholars and students.

Sumayya Granger, Assistant Professor of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, to explore augmented and immersive technologies to enhance interactivity in language learning for the technology-mediated instruction of pragmatics. The research will focus on ways to offer international students English language experiences virtually to prepare them for coming to study in U.S. universities.

Jiang Wu, Professor of East Asian Studies and Director of the UA Center for Buddhist Studies, to update an online database of religious sites in China with current technology and use the revamped site to store, link, and demonstrate GIS data on important Buddhist sites collected from the Hangzhou region in China.

The Chinese Language program held a party on Feb. 15 to celebrate the Year of the Pig. More than 100 students from Chinese language classes, TAs and instructors participated in the event. Students enjoyed a variety of activities in the LSB courtyard: Chinese calligraphy, paper cutting, board games, bean (M&M) picking with chopsticks, a character recognition game and jump rope. The major activity was making jiaozi (dumplings). Students learned how to make jiaozi under the guidance of TAs and instructors. The jiaozi were cooked on site, and students got to enjoy them as soon as they were cooked. Along with jiaozi, students also enjoyed a feast (shown in picture). Many students brought their friends along. Everybody had a great time. This event was sponsored by the Student-Faculty Interaction grant and the East Asian Studies Department. We thank all of the instructors and TAs for their hard work and their contributions. It was a great success.

At the University of Arizona’s Graduate and Professional Student Council Showcase on February 13^th, 2019, Jingyi Li, a second year PhD student in the East Asian Studies department was awarded First Place in the category of Communication and Expression. Her project, “Methods for Teaching Japanese Palaeography,” proposes a new method in the teaching of reading pre-modern Japanese texts written in cursive style. Her presentation garnered the interest of UA President Robert C. Robbins, who greeted her in Japanese. Jingyi’s research focuses on the literary and intellectual history of Tokugawa Japan. She also organizes a weekly palaeography study group that is available to undergraduate students. 

Congratulations Jingyi Li!

College of Humanities double major Rob Lisak is featured as the UA Honors College student of the week. 

Lisak majors in Religious Studies and East Asian Studies and talked with the Honors College about his experiences studying abroad in Hangzhou.  

By Peter Reese, UA Honors College Information Specialist

While no objector to Starbuck's coffee, Rob Lisak would rather explore a more ancient tradition in which liquid refreshment is but one of the outcomes. The creator of a short video reflecting his fascination with the meaning-rich Chinese tea ceremony, Lisak has put himself on a steep learning curve as an Honors College student. Nearly two decades removed from the traditional high school-to-college progression, he is pushing himself back even further into time as well as academic rigor. A Religious Studies and East Asian Studies double major, Lisak has joined Professor Albert Welter and others around the University of Arizona's Hangzhou Buddhist Culture Project.

Fueled by a three-year grant from The Khyentse Foundation, the project has two ambitious goals. "Hangzhou is a global mecca for Buddhism that hasn't been explored as fully as sites in India, Tibet and elsewhere in China," offered Lisak. "This is the China of which Marco Polo spoke." Now embedded in the team, he's offering creative implementation both of the scholarly research as well as teaching resources being produced from the ambitious imitative begun in 2018.

States Dr. Welter, "Rob's participation is instrumental to the development of the second outcome (in particular), the creation of new courses and components utilizing state of the art virtual and audio-visual enhancements that will transform the ways students engage the sources and materials relating to East Asian Buddhism." While The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism center on suffering, Lisak is present to make the path smoother and less painful for faculty, graduate research assistants and student peers. After twenty-five years of living the rock and roll life followed by a move from Chicago, Lisak is finding a new rhythm as part of the Honors College. One that puts his inspired energy into legacy-building outcomes.

"Every interaction I've had with the Honors College has been full of encouragement and concern for me as a student. I really get the sense that they care about their students in the Honors College getting the absolute best experience at the UA. Not only that, they seem proud of all their students' accomplishments. It feels like being on a team,"observes Lisak. When this astronomy minor's destiny moved from a potential scholarship in India to landing in China, he pursued a new course that included producing video training materials on his own time. While clearly not a quote from the scroll-borne texts at the center of the project, Lisak's personal philosophy about the Honors College is more timeless and universal than his five well-chosen words of colloquial English might suggest.

"You're here. Make it happen."

A thought worth contemplating. Over a cup of carefully prepared Chinese tea.

A New History of Medieval Japanese Theatre

This book traces the history of noh and kyōgen, the first major Japanese theatrical arts. Going beyond P. G. O'Neill's Early Nō Drama of 1958, it covers the full period of noh's medieval development and includes a chapter dedicated to the comic art of kyōgen, which has often been left in noh's shadow. It is based on contemporary research in Japan, Asia, Europe and America, and embraces current ideas of theatre history, providing a richly contextualized account which looks closely at theatrical forms and genres as they arose. 

The masked drama of noh, with its ghosts, chanting and music, and its use in Japanese films, has been the object of modern international interest. However, audiences are often confused as to what noh actually is. This book attempts to answer where noh came from, what it was like in its day, and what it was for. To that end, it contains sections which discuss a number of prominent noh plays in their period and challenges established approaches. It also contains the first detailed study in English of the kyōgen repertoire of the sixteenth-century.

Noel John Pinnington is Associate Professor Emeritus of the University of Arizona, USA. He has held appointments at the Universities of Cambridge, Arizona, and Kyushu. His recent work includes 'The Early History of the Noh Play: Literacy, Authorship, and Scriptedness' in Monumenta Nipponica (2014) and collaboration on the film adaptation of the noh play Kinuta, set in Arizona, titled Wind Well (2017).

“Community Regeneration and Public Art, “ international conference co-organized by the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China, November 26-27, 2018.

Since August 29th, the Department of East Asian Studies began holding weekly meetings in order to help graduate students improve their academic and professional proficiency. Students and faculties have gathered six times so far. The speakers and topics are listed below:

1.  On August 29th, Dr. Nathaniel Smith presented: Activism and Social Movements in Contemporary Japan. 

2.  On September 5th, Dr. Alison Jameson spoke about How to Recognize Plagiarism and Cheating.

3.  On September 12th, Adam Baldry discussed Teaching Online Winter and Summer Courses.  Additionally, Ming Wen presented: Using ArcGIS to Map a Monastic Network.

4.  On September 17th, Dr. Ryan Shin presented: Exploring Asian Visual and Material Culture,  Dr. Janelle Lamoreaux spoke about Epigenetic Environments and Dr. Brett Esaki lectured on the Transformation of Japanese American Religion and Arts through Outward Assimilation.

5. On September 26th, Dr. Joshua Schlachet presented: Knowing What's Good for You: History, Japan, and the Trouble with Eating Right.

6.  On October 3rd,  Dr. Philip Gabriel discussed Murakami Haruki/Haruki Murakami: The Practice of Translating Japanese Literature.

The next meeting will be held on October 24th. Dr. Heng Du has been invited to present: From Prospectus to Dissertation.