Re: [tlug] Fwd: SYMPOSIUM> Humanities Studies in the Digital Age and the Role of Buddhist Studies, UTokyo 11/16-17

[Charles Muller <acmuller@example.com>]

On 2013年11月13日 14:27, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Please don't give up on changing things.  Todai providing a clue or
> two is the best hope this country has.  I know that *we* (at the "MIT
> of Japan" :-P ) are going in the wrong direction: concentrating on
> シロアリ育成[1], nuking our MBA and MPP programs, stuff like that.[2]

I should add, then, when I day *older generation*, I really mean 
*older*.

OTOH, Todai is now taking a strong lead in the creation of Digital 
Humanities curricula in Japan. We have created a new unit for this 
purpose, staffed by seven faculty members. From next April, we will 
open up a total of 4 courses for Digital Humanities, wherein 
students from the Humanities school (but students from other 
departments are of course welcome) learn tools and methodologies 
directly related to the use of computers in handling texts and other 
cultural materials.

So don't worry, rather than giving up, we are diving in head first.

At present, the only other school in Japan that I know of that is 
pursuing DH to this extent (but in their own way) is Ritsumeikan. 
They are mainly into things like motion capture for analyzing 
Kabuki, Noh, and so forth, whereas at Todai, we are mainly into 
texts. We are also currently deeply involved in Unicode, in the 
adding of more kanji and other characters to ISO 10646--characters 
that we have found in our textual research through various computer 
programs.

BTW, another relevant conference coming up, for those who are 
interested these matters, will be at Kyodai on 12/9-12/12.

See http://www.pnclink.org/pnc2013/english/

Regards,

Chuck

-------------------

A. Charles Muller

University of Tokyo
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters
Center for Evolving Humanities
7-3-1 Hongō, Bunkyō-ku
Tokyo 113-8654, Japan

Office: 03-5841-3735

Web Site: Resources for East Asian Language and Thought
http://www.acmuller.net

<acmuller[at]l.u-tokyo.ac.jp>