Big Data Studies LabThe Humanities at Infrastructural Scale
Kind
Symposium
When
May–June 2022
Organisers
Javier Cha (Seoul National University) and Barbara Wall (University of Copenhagen)
Parts
19–29 May 2022
26–28 June 2022
Events
all events

Symposium

Advanced Topics in Digital Korean Studies

A single two-part event held in Seoul and Copenhagen: an international symposium and project incubation program at Seoul National University, 19–29 May 2022, and a publication workshop with debut presentations at the University of Copenhagen, 26–28 June 2022.

Header artwork as published. It is licensed stock illustration (©HNKz / Adobe Stock) rather than a Lab poster, which is why it is captioned differently from the seminar posters.

The uses and application of digital methods have become commonplace in Korean studies. Despite the challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the extraordinary collection of online archives and digital libraries enabled academic research on Korea to continue. This increased awareness of the field’s digital transformation begs the following questions. Who built those databases? How do we utilise them effectively?

In a two-part event, Javier Cha of Seoul National University and Barbara Wall of the University of Copenhagen brought together pioneers, early adopters, and the next generation of Koreanists who have conducted research using digital methods. The mission was to provide forums for idea exchange and networking opportunities for Korea specialists at all stages of their careers.

Both meetings were held in person. Lectures and keynote addresses were considered for streaming as part of a hybrid format; the workshops were not available for remote participation.

Two meetings, one event

  • 19–29 May 2022

    International Symposium and Project Incubation

    Big Data Studies Lab, College of Liberal Studies, Seoul National University

    A select group of early-career and senior Koreanists developed a project with the assistance and guidance of digital humanities researchers. Topics covered text analysis (literary Sinitic, modern standard Korean, North Korean corpora, and South Korean neologisms and slang); web scraping and data preprocessing with BeautifulSoup, Selenium and ElementTree; network data in Gephi, Cytoscape and Neo4j; applied computer vision; audio data; the materiality of data; and digital humanities pedagogy.

  • 26–28 June 2022

    “The Digital Turn in Korean Studies” Publication Workshop

    Korean Studies Program, University of Copenhagen

    A follow-up meeting that brought together contributors to a special issue of Korean Studies, published in spring 2023. Participants in the May incubation program presented the results of their pilot research in order to exchange feedback and foster the growth of digital Korean studies collaboratively.

Distinguished lectures

Five SNU BDSL Distinguished Lectures in Digital Humanities and Cultural Analytics ran alongside the symposium; three were delivered over Zoom.

  • 18 May 2022

    Toward a Critical Digital History of Material Infrastructures in East Asia

    Hilde De Weerdt (KU Leuven)

  • 20 May 2022

    The World Historical Gazetteer: Modeling Space and Place in a Linked Data Infrastructure

    Ruth Mostern (University of Pittsburgh)

  • 27 May 2022

    Cultural Analytics

    Timothy Tangherlini (University of California, Berkeley)

  • 28 May 2022

    Machine Listening

    Lee Kyogu (Seoul National University)

  • 29 May 2022

    What Counts as Deep Learning in Korean Studies?

    Wayne DeFremery (Sogang University)

Program

  • 19 May
    • Welcoming remarks — Yang Ilmo, Dean of Liberal Studies; Javier Cha; Barbara Wall
    • Kim Baro (Academy of Korean Studies), “Biographical Dictionaries in a Digital Age”
    • Ryu Intae (Sungkyunkwan University), “Data-Assisted Reading of a Chosŏn Yangban Diary”
    • Database ontology workshop
  • 20 May
    • Jacob Reidhead (KIMEP), “Semantic Network and Latent Topic Analyses of Time-Stamped Korean-Language Corpora”
    • Project incubation
  • 21 May
    • Kim Byungjun (KAIST), “Introduction to Text Analysis of Modern Standard Korean”
    • Paul Vierthaler (College of William and Mary), “Machine Learning Models for Literary Chinese Text Corpora”
    • Choi Donghyeok (KAIST), “Historical Data Engineering: Preprocessing the Annals of the Chosŏn Dynasty and the Examination Rosters”
    • Text analysis workshop
  • 22 May
    • Paul Vierthaler, “Using GitHub to Manage Digital Humanities Projects”
    • Javier Cha, “Fine-Tuning the Historian’s Macroscope: Data Reuse and Medieval Korean Biographical Records in Neo4j”
    • Hu Jing, “The Social, Cultural, and Economic Networks of Chosŏn Interpreters”
    • Field trip: Namsan
  • 23 May
    • Network data workshop
    • Field trip: Coex Mall
  • 24–26 May
    • Project incubation
  • 27 May
    • Javier Cha, “The Korean Humanities in the Zettabyte Era”
  • 28 May
    • Miguel Escobar Varela (National University of Singapore), “Theater as Data”
    • Pete Broadwell (Stanford), “Deep Learning and Analysis of K-Pop Choreography on YouTube and TikTok”
    • Machine learning and cultural analytics workshop
  • 29 May
    • Martin Steinegger (Seoul National University), “Bioinformatics and Computational Linguistics”
    • Kwon Bohyoun (Playable Consulting), “Metaverse as the Land of Refugees and Immigrants”

Sessions from 27 to 29 May ran under the title Big Data and New Frontiers in Korean Studies. Times, room numbers and coffee breaks are omitted; the full original schedule is preserved in the Lab’s archive of the page.

Incubated projects

  • Mathieu Berbiguier
    UCLA

    Mapping the Authenticity of K-pop: The Reality of Production Network vs. Fandom Interpretation

  • Christina Han
    Wilfrid Laurier University

    Macroanalysis of Everyday Life in Early Modern Korea: A Pilot Computational Analysis of Poetry Talks

  • Seung Eun Lee
    Hallym University

    Building a Database of Late-Chosŏn Yadam

  • Tian Li
    Harvard University

    Media-ted Justice: Law, Ethics, and Social Critique in Korean Screen Media

  • Katharina Süberkrüb
    University of Hamburg

    Diplomacy and Objects in European Collections of Korean Art(i)facts: Celadons and Export Paintings

  • Giovanni Volpe
    Sapienza University of Rome

    Reading Practices in Fifteenth-Century Korea: Toward a Digital Humanities Approach

  • Martin Weiser
    Independent scholar

    Looking for Diversity in North Korean Media Rhetoric

Supported by the R&DB Foundation at Seoul National University, the University of Copenhagen, the Korea Foundation, and the editorial board of Korean Studies.