The “Deep Dive into Digital and Data Methods for Chinese Studies” series is co-sponsored by the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies (LRCCS) and the Asia Library, and is co-directed by Mary Gallagher (Professor of Political Science and Director of LRCCS) and Liangyu Fu (Chinese Studies Librarian, Asia Library). Question about the series? Please email Liangyu Fu at liangyuf@umich.edu.

Free and Open to the Public. Light refreshments will be provided.

Every major Chinese dynasty experienced a localist turn in which the centralizing power of the founding gave way to increasing localism, but all localist turns were not the same. This talk will note the general phenomena and explore an influential localist turn that took place in Wuzhou (Jinhua) in Zhejiang province during the Mongols' Yuan dynasty, the consequences of which have continued into the present. This will also show how prosopographical, spatial, and network analysis can reveal key elements of elite social and cultural change.

Peter K. Bol is the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. His research is centered on the history of China’s cultural elites at the national and local levels from the 7th to the 17th century. He is the author of "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in T'ang and Sung China, Neo-Confucianism in History, coauthor of Sung Dynasty Uses of the I-ching, co-editor of Ways with Words, and various journal articles in Chinese, Japanese, and English. He led Harvard’s university-wide effort to establish support for geospatial analysis in teaching and research; in 2005 he was named the first director of the Center for Geographic Analysis. As Vice Provost (2013/09-2018/10) he was responsible for HarvardX, the Harvard Initiative in Learning and Teaching, and research that connects online and residential learning. He also directs the China Historical Geographic Information Systems project, a collaboration between Harvard and Fudan University in Shanghai to create a GIS for 2000 years of Chinese history. In a collaboration between Harvard, Academia Sinica, and Peking University he directs the China Biographical Database project, an online relational database currently of 420,000 historical figures that is being expanded to include all biographical data in China's historical record over the last 2000 years. Together with William Kirby he teaches ChinaX course, one of the HarvardX courses.