HIST4702 (2022-23) Digital History Project: SARS in Asia
About Us
About the Course
HIST4702 is an undergraduate course offered by Professor McManus of the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). In the recent decade, the use of digital methods to ask historical questions and display historical data is rapidly growing. This course introduces students to the exciting world of digital history, including digital mapping, visualization, digital curation, and some basic programming. These are skills that students will be able to apply to a range of historical problems, and will also be useful in a variety of careers.
What is Digital History
Digital History is a subgroup of disciplinary history. It utilizes digital means to ask historically-oriented questions or disseminate historical data. Examples of the tools used include digital mapping, text mining and 3-D modelling. It is interdisciplinary and tends to be collaborative.[1] Despite having these shared features, there is no fixed definition of what digital history is because technologies are constantly changing, and similar applications can be dubbed differently depending on the author.[2]
The explosive spread of technology during the past few decades, such as invention of new digital media, has drastically changed how historians have acquired and disseminated data about the past. This is clear as most historians use computers for their professional work, and to access online historical archives and museums.[3]
Even this website you are viewing now is a basic reflection of that fact.
Without the efforts of digital historians working to virtually transcribe countless physical historic copies, we would not be able to enjoy platforms for secondary sources or online historical archives for primary sources. Even students not aware of the digital techniques employed must admit that Digital History is all around us.
Modern historiography has evolved from tirelessly reading monographs one at a time to having several tabs open of different texts for convenient research, and publishing articles online rather than on physical journals, for a wider audience to view. By seeing this trajectory, it could be predicted that it is inevitable for general historians to become digital historians themselves.
[1] “HIST4702 Digital History,” Department of History, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, accessed November 1, 2022, https://www.history.cuhk.edu.hk/course/2022231_hist4702/.
[2] Deborah Lines Anderson, “Defining Digital History,” Journal of the Association for History and Computing, last modified May 2002, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3310410.0005.103.
[3] Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving and Presenting the Past on the Web (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2005), Introduction, https://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/introduction/index.html.
Our Instructors
Professor Stuart M. McManus
He is the instructor of the project and he taught HIST4702 Digital History during 2022-2023 Semester 1, as well as a humanist and legal historian working on law, slavery and empire in world history from a global and multi-ethnic perspective. He also has interests in the history of classical scholarship and Chinese humanities.
In addition, he is the author of more than 30 articles and book chapters that have appeared in the American Historical Review, Hispanic American Historical Review, Gender & History, Latino Studies and other similar venues.
Miss Claudia Isabelle Violeta Montero
She is the teaching assistant of HIST4702 and also the general coordinator of the project. She has a Masters Degree in Architecture from the University of Santo Tomas and a Master in Philosophy from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is at present an incoming PhD student at the Department of History at the latter university. Her main academic interests are history and historiography of colonial urban spaces (in the Philippines), built heritage, and heritage conservation practice. Besides that, she is fond of investugating the articulation of the national politics of memory and identity.
Our Class
Our Groups
Website Group
(From left to right)
Luk Hoi Kit, Brian: Year 4 student majoring in History, interested in the history of modern Asia.
Tang Yitong, Tony: Year 3 student majoring in History, interested in the early formation of China.
Li Chi Ho, Charles: Year 3 student majoring in History but aim to study Animation in Japan. Don’t stop me now.
Lee Chien Chien: Year 3 History student. Interested in Chinese Diasporic history.
Chan Ka Long, George: Year 4 student majoring in History, interested in history of 20th century Hong Kong, relationship between historical events and global politics in the present.
Ng Cheuk Nam Daniel: Year 4 student majoring in History, interested in world history and politics. Anticipating working for the government.
Wong Fung Warner: Year 3 student majoring in History, interested in the history of East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Data Group
(From left to right)
Zhang Junlong: a Year 1 MACPH student who is interested in Contemporary Chinese History. He extremely loves reading and playing sports and his favourite author is George Orwell.
XU Tingting: MA student in comparative and public history, interested in history of body and gender history.
XU Cheng: MA in Comparative and Public History. A typical Gemini with a passion for art and marketing. Always up for the challenge of new things, except for roller coasters.
SUEN Yuk Yan: Year 2 student majoring in History, interested in why people behave in a certain way.
Yu Ya Qiao: year 4 student majoring in History, interested in history of the Republic of China
LUO Xialin: an MA student, music, movies, basketball and study are my life.
3D Modelling Group
(From left to right)
Chung Ka Ying, Morrie: Year 3 student majoring in History. Interested in Hong Kong History, especially the relationship between Hong Kong Culture and History
LEE Yiu Hei, Hayson: Year 2 student majoring in History. Interested in Chinese History & Hong Kong History
Lam Cheuk Hei, Harry: Year 2 student majoring in History. Interested in Asian and European History
Choi Kai Lam, Vincent: Year 2 student majoring in History. Interested in Chinese History & Hong Kong History
Tsang Kai Hei, Daniel: Year 2 student majoring in History. Interested in Intellectual Landscape of China & Chinese History
CHAN Yat Hin, Nelson: Year 2 student majoring in History. Interested in Chinese History.
Map Group
(From left to right, including iPad)
Chan Hau Ching Clarion: I am a Year 4 History student who is interested in European and US History. Feel free to chat with me in French if you are also learning it! Merci beaucoup!
Ling Kai Lun: I am a Year 4 History student interested in Chinese Islamic History. I am very stupid in computer and technology, so this final project is very challenging to me.
Ngai Chi Lok: Grandpa told me to write about the Treaty of Nerchinsk on his deathbed. Now please cry at this fiction.
Yung Chun Kit: Year 4 History student interested in Song History, memes and alcohol. Don’t like eating McDonalds as those silly waiters make me feel like Mcmadness.
Wong Lok Hang (picture in the iPad): Year 4 student majoring in history. Interetsed in Sports Politics in the Past.
Liu Jiayan: Year 1 in PhD, work hard to feed my cat.
Yeung Tin Man: Year 4 student majoring in History, focusing on the Republic of China era.
Text Mining Group
(From left to right, two of them not in this photo)
CHAN Jason: Year 4 student major in History with a minor in CHLL, interested in creation.
Cheung Ho Ming: I am Thomas, not a train. A Year 2 student in History major.
Tin Yu Sum Marco: Year 2 undergraduate student major in History interested in modern Chinese History. Enthuse on combining digital elements with historical knowledge.
Lau Ching Lam: A final year student major in History who is looking forward to her graduation.
Yip Ka Yu: A Year 3 History student, also interested in Public History.
Koo Ho Man Adwin: A year 2 student majoring in History, especially interested in ancient Chinese History.
Yim Kwun Ho: Hi guys! This is Alex, year 3 history. I like to workout and do different kinds of exercise. Nice to meet y’all!
Video Group
(From left to right)
Lau Ka Wa: Year 3 student majoring in History. Interested in Chinese History.
Zhu Jiehui: Year 3 student majoring in History. Interested in Chinese History and Archeology
Li Kejing: Year 4 student majoring in History. Interested in Comparative History and Transregional History
Nino Spycher: Year 4 student majoring in History. Interested in 20th century History, Cold War History and Gender History
Li Yueqian: MA in Comparative and Public History. Interested in Public History and Modern Chinese History
Clara Leeder: MA in Global History. Interested in Asian History and History of the Caucasus
Website Designed by:
Website Group of HIST4702 Digital History (2022-23)