Visualizing [Asian] Cultures - Image-Driven Scholarship
http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu
03 Dec 2010
MIT Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA
Self-description:
"What is Visualizing Cultures?
Visualizing Cultures weds images and scholarly commentary in innovative ways to illuminate social and cultural history. Founded in 2002 by MIT Professors John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa, Visualizing Cultures exploits the unique qualities of the Web as a publishing platform to enable scholars, teachers, and others to: (1) examine large bodies of previously inaccessible images; (2) compose original texts with unlimited numbers of full-color, high-resolution images; and (3) use new technology to explore unprecedented ways of analyzing and presenting images that open windows on modern history. [...]
This website offers a growing number of titles referred to as 'units.' This first, pioneering set of units visualizes diverse aspects of Japan in the modern world. Units in development move into China and beyond. [...] Units [accessible via Icon view and/or Text view - ed.] are generally comprised of four sections:
# Essay
A topical essay written by a Visualizing Cultures scholar and driven by the visuals themselves features full-color images, often enlarged to reveal telling details. Images are isolated and juxtaposed to highlight diverse perspectives and points. Reading images involves asking who the artists are, when they worked, what mediums they used, and how the audiences of the times responded to them.
# Visual Narratives
Graphics dominate the Visual Narratives. Themes from the essay as well as pathways and details within the image collection are explored visually in many different ways—series, close ups, recurring visual motifs, juxtapositions, changing media, and so forth -- with a minimum of text.
# Image Database (Gallery and VCID)
Each unit has a database that features every image in the essay, plus many more. The database generally takes the form of a simple view (Gallery) that enables users to easily scroll through the collection of source images. Some units feature a more complex database (VCID) with a federated search function that hooks directly into museum databases. All databases include at least basic metadata.
# Video and Animation (VCTV)
Visualizing Cultures has more than a hundred short clips that include author commentaries, interviews, tours, animation, and archival source footage. Video is also downloadable for the iPod [...]."
Site contents:
* MIT Visualizing Cultures (About VC, VC Scholars, Partner Institutions, Outreach, Events, Contact VC, Join VC on Facebook, Follow VC on Twitter);
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System I, China in the World (1700-1860s), Essay by Peter C. Perdue;
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System II, Macau & Whampoa Anchorage (1700-1860s), Essay by Peter C. Perdue;
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System III, Canton & Hong Kong (1700-1860s), Essay by Peter C. Perdue;
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System IV, Image Galleries;
* The First Opium War, The Anglo-Chinese War of 1839-1842, by Peter C. Perdue;
* The Opium War in Japanese Eyes, An Illustrated 1849 Story from Overseas, by John W. Dower;
* The Second Opium War [to be available in 2011], The Anglo-Chinese War of 1856-1860, by Peter C. Perdue;
* Black Ships & Samurai, Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (1853-1854), by John W. Dower;
* Black Ships & Samurai II, Visual Narratives;
* Yokohama Boomtown, Foreigners in Treaty-Port Japan (1859-1872), by John W. Dower;
* Felice Beato's Japan: Places, An Album by the Pioneer Foreign Photographer in Yokohama, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* Felice Beato's Japan: People, An Album by the Pioneer Foreign Photographer in Yokohama, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* Globetrotters' Japan: Places, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* Globetrotters' Japan: People, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* John Thomson's China I, Illustrations of China and Its People, Photo Albums (1873-1874), Essay by Allen Hockley;
* John Thomson's China II, Illustrations of China and Its People, Photo Albums (1873-1874);
* Visual Narratives, John Thomson's China III, Illustrations of China and Its People, Photo Albums (1873-1874);
* Albums & Galleries, Throwing Off Asia I, Woodblock Prints of Domestic 'Westernization' (1868-1912), by John W. Dower;
* Throwing Off Asia II, Woodblock Prints of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), by John W. Dower;
* Throwing Off Asia III, Woodblock Prints of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), by John W. Dower;
* Asia Rising, Japanese Postcards of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), by John W. Dower;
* Yellow Promise, Foreign Postcards of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), by John W. Dower;
* Selling Shiseido I, Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan, Essay by Gennifer Weisenfeld;
* Selling Shiseido II, Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan, Visual Narratives;
* Selling Shiseido III, Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan, Image Galleries;
* Tokyo Modern I, Koizumi Kishio's '100 Views' of the Imperial Capital (1928-1940), Essay by James T. Ulak;
* Tokyo Modern II, Koizumi Kishio's '100 Views', Annotations & Gallery;
* Tokyo Modern III, '100 Views' by 8 Artists (1928-1932), Image Galleries;
* Ground Zero 1945, Pictures by Atomic Bomb Survivors, Essay by John W. Dower;
* Ground Zero 1945: A Schoolboy's Story, Testimony of Akihiro Takahashi, Illustrations by Goro Shikoku.
URL http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu
Internet Archive http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu
Link reported by: Scott Shunk, Program Director (shunk--at--mit.edu), forwarded by h-asia--at--h-net.msu.edu
* Resource type [news/comments - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Study / Documents / Corporate Info.
* Publisher [academic - business - govt. - library/museum - NGO - other]:
Academic
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
Essential
Please note that the above details were correct on the day of their publication. To suggest an update, please email the site's editor at tmciolek@ciolek.com
03 Dec 2010
MIT Visualizing Cultures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA
Self-description:
"What is Visualizing Cultures?
Visualizing Cultures weds images and scholarly commentary in innovative ways to illuminate social and cultural history. Founded in 2002 by MIT Professors John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa, Visualizing Cultures exploits the unique qualities of the Web as a publishing platform to enable scholars, teachers, and others to: (1) examine large bodies of previously inaccessible images; (2) compose original texts with unlimited numbers of full-color, high-resolution images; and (3) use new technology to explore unprecedented ways of analyzing and presenting images that open windows on modern history. [...]
This website offers a growing number of titles referred to as 'units.' This first, pioneering set of units visualizes diverse aspects of Japan in the modern world. Units in development move into China and beyond. [...] Units [accessible via Icon view and/or Text view - ed.] are generally comprised of four sections:
# Essay
A topical essay written by a Visualizing Cultures scholar and driven by the visuals themselves features full-color images, often enlarged to reveal telling details. Images are isolated and juxtaposed to highlight diverse perspectives and points. Reading images involves asking who the artists are, when they worked, what mediums they used, and how the audiences of the times responded to them.
# Visual Narratives
Graphics dominate the Visual Narratives. Themes from the essay as well as pathways and details within the image collection are explored visually in many different ways—series, close ups, recurring visual motifs, juxtapositions, changing media, and so forth -- with a minimum of text.
# Image Database (Gallery and VCID)
Each unit has a database that features every image in the essay, plus many more. The database generally takes the form of a simple view (Gallery) that enables users to easily scroll through the collection of source images. Some units feature a more complex database (VCID) with a federated search function that hooks directly into museum databases. All databases include at least basic metadata.
# Video and Animation (VCTV)
Visualizing Cultures has more than a hundred short clips that include author commentaries, interviews, tours, animation, and archival source footage. Video is also downloadable for the iPod [...]."
Site contents:
* MIT Visualizing Cultures (About VC, VC Scholars, Partner Institutions, Outreach, Events, Contact VC, Join VC on Facebook, Follow VC on Twitter);
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System I, China in the World (1700-1860s), Essay by Peter C. Perdue;
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System II, Macau & Whampoa Anchorage (1700-1860s), Essay by Peter C. Perdue;
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System III, Canton & Hong Kong (1700-1860s), Essay by Peter C. Perdue;
* Rise & Fall of the Canton Trade System IV, Image Galleries;
* The First Opium War, The Anglo-Chinese War of 1839-1842, by Peter C. Perdue;
* The Opium War in Japanese Eyes, An Illustrated 1849 Story from Overseas, by John W. Dower;
* The Second Opium War [to be available in 2011], The Anglo-Chinese War of 1856-1860, by Peter C. Perdue;
* Black Ships & Samurai, Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (1853-1854), by John W. Dower;
* Black Ships & Samurai II, Visual Narratives;
* Yokohama Boomtown, Foreigners in Treaty-Port Japan (1859-1872), by John W. Dower;
* Felice Beato's Japan: Places, An Album by the Pioneer Foreign Photographer in Yokohama, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* Felice Beato's Japan: People, An Album by the Pioneer Foreign Photographer in Yokohama, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* Globetrotters' Japan: Places, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* Globetrotters' Japan: People, Foreigners on the Tourist Circuit in Meiji Japan, Essay by Allen Hockley;
* John Thomson's China I, Illustrations of China and Its People, Photo Albums (1873-1874), Essay by Allen Hockley;
* John Thomson's China II, Illustrations of China and Its People, Photo Albums (1873-1874);
* Visual Narratives, John Thomson's China III, Illustrations of China and Its People, Photo Albums (1873-1874);
* Albums & Galleries, Throwing Off Asia I, Woodblock Prints of Domestic 'Westernization' (1868-1912), by John W. Dower;
* Throwing Off Asia II, Woodblock Prints of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), by John W. Dower;
* Throwing Off Asia III, Woodblock Prints of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), by John W. Dower;
* Asia Rising, Japanese Postcards of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), by John W. Dower;
* Yellow Promise, Foreign Postcards of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), by John W. Dower;
* Selling Shiseido I, Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan, Essay by Gennifer Weisenfeld;
* Selling Shiseido II, Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan, Visual Narratives;
* Selling Shiseido III, Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan, Image Galleries;
* Tokyo Modern I, Koizumi Kishio's '100 Views' of the Imperial Capital (1928-1940), Essay by James T. Ulak;
* Tokyo Modern II, Koizumi Kishio's '100 Views', Annotations & Gallery;
* Tokyo Modern III, '100 Views' by 8 Artists (1928-1932), Image Galleries;
* Ground Zero 1945, Pictures by Atomic Bomb Survivors, Essay by John W. Dower;
* Ground Zero 1945: A Schoolboy's Story, Testimony of Akihiro Takahashi, Illustrations by Goro Shikoku.
URL http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu
Internet Archive http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu
Link reported by: Scott Shunk, Program Director (shunk--at--mit.edu), forwarded by h-asia--at--h-net.msu.edu
* Resource type [news/comments - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]:
Study / Documents / Corporate Info.
* Publisher [academic - business - govt. - library/museum - NGO - other]:
Academic
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
Essential
Please note that the above details were correct on the day of their publication. To suggest an update, please email the site's editor at tmciolek@ciolek.com
posted by tmciolek at Friday, December 03, 2010
The blog and the AS WWW Monitor were a part of the now decommissioned
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