Report

On August 1, 2025, the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia held the Tobuken Workshop, "Digital Humanities for Middle Eastern History." The workshop aimed to facilitate an exchange of ideas between Japanese researchers and Professor Betül İpşirli Argıt of Marmara University, who was then a visiting researcher at IASA, regarding the application of digital humanities (DH) methodologies to historical research on the Middle East and Islamic regions. From the Japanese side, Dr. Erina Ota (Uehiro Project for the Asian Research Library, The University of Tokyo) and Dr. Tomoaki Shinoda (ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), gave presentations on their research incorporating DH methodologies. Professor Wakako Kumakura (Keio University) provided her support for the organization of this workshop. Ten participants attended the workshop, in addition to presenters and the moderator.

During the workshop, Professor İpşirli Argıt conducted a social network analysis of the debt-credit relationships of palace personnel in the late 17th-century Ottoman Empire. She used Gephi to visualize the network, revealing the significance of the role of the teberdars (halberdiers). Dr. Ota attempted a text analysis employing Voyant Tools based on a 15th-century biographical collection from the Mamluk era. She examined frequently occurring words according to part of speech and category. Dr. Shinoda's third presentation extracted data from the 15th-century Maghrib biographical literature, known as Fahrasa, and demonstrated a method for visualizing knowledge transmission networks using Gephi. Each presentation was followed by a lively Q&A session.
 

Event Details

Date: August 1, 2025 (Fri)  2pm~4:30pm

Venue: 2nd conference room (302, 3rd floor), The Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo

Program:

*This workshop was supported by JSPS Invitational Fellowships for Research in Japan.