Information about the 2013 Tang workshop
Harvard Workshop on the Use of the
China Biographical Database (CBDB)
in the Study of Tang China
Harvard University
August 22–23, 2013
The T’ang Studies Society is conducting a workshop in the use of the China Biographical Database to take place at Harvard on August 22-23, 2013..
Workshop Program:
A workshop on the CBDB for Tang scholars is being planned for Thursday and Friday, August 22-23, at Harvard University, free of charge, run by Michael Fuller with help from others working on the CBDB. The workshop is for scholars with any research topic in Tang political, intellectual, religious, literary, or social history that involve networks of people and can use the China Biographical Database (CBDB) dataset. The workshop will begin with the general principles of relational databases as a way of modeling biographical information and then explain the details of how the tables in CBDB represent kinship, social relations, office-holding, etc. for pre-modern China. After an introduction to the querying interface provided by MS Access, the rest of the workshop will focus on how to use CBDB to explore the specific projects of the workshop participants. The final portion will show how to use the query results in social network analysis (SNA) and GIS software. (The workshop will be able to use the by-then -- we hope -- newly added data from Nick Tackett’s and Yao Ping’s research materials.).
Daily Schedule:
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Session One: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
From Flatland to Modeling Historical Experience: Thinking through Relational Databases
Session Two: 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
The Structure and Functions of the China Biographical Database, with Query Examples
Friday, August 23, 2013
Session Three: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
The Design of Research Projects using Relational Database Entities and CBDB
Session Four: 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Querying, Analysis and Visualization with Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software
For more information, please visit the Tang Studies Scociety website.
Files for download
Harvard Tang CBCB Workshop Session 1.pptx
Harvard Tang CBCB Workshop Session 2.pptx
Harvard Tang CBCB Workshop Session 3.pptx
This is the temporary CBDB Access database with data drawn from the Tang epitaphs for the purpose of this workshop. This is NOT a formal release of CBDB.