iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

📨 Our first newsletter of the academic year is out now! In this edition: Introducing the Team, The DO in Review, The DO in Preview, The DO Side Quest and Announcements ✨ 🔗 us14.campaign-archive.com?u=cd5d1b663f...

030

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In our first post of the 2026/27 year, Leon Woltermann continues probing how #digital approaches can aid distant reading & challenge canonical bias. Using a context atlas, Woltermann visualises spatial context across thousands of Indonesian literary works. 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/09/18/t...

100

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

📣 A reminder that we now accept rolling submissions! If you’re interested in contributing to The DO this year, take a look at our submission page 👇 or contact Niels Lee, our Editor for Guest Submissions, at guestposts.digitalorientalist[at]gmail.com 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/submit-your-...

020

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

CFA: Join The DO 2026/27 - Middle Eastern Studies spotlight! 🔦 Editors, Maria S. Thomas & Tiziana Pasciuto, invite contributions that showcase the fluid and extensive possibilities of #digitalhumanities across West Asian, Mediterranean, & Eurasian cultures. 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/cfa-middle-e...

110

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

CFA: Join The DO 2026/27 - South Asian Studies spotlight! 🔦 👋 Meet Yashee Singh, one of our South Asian Studies editors (along with Raafat Gilani), introducing some of the work carried out by the team this year. Interested in joining? 👇 🔗 See full CFA: digitalorientalist.com/2026/06/05/c...

121

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

CFA: Join The DO 2026/27 - Northeast Asian Studies spotlight! 🔦 James Harry Morris, Editor for Northeast Asian Studies, talks about the range of work we welcome, including cutting-edge #DH approaches and user-focused pieces on digital tools, workflows etc. 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/cfa-northeas...

121

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

CFA: Join The DO 2026/27 - Southeast Asian Studies spotlight! 🔦 Our Southeast Asian Studies editor, Hedren Sum, talks about the range of work we welcome, including #DH approaches to languages, archives, mapping, media, and heritage. Read more here: digitalorientalist.com/cfa-southeas...

244

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Join our team ! The Digital Orientalist is pleased to announce its annual open call for contributors and team members for the 2026-2027 academic year. digitalorientalist.com/2026/06/05/c...

053

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

In our new guest post, Damian Mandzunowski describes how COVID-19 restrictions shifted his historical research to visual sources and lead to the creation of "Reading in China Photographed," a WordPress repository of 385 tagged historical photographs. Read more on our website ⬇️

152

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

In our new article, Lin Du proposes the methodology of Digital Historical Forensics (DHF), a method designed to recover the editorial micro-decisions that propaganda's surface works to conceal. Read more on our website: digitalorientalist.com/2026/05/29/t...

131

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

In our new article, Rachael Griffiths reflects on "failures" in digital humanities and the lack of publication of failed or inconclusive research results. Read more on our website! digitalorientalist.com/2026/05/22/e... #digitalhumanities

042

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

In our new article, Enes Yılandiloğlu demonstrates how he builds an NER pipeline for the 16th-century Ottoman text Künhü'l-Ahbar and geocodes the local entities via three different gazetteers for Ottoman Turkish. Read more on our website ! digitalorientalist.com/2026/05/19/f...

020

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

In our new article, @somiyagawa.bsky.social introduces the Database of Medieval Nubian Texts (DBMNT), a comprehensive digital archive of over 4,500 texts from Christian Nubian kingdoms (6th–15th c.). Read more on our website! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/05/15/t...

14029

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

In our new article, Zach Butler guides us on how to set up a local IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) image server to ensure uninterrupted access to manuscript images for research. Read more on our website! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/05/12/r...

062

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

In our new article, Shuohong Lyu introduces the concept of "artificial intelligence hegemony": when AI systems become the organisers of the conditions of meaning-making, credibility, and intellectual labour. Read more on our website! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/05/08/a...

032

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

In our new article, Mona Hassan Ahmed Sawy surveys digital Coptic studies, highlighting key projects alongside the persistent challenges. Read more on our website! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/05/05/d...

061

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Our new articles this week are the bipartite interview of Prof. David Michelson by Ephrem A. Ishac on Digital Syriac Studies. In the interview, Prof. Michelson discusses his experiences working on projects from Syriaca.org to Syriac Manuscripts in the British Library. Read more on our website:

121

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

In our new article, @brianthwong.bsky.social and Curtis Sai Hung Chan introduce the Hong Kong Chinese Merchants Collection at HKU Libraries, an archive of ledgers and correspondence from over 200 Chinese firms. Read more on our website! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/04/24/t...

030

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Our new blog post is an Editor's Digest by Sara Zanotta, our editor for Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies. Read more on our website! digitalorientalist.com/2026/04/21/e... #digitalhumanities #persian #IranianStudies #turkicstudies #biblicalstudies

000

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Our new article by Abdulqadir Haidermota is out ! Read more on our website: The Affective Algorithm: Mapping the Emotional Architecture of Fatimid Geniza Petitions (Part 1) digitalorientalist.com/2026/04/14/t...

123

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

In our new article, Zhaleh Nayebossadrian critically examines the Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran (WWQI) digital archive, which aggregates private family collections to recover women's histories from Iran's Qajar era (1796–1925). Read more on our website ! digitalorientalist.com/2026/04/10/d...

053

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

In our new article, "AI-Generated Feedback: Preliminary Thoughts," @rachaelgriffiths.bsky.social tests paperreview.ai, an AI tool designed to provide human-like peer review feedback for academic papers. Read more on our website! digitalorientalist.com/2026/04/07/a...

001

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

In "Digital Humanities Approaches to Navigating the Early Colonial Hong Kong History", Eric H. C. Chow and Ryan Iu survey digital humanities tools for studying early colonial Hong Kong history. Read more on our website! digitalorientalist.com/2024/02/02/d...

131

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

In his new article, "Current Trends in Digital Corpora and Manuscript Archives of Classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez)", @somiyagawa.bsky.social writes about several digital initiatives that are transforming access to Classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez). Link below ⬇️

1186

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Our new article, "Editor’s Digest March 2026: South Asian Studies (Part 1)", is an editor's digest by our editor of South Asian Studies Yashee Singh ( @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social ). Read more on our website ! digitalorientalist.com/2026/03/31/e...

033

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

In our new essay, Tomasz Sleziak explores how Poland and South Korea use digital repositories to preserve national consciousness following their transitions from authoritarianism to democracy. Read more on our website! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/03/27/e...

144

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

In our new essay, "Buddhism and AI: Another Look," @alicecasalini.bsky.social reflects on her transition from AI optimism to "neo-Luddism," arguing that Buddhism and AI are fundamentally incompatible. Read more on our blog: 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/03/24/b...

141

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Our new article is part III of "At the Dawn of Digital Studies on Arabic Script in France" by Ilyes Mechentel (@unibe.ch). In part III, Ilyed explores why Arabic Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) adoption lags behind Latin scripts despite achieving technical parity. Read more on our website!

142

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

In his new essay, Leon Woltermann argues that Indonesian literature cannot be separated from its dynamic system of circulation, which shapes audiences, reading practices, and the nature of literature itself. Read more on our blog! (links below ⬇️)

101

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

In her articles for the DO, Dena Shamsizadeh (@adho-org.bsky.social) introduces ResearchSpace 4.0.0 (researchspace.org ) and Arches (www.archesproject.org ), two platforms for the management of cultural heritage data. Read more on our website! (Links below⬇️)

100

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

In addition to our regular articles, we also publish the proceedings of our annual conferences and reports from workshops and conferences in the Digital Humanities hosted by our colleagues. Check out the conference proceedings and reports on our website! Links below⬇️

142

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

In our new article, "Loss by Omission: GenAI Summarization Tools and History Knowledge", Edward A. S. Ross critically examines text summarization with different commercial models (ChatGPT 5.1, Claude 4.5, M365 Copilot), using the Pali Milindapañhā as the test case. Link below ⬇️

165

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

In our new article, Saniya Irfan argues that digital humanities should begin with voice, not just technical infrastructure. Saniya proposes the framework of “decolonial data narratives,” where data are understood as testimony, memory, and lived experience. Read more on our blog! (link below⬇️)

151

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Our March Newsletter is now out! You can subscribe for updates or find it online here: us14.campaign-archive.com?u=cd5d1b663f...

021

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

In our new article, Zach Butler introduces Xeirographa (www.xeirographa.com), a platform that teaches users how to read Greek manuscripts developed by Jacob Peterson (www.jacobwpeterson.com). Read more on our website! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/03/06/x...

042

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Our new blog post is a report from The DO Board following the 2025 rebrand survey, which addressed the problematic history of the term “Orientalist.”We have published an updated survey and welcome any feedback, thoughts, ideas, or comments via the links below ⬇️

111

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Over the years, Soni Wadha, a specialist in the Sindhi language, has written about the archiving and preservation of Sindhi books and documents, as well as reported on conferences and initiatives aimed at bringing language technology to the myriad languages of India. Links below⬇️

161

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

In our new blog post, Sunayani Bhattacharya explores using Omeka for digital curation as a critical method in teaching Bengali texts. From metadata to visual storytelling, the article offers creative work-arounds for engaging non-Latinate archives from the Global South. Link below ⬇️

151

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

📢 We are welcoming guest submissions! Our guideline for submissions: digitalorientalist.com/submit-your-... We are especially interested in expanding our coverage to Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, and Sinological studies for any period after 500 CE!

044

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Our new blog post, “Overview of NDL古典籍OCR: The Key to Early Modern Japanese Archives?”, is a guest contribution by Xia-Kang Ziyi, which provides an overview of OCR technology for Japanese kuzushiji and introduces NDLKotenOCR-Lite model. Read more on our blog! digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/24/o...

132

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Our new blog post by Michel Wong (@humboldtuni.bsky.social ) is a curated guide to online repositories of Chaghatai Turkic manuscripts and printed texts, covering collections in Central Asia and beyond. Read more on our blog! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/20/a...

0106

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Beginning with her overview article, "African and Oceanian Objects in French Museums," @transcrireada.bsky.social ( @cnrs.fr ) has introduced us to several vital digital humanities initiatives focused on preserving African history and languages, including:

1104

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Our latest post is an Editor’s Digest of our Middle Eastern Studies publications from February 2025 to February 2026, curated by Maria S. Thomas (@vuamsterdam.bsky.social ). Read the full articles on our blog! 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/17/e... 2025-26 DO Middle Eastern Studies posts⬇️:

175

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

We regularly publish overviews of available digital sources in our sub-disciplines. If you're a student or teacher of South Asian, Central Asian, or East Asian languages and civilizations, check out our latest guides: (links below⬇️)

174

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

In our new blog post, @xiaolidh.bsky.social introduces a new series on her AI chatbot designed to support spoken Chinese learning. The tool offers real-time feedback in a low-pressure setting, but human evaluation remains essential. AI enhances learning but doesn’t replace teachers. Link below⬇️

121

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

In recent years, Marcije Kurzynski has written four posts for us on LLMs in Chinese studies: from the pitfalls of Chinese tokenization to RAG in university teaching and Transformer-based stylometry of Cantonese writers. He also reflects on global #DH beyond the “China and the West” divide. Links ⬇️

121

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

In our new blog post, James Morris (Waseda University) shares a follow-up to his experiment using DuckDuckGo instead of Google for research purposes. James highlights several advantages of using DuckDuckGo: AI-free research, easy country-switching, fewer advertisement Linke below⬇️

261

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Over the years, Miyagawa So (University of Tsukuba), one of DO’s most prolific contributors, has written extensively on digital initiatives related to various ancient African languages and scripts, including Demotic, Egyptian Hieratic, Coptic, and Nubian. Read more on our blog ⬇️

1128

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Check out our newsletter for February 2026 ! us14.campaign-archive.com?u=cd5d1b663f... In addition to our regular blog posts, this issue features the proceedings of the DO’s 2025 conference, “AI and the Digital Humanities.” Announcements for upcoming #digitalhumanities events ⬇️

122

The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

In our new blog post, Brian Tsz Ho Wong showcases how to use the 帝国議会会議録検索システム (Database System for the Minutes of the Imperial Diet) to study modern East Asian history based on his recent article in the Financial History Review. Read more on our blog: 🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2026/02/06/p...

122