26 Spring / Digital Humanities Seed Grant Project
Principal Investigator: Prof. Liz Pui Yee CHEE
Medicinal Animals
and Digital Storytelling Map:
The Story of the Saiga Antelope, Rhinoceros, and Shark
All photos on this page are provided by Prof. Liz Pui Yee Chee.
Project Background
Prof. Liz Pui Yee CHEE’s study on the three animals targeted in this project, namely the saiga antelope, rhinoceros, and shark, builds on the research in her first book i.e. Mao’s Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China (Duke University Press, 2021). It highlights the role medicinal animals played in trade and export in the PRC – a highly neglected aspect of scholarship on modern China. Animals became “economic resources” catering to overseas markets but especially East (Hong Kong and Taiwan) and Southeast Asia (Singapore and Malaysia) where Chinese migrants were predominant.
Her second book project, Drinking Antelopes: Animals as Medicine and Food in Chinese Asia (title tentative) expands its focus from mainland China to these regions. More specifically, this new project explores the two-way exchange in the use of animal-based drugs between China and its East and Southeast Asian neighbors and brings this history forward into the contemporary period.
This Digital Humanities provides a new platform to showcase parts of Prof. CHEE’s first book as well as present new research ahead of her second book project, which she is currently writing.
Project Objectives
- Create a comprehensive digital map that traces the process through which animals were given new meanings as medicine and food over the 20th and early 21st centuries, and across the countries of East and Southeast Asia, using the examples of three charismatic but endangered species.
- Look for insights into the created map visualization that may help answer outstanding research questions.
- To make the digital map a go-to spot to reflect on the long but changing exploitation of certain species and the contemporary challenge of conserving them.
Resources
- Mao’s Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China (Duke University Press, 2021)
- Journal articles written based on most recent research
- New primary materials sourced from libraries and archives in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, China
Prof. Liz Pui Yee CHEE (Division of Humanities)
Dr. Steve MA (Division of Humanities)
Yifan WANG (Library)
Yuyuan XUE (MPhil Student from Humanities)