Professor WITTERN, Christian
Professor WITTERN, Christian
- Academic Degree
- Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Göttingen
- Expertise
- Digital Humanities, Chan Buddhism
- Research Theme
- A Knowledgebase for Buddhist Studies: With Chan Buddhism as an Example
A Knowledgebase for Buddhist Studies: With Chan Buddhism as an Example
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, many Buddhist texts and related materials were available as electronic texts. A range of problems with these electronic texts remain, but data suitable for use as research material is nevertheless abundant and increasing in quantity. Developing new research methods in the humanities using these new materials is a major research theme for me. I am interested in how we can use the internet to empower researchers to establish the origins of documents, their content and structure, relationships between documents, linguistic analysis, the social and historic context, and even the documents' creators and the people around them, making comprehensive use of the results of research on artworks and artifacts across multiple fields. As a concrete example of this idea, I am working to create a comprehensive Buddhist studies knowledge base for Chan⁄Zen Buddhism in particular.