Lei is a final-year PhD candidate in the SOAS History department. Her research focuses on the transformations in economic thought and practices in late Qing China, particularly the role of the intricate interconnections among the Qing central government, literati-officialdom, and comprador-merchants in the shift in economic thought, policies and the ownership of modern enterprises amid the global rise of neomercantilist ideas. Throughout her doctoral studies, she has presented portions of her work at several national and international symposiums and contributed to conference compilations. She is a member of the EACS, the EHS and the Association for the History of Chinese Economic Thought. Prior to her PhD, Lei completed her Master’s degree in Economic History at the London School of Economics and her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Liverpool. Lei aims to pursue a career in academia, combining digital humanities research methods with an economic perspective on ancient Chinese books.
1.How do you define Digital Humanities?
Digital Humanities (DH) is an innovative interdisciplinary approach that integrates traditional humanistic inquiry with modern digital and computational technologies. It enables scholars to explore questions that were previously unapproachable due to the scale, complexity, or inaccessibility of data.
2. How did you become interested in DH?
My interest in digital humanities methods was sparked by my academic supervisor and deepened after a 2024 academic symposium on Chinese economic thought where I presented a chapter focusing on the Huangchao jingshi wenbian collections, applying digital text mining and critical source analysis to quantify the use of key works and evaluate their significance. During the symposium, a chair recommended I apply the Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) technique.
3. Tell us about your dissertation
My research focuses on the transformations in economic thought and practices in late Qing China, particularly the role of the intricate interconnections among the Qing central government, literati-officialdom, and comprador-merchants in the shift in economic thought, policies and modern enterprises amid the global rise of neomercantilist ideas.
4. And a DH project you like?
One digital humanities project that impressed me was a digital scholarship initiative by the British Library. The number of early printed books involved is enormous—around 23,000 volumes published between 1908 and 2007. Moreover, PhD candidates who are interested in collaborating can propose their own projects and consult with the library’s teams. The scale of the collection and the flexibility in project design made me realize how efficient and innovative digital humanities can be.
介绍Lei Lei
Lei 是伦敦大学亚非学院（SOAS）历史系的一名博士毕业年级学生。她的研究聚焦于清朝晚期经济思想和实践的转变，特别关注清朝中央政府、士大夫官僚阶层与买办商人之间错综复杂的联系，在经济思想、政策及现代企业所有权转变过程中所起的作用，这一切都发生在新重商主义思想全球兴起的背景下。在攻读博士学位期间，她曾在多个国内外学术研讨会上展示过部分研究成果，并为会议论文集作出贡献。她是欧洲汉学学会（EACS）、经济史学会（EHS）以及中国经济思想史学会的成员。
在攻读博士学位之前，雷曾在伦敦政治经济学院 (London School of Economics) 获得经济史硕士学位，并在利物浦大学(the University of Liverpool)完成了本科学业。她计划在学术界发展职业生涯，将数字人文学研究方法与中国古籍的经济视角相结合。
1. 你如何定义数字人文？
数字人文（Digital Humanities, DH）是一种创新的跨学科研究方法，将传统的人文学术研究与现代数字和计算技术相结合。它使学者能够探索过去因数据规模、复杂性或难以获取而难以研究的问题。
2. 你是如何对数字人文产生兴趣的？
我对数字人文方法的兴趣最初来自我的学术导师，在2024年一场关于中国经济思想的学术研讨会上得到了进一步深化。在会上，我展示了关于《皇朝经世文编》文献的研究章节，采用数字文本挖掘与批判性文献分析的方法，量化关键著作的使用频率，并评估其思想意义。会议期间，一位主持人建议我尝试使用“词频-逆文档频率”（TF-IDF）技术来进一步分析文本。
3. 请介绍你的论文课题。
我的研究关注晚清中国经济思想与实践的转型，尤其是清中央政府、士大夫官僚群体与买办商人之间复杂互动关系在经济思想、政策和现代企业发展中的作用。这一转变也与全球重商主义思潮的兴起密切相关。
4. 有什么让你印象深刻的数字人文项目？
让我印象深刻的一个数字人文项目是由英国图书馆发起的数字学术研究计划。该项目涉及的早期印刷书籍数量庞大，约有23,000册，出版时间从1908年到2007年不等。同时，任何有意参与的博士研究者都可以提出自己的项目，并与图书馆的研究团队进行合作。这一项目在资源规模和研究设计上的灵活性让我深刻认识到数字人文在学术研究中的高效性与创新性。