Sanfoqi, Old Harbor and the Baolin Polity in the Rekidai Hōan
For the past five years, I have been putting forth the argument that a Chinese place name, Sanfoqi, that scholars believe referred to a polity on Sumatra called “Srivijaya” was…
Sanfoqi in the Ming shilu
Many years ago now, in the 1990s, historian Geoff Wade translated the information about Southeast Asia in the Ming shilu (Veritable Records of the Ming), and then in the 2000s…
What Students are Learning but Many Profs Perhaps Still Aren’t
A few years ago, I used to teach a session on “writing a literature review” for a general “methods” course that was offered to incoming graduate students in various humanities…
What is Up with Musicians Looking at Sheet Music?!!
When I was a teenager, I wanted to become a musician. I didn’t practice enough to get good at anything, but in the process, I saw tons of musicians perform,…
More on “History is Toast” – An Explanation
I have been arguing that History cannot survive AI, and some people have been offering contending views, such as the idea that AI can’t do certain things that certain historians…
AHA’s “Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education”
The American Historical Association has issued some “Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education.”If you have read any of my posts on the future (or what I see as…
I Have Never Read “Orientalism”. . . But LLMs Can
I have been thinking about books and reading as we enter the AI/LLM age.There are a couple of books that were hugely influential when I was a graduate student in…
History is Toast – The Current History Profession Can’t Survive AI
There is a new study that came out recently called “Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI.”This study was carried out by a group of Microsoft researchers…
Houses Built on Stilts in the “Lĩnh Nam Chích Quái” (+ChatGPT 5)
I recently read a new article by archaeologist Charles Higham and linguist Mark Alves on “The Southeast Asian Prehistoric House: A Correlation between Archaeology and Linguistics.”One of the things I…
Why Digital Humanities Doesn’t Work
Digital Humanities doesn’t work. That is what I, an initial believer and advocate, now think.Let me explain why.Back some fifteen years ago, as the Internet became ever more a part…