Breaking Barriers: Polyglot Asian Medicine Project Won 2nd Runner-Up Prize in Global Digital Humanities Contest

Polyglot Asian Medicine, a SoH research project helmed by PI Assistant Professor Michael Stanley-Baker (NTU History), won second runner-up for Best DH Dataset at the Digital Humanities Awards 2023.

Polyglot Asian Medicine studies the intersection of traditional medical systems and languages, starting with Maritime Southeast Asia. The research explores how medical cultures compare across the region. As a digital humanities corpus, the project brings together a huge collection of texts and tools to study the history of medicine in the region. The project builds a repository of digitized and searchable Malay medical manuscripts, Chinese late imperial medical works and local Peranakan family manuscripts.

The project has received funding from sources such as the National Heritage Board, MOE Tier 1, Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Education, as well as the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

The DH Awards recognises talent and expertise in the digital humanities community. Nominated and voted for by the public, the DH Awards also comprises an international committee of experts that oversees final winners.

Medical plants from NTU Yunnan Gardens matched to Polyglot database of herbal plants.