MIT Visualizing CulturesVisualizing Cultures was launched at MIT in 2002 to explore the potential of the Web for developing innovative image-driven scholarship and learning. The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be).
Topical units to date focus on Japan in the modern world and early-modern China.
China Through the Eyes of CIM MissionariesThis collection of 166 hand-tinted glass lantern slides, 53 glass plate negatives and 6 plastic negatives, contains images of portraits, landscapes, scenery and architecture in China as well as shots documenting the social conditions and economic activities of the Chinese from the 1900s to the 1930s.
The CIM (China Inland Mission, renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in 1964) used these slides and negatives in slide shows about its missionary work for churches in the United States. This project digitized 225 lantern slides and negatives to preserve their intrinsic documentary and artistic value.
Virtual Shanghai"Virtual Shanghai is a research and resource platform on the history of Shanghai from the mid-nineteenth century to nowadays. It incorporates various sets of documents: essays, original documents, photographs, maps, quantitative data, etc. The objective of the project is to write a history of the city through the combined mobilization of these various types of documents.
Visualising China (Historical Photographs of China)Visualising China is a web-based resource that allows users to explore more than 9,000 digitised images of historical photographs of China from across our own platform, and two external collections held at the Needham Research Institute, and Harvard-Yenching Library. This tool, aimed at both researchers and more general users, brings information from related collections together with an interface that offers cross-searching and intuitive ways to filter image, video and textual resources according to time and geography.
Essential Documentaries about ChinaLast Train Home, director Lixin Fan joins other filmmakers, film curators and writers in recommending more documentaries about China and by Chinese filmmakers.
Chinese PostersThis website, chineseposters.net, aims to present Chinese propaganda posters through virtual exhibitions, theme presentations and a web-database. It also provides additional information in the form of biographical notes of poster artists, resources, etc. chineseposters.net is a work in progress, continually growing to become a true showcase for one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of poster propaganda, and a visual chronicle of the history of modern China.
Academic Video OnlineThis link opens in a new windowAcademic Video Online: Premium brings together on a single cross-searchable platform a completely integrated online repository of Alexander Street Press video titles. Includes newsreels, award-winning documentaries, field recordings, interviews, lectures, training videos, and exclusive primary footage.
KanopyThis link opens in a new windowUnavailable films can be requested ONLY by faculty for their course-wide assignments. Faculty, please fill out the request form below the film.
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service for educational institutions that works directly with filmmakers and film distribution companies to offer thousands of award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases across diverse subjects and disciplines.
Swank Digital CampusThis link opens in a new windowSwank Digital Campus provides colleges and universities with the largest academic streaming collection of its kind. Swank Digital Campus simplifies film distribution by providing faculty and students a legal streaming resource both on and off campus.
Image Resources
Artstor on JSTORThis link opens in a new windowArtstor features millions of high-quality images and media from some of the world’s top photo archives, museums, libraries, scholars, and artists, including rare materials not available anywhere else. Artstor’s collections also include Open Access collections from partner museums freely available to all.
AP NewsroomThis link opens in a new windowAccess over 180 years of the photographs, sound bites, and graphics from the archives of the Associated Press.
