Reframing the Educational Past: A Digital Microhistory of the Sun Family Letters

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 2:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Emerging Directions in Historical Methods

Abstract

This paper reframes the historiography of educational modernization in late Qing China through a digital microhistorical lens. Focusing on the Rui’an Sun family, particularly the correspondence of Sun Yirang (1848–1908), it explores how personal letters function as educational texts and social tools. By integrating spatial theory with educational interaction theory, and using GIS to map social and educational networks, the study demonstrates how epistolary practices shaped reform initiatives. The paper argues that personal networks—geographic, scholarly, professional, and ideological—operated as channels for cultural capital exchange and institutional change. This interdisciplinary inquiry illustrates the power of digital spatial analysis to enrich historical understanding and reinterpret education as a relational and spatial practice.

Author

• Gongrui Wu, East China Normal University