Thomas S. Mullaney The Chinese Typewriter MEETING DATE: Thursday, July 25, 2024 6:45PM - 8:45PM (Zoom meeting room opens at 6:45 PM; Meeting starts at 7 PM) via Zoom virtual meeting. |
Chinese writing is unique—it doesn't follow the alphabetic or syllabic patterns found in most world scripts. Over time, Chinese encountered various alphabetic systems like Morse Code, Braille, and stenography, all designed with the Latin alphabet in mind. Thomas Mullaney explores the century-long quest for a functional Chinese typewriter. Early attempts were fantastical, with imagined twelve-foot keyboards sporting 5,000 keys. However, real progress came when a Christian missionary invented one of the first Chinese typewriters, organizing characters by common usage. Later, typewriters were manufactured for Chinese offices, and typewriting schools produced trained "typewriter girls" and "typewriter boys." The "Double Pigeon" typewriter, popular during Mao's era, further shaped Chinese typewriting. Clerks experimented with character arrangements, even pioneering an early form of "predictive text."
Despite resistance against alphabetic systems, Chinese characters ultimately prevailed. They now underpin China's vibrant information technology landscape. The Chinese Typewriter isn't just an "object history"; it grapples with broader questions of technological change and global communication. Through a fascinating journey of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes, Mullaney reveals how Chinese characters adapted to the typewriter and became an integral part of modern Chinese communication.
Thomas S. Mullaney is Professor of History at Stanford University, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress.
He is the author or lead editor of 7 books, including Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project that Matters to You (and the World), The Chinese Deathscape, The Chinese Typewriter (winner of the Fairbank prize), Your Computer is on Fire, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China, and the forthcoming The Chinese Computer—the first comprehensive history of Chinese-language computing.
His writings have appeared in dozens of outlets, including MIT Technology Review, The Boston Globe, Fast Company, South China Morning Post, the Journal of Asian Studies, Technology & Culture, Aeon, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, among others, and his work has been featured in the LA Times, The Atlantic, the BBC, and in invited lectures at Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and more.
He holds a PhD from Columbia University.