The Definition of Happiness: Topic Modeling and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Historians of the Eastern Miscellany.

This thesis explores the cultural construction of selfhood in Republican-era China through the lens of shenjing shuairuo 神經衰弱, or neurasthenia. By analyzing a corpus from The Eastern Miscellany (Dongfang zhazhi 東方雜誌), using both close and distant reading methods, this study examines how they can supplement each other's limitations. Furthermore, it shows how historians can leverage the power of large language models to study their corpus. The research highlights the term's ambiguous usage and how it shaped modern Chinese personhood and mental health.