Center for Digital Humanities

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Our November story feature on new research from @mmvty.bsky.social and @wouterhaverals.bsky.social is now on the CDH blog and a @dhnow.bsky.social editor's pick :)

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*Tonight* at 4:30, our fall semester of Modeling Culture talks closes w/ Anna Preus. This talk draws on industry-wide publishing data to explore the output of London’s book business, emphasizing the influence of high-profile authors from colonized nations on British print in the early 20th century.

Join us *today* at 4:30 at CDH, as we continue the Modeling Culture talk series with @mellymeldubs.bsky.social! Drawn from her book in progress, Melanie Walsh will explore how social media—and now AI—have transformed the circulation and representation of 20th-century literary works. More info/RSVP:

I'm very excited to give this talk at Princeton tomorrow!

I'm sharing new work from my book on "viral authors" and social media. In particular, I will be exploring David Foster Wallace's complicated fandom and anti-fandom, following it to some of the seediest corners of the internet...

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Editors' Choice: The Future of Storytelling in the Age of AI: Q&A with Nnedi Okorafor cdh.princeton.edu/bl...

And we feature software papers! Check out @suttonkoeser.bsky.social
Julia Damerow, Robert Casties, Cole Crawford exciting work on working with dates in computational humanities!

I'm very pleased to share my new article on the python library undate, which is an ambitious in-progress effort to make it easier to work with incomplete dates and multiple calendars, building on work from Shakespeare and Company Project, Princeton Geniza Project, etc.
doi.org/10.1017/chr....

Thanks to @taylor-arnold.bsky.social for working with us to publish proceedings from the 2025 Digital Humanities Tech Symposium in the new ACH anthology.

This volume collects short papers from a DH2025 pre-conference event hosted by @dhtech-community.bsky.social

Checking in with Ed Baring: Motivation and Lessons behind Citing Marx Checking in with Ed Baring: Motivation and Lessons behind Citing Marx

For our October newsletter, we checked in with Ed Baring, Professor of History and Human Values, to learn more about the origins of an innovative and collaborative project with CDH that will transform how scholars understand the circulation and interpretation of Marxist ideas. Read about it here:

Graduate training grant recipients explore DH around the world Graduate training grant recipients explore DH around the world

With support from a Graduate Training Grant from the Center for Digital Humanities, four Princeton grads across multiple humanities departments made the most of their summer by traveling to programs and conferences where they explored DH-related topics. Read more on where the grants took them here:

Checking in with Ed Baring: Motivation and Lessons behind Citing Marx Checking in with Ed Baring: Motivation and Lessons behind Citing Marx

For our October newsletter, we checked in with Ed Baring, Professor of History and Human Values, to learn more about the origins of an innovative and collaborative project with CDH that will transform how scholars understand the circulation and interpretation of Marxist ideas. Read about it here:

@princetonainews.bsky.social

David Ifeoluwa Adelani: Scaling Multilingual Evaluation of LLMs to Many Languages David Ifeoluwa Adelani: Scaling Multilingual Evaluation of LLMs to Many Languages

"African Languages in the Age of AI" returns! David Ifeoluwa Adelani (McGill, Mila - Quebec AI Institute, CIFAR) will describe different approaches to scaling evaluation to several languages. Join us on Oct 30! Introduction by @happybuzaaba1.bsky.social.

Banner reads "Deadline to apply: October 31, Calling for Seed Grant Proposals"

🚨 Call for Seed Grant Proposals 🚨

The AI Lab is now reviewing seed grants to support research in large AI models, natural and artificial minds, AI for invention and other AI-related projects.

Deadline for proposals is 10/31. For more information: ai.princeton.edu/ai-lab/seed-...

AI Lab Welcomes Associate Research Scholars This fall, two new associate research scholars join Princeton Language and Intelligence, one of the research initiatives under the AI Lab. The scholars will be supporting the ongoing research at PLI t...

We welcomed 2 new associate research scholars this fall 🥳

Liam Fowl and @happybuzaaba1.bsky.social will be supporting the ongoing research at Princeton Language and Intelligence.

Read more: ai.princeton.edu/news/2025/ai...

The Shape of Ideas: A New History of Failure in the Long Eighteenth Century The Shape of Ideas: A New History of Failure in the Long Eighteenth Century

Join us next Monday, 10/20, for a talk with Mark Algee-Hewitt!

Can AI be creative if it doesn't believe it can? We asked 556 humans and 13 LLMs to judge creative writing. Then we lied about who wrote what. Result: AI has learned to distrust itself, showing 2.5× stronger bias than humans against AI-labeled creativity. Proud of this work with @mmvty.bsky.social 👇

🗞️ New from CDH's @mmvty.bsky.social & @wouterhaverals.bsky.social: AI is 2.5X more biased against its own work than humans ‼️ Read their preprint out now: arxiv.org/pdf/2510.08831, and read the thread below for more insights.

@princeton.edu

#NnediOkorafor @chikaokekeagulu.bsky.social

The Future of Storytelling in the Age of AI: Q&A with Nnedi Okorafor The Future of Storytelling in the Age of AI: Q&A with Nnedi Okorafor

The latest in our #HumanitiesForAI Q&A series: @nnedi.bsky.social joined us in April at @princeton.edu to discuss her new novel, Death of the Author, and the future of storytelling in the age of AI. Read some of her hopes, concerns, and insights on the impact of AI in writing and the humanities. ✨

Modeling Culture is generously funded by a @princetonainews.bsky.social seed grant, with additional support from the Humanities Council and the @princeton.edu Humanities Initiative. Thank you to @princetonenglish.bsky.social for co-sponsorship of the public talks.

How can AI and other computational approaches help us to understand the distant past? @jrladd.com will share work from two cultural analytics projects that address these challenges by combining analog research methods and machine learning to study the print culture of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Welcome back, CDH community! Welcome back, CDH community!

"This year's return to campus feels particularly consequential—it’s a moment when destabilizing shifts in higher education are intersecting with the dizzying pace of AI development," shares @mmvty.bsky.social. Read the full welcome back letter and more on our ongoing 'Humanities for AI' initiative.

Publishing Empire: Modeling Early 20th-Century British Book Culture Publishing Empire: Modeling Early 20th-Century British Book Culture

Nov 18: "Publishing Empire: Modeling Early 20th-Century British Book Culture" with Anna Preus, Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Washington. Info/RSVP:

Viral Authors: Postwar American Literature in the Age of Social Media and AI Viral Authors: Postwar American Literature in the Age of Social Media and AI

Nov 17: "Viral Authors: Postwar American Literature in the Age of Social Media and AI " with Melanie Walsh (@mellymeldubs.bsky.social), Assistant Professor in the Information School and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Washington. Info/RSVP:

Human and Machine Intelligence in Networks of Early Modern Print Human and Machine Intelligence in Networks of Early Modern Print

Sep 29: "Human and Machine Intelligence in Networks of Early Modern Print" with John Ladd (@jrladd.com), Assistant Professor in Computing and Information Studies at Washington & Jefferson College. Info/RSVP:

CDH Launches Modeling Culture: New Humanities Practices in the Age of AI CDH Launches Modeling Culture: New Humanities Practices in the Age of AI

Modeling Culture explores AI not only as a technology to critique, but as a new mode of inquiry for research and interpretation. Three interconnected components will unfold in 2025-26: a faculty and grad seminar, a public lecture series, and an open-access curriculum. Public talk details in thread👇