Machine Learning and the Future of Philology

REGISTER HERE (limited to Princeton affiliates)

What will philology become in the wake of the digital revolution? How can computer vision, handwritten text recognition, natural language processing, deep neural networks and/or other forms of machine learning refine the arsenal of techniques for studying premodern evidence?

This works-in-progress symposium will feature six teams of Princeton scholars who are applying machine learning to manuscripts, rare books, archives, inscriptions, coins and other pre-1600 texts. Presentations will include projects on materials in Syriac, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Chinese and English. David Smith (Computer Science, Northeastern) will offer remarks.

The symposium will take place at the CDH on Friday, December 9, 2022, 9 am to 5 pm at the Center for Digital Humanities (B Floor, Firestone Library) and on Zoom.

This event is co-organized by the Center for Digital Humanities and the Manuscript, Rare Book and Archive Studies Initiative, with support from the Center for Statistics and Machine Learning. This symposium is intended as the first of a pair; the second will take place in 2023–24 and solicit proposals from beyond the Princeton community. 

See the MARBAS site for the latest schedule and abstracts.

Questions? Please email marbas@princeton.edu and a member of the coordinating committee will get back to you.