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Modeling Culture: New Humanities Practices in the Age of AI

Modeling Culture: New Humanities Practices in the Age of AI

A year-long seminar for faculty and grads with a public lecture series, culminating in a comprehensive and accessible curriculum for advanced humanities researchers.

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Project overview

Since the release of ChatGPT, conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) have generated both excitement and concern across the humanities. Much of the debate has focused on political and ethical questions—bias, labor, environmental impact, and intellectual property—as well as the effects of large language models (LLMs) on teaching and learning. Yet one question remains underexplored: how might AI contribute directly to humanities scholarship?

To address this question, Modeling Culture: New Humanities Practices in the Age of AI will bring together leading scholars in cultural analytics, develop a comprehensive and accessible curriculum for advanced humanities researchers, host a year-long seminar for Princeton faculty and graduate students, and present a public lecture series. The project will result in a shareable curriculum designed for use at other institutions, offering new frameworks for understanding the place of AI within the broader landscape of data-driven approaches to culture.

Seminar

Modeling Culture Seminar: New Humanities Practices in the Age of AI

Sep 29–May 18

Seminar

The Modeling Culture seminar will meet monthly over eight sessions (four per semester) during the 2025–26 academic year. Led by CDH-affiliated and guest instructors, the seminar will explore diverse humanities engagements with generative AI—ranging from probing interpretive limits to experimenting with creative and pedagogical uses, and from developing data curation workflows to examining broader social and ethical implications. Each session will introduce key technical terms and concepts, highlighting areas where humanities scholars can bring distinct insight.

By combining methodological transparency, iterative experimentation, and ethical reflection, the series will address challenges such as the opacity of LLM architectures, biases in their outputs, and the complexities of integrating AI into humanities research and teaching. Together, these sessions will provide both concrete examples and critical frameworks for situating AI within the humanities.

Seminar sessions are closed to the public.

Public Talks: Spring 2026

Modeling ‘Worth by Association’ in U.S. Book Reviews, 1905–1925

Feb 2 4:30PM–6:00PM

Matthew Lavin

Modeling Culture Talk

Graphic slide with a pastel gradient background displaying the text Matthew J. Lavin and the title Modeling Worth by Association in U.S. Book Reviews, 1905–1925.

Liberating Information: Exploring Computational Methods to Study Histories of Information, from Decolonization to Digital Humanities

Mar 3 4:30PM–6:00PM

Zoe LeBlanc

Modeling Culture Talk

Graphic slide with a purple-to-pink gradient background displaying the text Zoë LeBlanc and the title Liberating Information: Exploring Computational Methods to Study Histories of Information, from Decolonization to Digital Humanities.

No Humans-in-the-Loop: The People-less Stories Generated by GPT

Mar 31 4:30PM–6:00PM

Claudia Carroll

Gabi Kirilloff

Modeling Culture Talk

Public Talks: Fall 2025

Throughout 2025–26, CDH will host six public talks by leading scholars in Cultural Analytics. Open to all, the series invites audiences to explore the histories, theories, and practices that shape the evolving intersection of AI and the humanities.