The Cameron University Department of Communication, English and Foreign Languages will present CODE + CULTURE, an exploration of artificial intelligence. On Friday, March 29, two scholars from Dartmouth College will examine the confluence of computer science, creative writing and cultural history. Both events are open to the public at no charge.
At 1 p.m., Rena J. Mosteirin, poet, literary editor and lecturer at Dartmouth College, will lead “Poetic Digital Defamiliarization,” an interactive workshop on creative applications of computer language tools to craft innovative poetic forms and new poetic possibilities. The workshop is intended to help participants get comfortable using digital tools for creative textual defamiliarization. When you defamiliarize language, you create new poetic possibilities. Enjoy the weirdness and confusion that results from transforming a text, and learn how you can use digital tools to revise your own work. The workshop takes place in Ross Hall, Room 100.
Mosteirin’s most recent book, “Experiment 116,” is a volume of experimental poetry that sets out an argument for a global refugee idiolect. She is the co-author of “Moonbit,” an academic and poetic exploration of the Apollo 11 guidance computer code, and her novella “Nick Trail’s Thumb” won the Kore Press Short Fiction Award. Mosterin’s chapbook “Half-Fabulous Whales” explores “Moby-Dick” through erasure poetry. She is an editor at Bloodroot Literary Magazine and is the owner of Left Bank Books, a used bookstore in Hanover, N.H. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Mosterin earned an MFA at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has appeared in New York Magazine, The Rumpus, The Southampton Review and elsewhere in print and on-line.
At 7 p.m., James E. Dobson, author of “The Birth of Computer Vision,” will present “A Short History of Artificial Intelligence and the Automation of Vision and Text Production.” His lecture will address the cultural history of machine learning algorithms and how this strange history shaped the neural networks and AI tools we use today. The lecture will take place in the Shepler Ballroom.
Dobson is an assistant professor of English and creative writing and director of the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College. He is the author of “Modernity and Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century America,” an account of the role communication and transportation technologies played in nineteenth-century American literature, and “Critical Digital Humanities: The Search for a Methodology,” a meta-critical and theoretical account of the methods of the digital humanities. He is also the co-author of “Moonbit.” His most recent book, “The Birth of Computer Vision,” concerns the cultural and intellectual history of machine learning and computer vision.
Funding for CODE + CULTURE is provided by CU Lectures & Concerts and the Helen C. Schutz Endowed Lectureship in English.
For more information, contact Dr. Carie Schneider, associate professor, at cschneid@cameron.edu.
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PR# 24-014
