In Episode 188 of Conversations with Dr. David Dobson, A K M Iftekhar Khalid discusses his research on how generative AI may be reshaping the way English is used around the world. Khalid introduces the idea of generative AI as an “invisible coloniser,” examining how models developed by major technology companies may quietly impose North American English standards on users in the Global South. He explores linguistic hegemony, data colonialism, and the ways AI may marginalize l

Dan O’Donnell has been awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for his project, “#safespaces? Speaker-Centred Rights, Discursive Power, and the Changing Stakes in Debates about Academic Freedom.” The project examines how academic freedom is being challenged by changing ideas about speech, power, inclusion, and institutional responsibility. It asks why current debates about academic freedom have become so difficult, and how universities can better understand the relationship

We are proud to announce that Morgan has been accepted as a member of the Editorial Board for Press Start, a multidisciplinary, open-access game studies journal based at the University of Glasgow. Press Start publishes peer-reviewed undergraduate and postgraduate research in game studies, with an Editorial Board and reviewer team made up of students and recent graduates. This opportunity is an exciting extension of Morgan’s experience in game studies, allowing her to support

Three students from the lab pursued extra training this year by attending the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, hosted at the University of Montreal. Khalid and Jocelyn took the Python Fundamentals course, where they learned the basics of the language and explored how Python can be used for data visualization, API querying, and web scraping. Jocelyn applied these skills to the Cædmon Citation project by using Python to query the Internet Archive for old books. Khalid used

The Humanities Innovation Lab travelled to the University of Montreal to attend the annual Canadian Society for Digital Humanities Congress. Together, there were 5 presentations. Loss and Editorial Mediation in the 3D Edition: Translating Stone to Screen in the Visionary Cross Project By Jocelyn Lily McKnight; Daniel Paul O'Donnell; Roberto Rosselli Del Turco Mapping the Sources of Robinson Crusoe: Spatial Patterns in Early Modern Travel Literature By Jocelyn Lily McKnight; D

At the end of April, Jocelyn successfully defended her honours thesis, titled “The Expansion of War and Violence in Tok Pisin: A Cognitive and Corpus Study on Polysemy in Pait and Paitim.” She skillfully presented her research and survived questions from both the committee and the public. Following her successful defense, Jocelyn was awarded an honours thesis designation. Her full thesis is available here on Zenodo. Just a few weeks later, Jocelyn celebrated another exciting

Morgan has successfully defended her MA thesis, “The Labyrinth of Depression: Narrative Form and Recursive Structure from Medieval Dream Vision to Digital Narrative.” Her research focuses on representations of depression and the symbol of the labyrinth. The thesis focuses on three texts that span many periods and forms of literature, from House of Leaves, to the game Pentiment, and also the medieval Book of the Duchess. This is a major accomplishment and a testament to the ha

We are very pleased to announce that Shara Merril has won second place in the PhD category for her poster presentation at the Meetings of the Minds Conference. This is an exciting achievement. Her project stood out for its originality, clarity, and engaging design, capturing the attention of both the judges and the audience. Through an interactive approach to constructal theory, Shara presented complex ideas in a way that was both accessible and visually compelling. We are th

We are pleased to celebrate Jocelyn McKnight’s success at the Meetings of the Minds conference, where she received awards in both the poster and oral presentation categories for undergraduate students. Jocelyn’s work is notably interdisciplinary, bringing together ideas from Linguistics, Digital Humanities, and Indigenous Studies. Jocelyn tied for first place in the poster competition for her honour’s thesis project, supervised by Dr. Conor Snoek in the Department of Indig

PhD candidate Davide Pafumi has been awarded a Manuscript Data as Collections Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Davide is the only fellow to receive this honour before completing his PhD, a recognition of both his academic credentials and his familiarity with the project. During his fellowship at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Davide experimented with multiple strategies for generating high-quality ground-truth data in order to train the most rob

Frank Onuh was among 20 scholars selected from hundreds of applicants worldwide to attend the 7th edition of the fully funded, seven-day International Winter School organized by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) and the Doha Institute in Doha, Qatar, held January 11–15. The program brought together participants from leading universities across the United States, United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Iran, Canada, Egypt, Ireland, Italy, R

We’re excited to share that our lab has grown again; this time with two new PhD students joining us from the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought program. Welcome Shara and Oluwaseun! Find out more about our new researchers by reading their bios .

The lab recently journey to Toronto for the CSDH/SCHN 2025 Congress: Reframing Togetherness, held from May 30 to June 1 at...

Davide has been awarded the Founders Grant of the International Courtly Literature Society (North American Branch) to support his...

Frank has passed his comps which means he's one step closer to becoming a doctor. We are so proud of the work you have done up to this...

We’re excited to announce that Jocelyn McKnight has been awarded the Chinook Summer Research Award! This competitive award supports...

We’re thrilled to share some exciting news—Frank’s latest abstract has been accepted for publication in the next edition of African...

Jocelyn McKnight, presents a poster at Lethbridge’s Meeting of the Minds Conference. Her project, titled “Cross-Language Transformations:...