Digital Humanities Series

Greg Cootsona

"An AI Digital Humanities Manifesto"

Tuesday December 2, 2025 | 5-6 p.m. on Zoom

Greg Cootsona

Greg Cootsona will present a balanced exploration of artificial intelligence that avoids both techno-utopianism and technophobia. Drawing on multiple religious traditions, this talk examines AI through the lens of responsible engagement. It addresses human flourishing and the need to shape AI’s development toward justice and the common good.

Greg Cootsona is a lecturer at California State University, Chico and executive director of AI and Faith. He has authored eight books including Science and Religions in America (Routledge, 2023) and has directed millions of dollars in grant projects designed to connect science and religion. He holds a Ph.D. in theology and the philosophy of religion from Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union. He has appeared in various outlets such as the Today Show, CNN, National Public Radio, and the New York Times.

Oleksiy Al-saadi

"What is Computation?: The Philosophy of Turing Machines"

Wednesday March 4, 2026 | 5-6 p.m. on Zoom

Oleksiy Al-saadi

In the 1930's, Alan Turing and Alonzo Church introduced a minimal model of computation that, in terms of expressive power, is able to compute anything a modern-day computer can. Church's statement, "There is no algorithm unless it can be computed by such a machine" has formed the basis to how we can even understand what problems can be computed. In this talk, we expound on the digital of "Digital Humanities". We discuss types of Turing Machines and their ability to model human solvability of certain games. Then, we discuss why, despite the universal acceptance of the Church-Turing thesis, it has never actually been proven.

Dr. Al-saadi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Chico State, where he also did his BA before receiving a PhD from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln on distance and domination properties in graph theory. His work focuses on theoretical computer science and the study of finding faster, algorithmic solutions to challenging problems under certain restrictions. He also has great interest in reductions, a way of showing that one hard problem is really another hard problem in disguise.

Thea Sommerschield

"Generative AI for studying Latin inscriptions: introducing Aeneas"

Wednesday April 22, 2026 | 4-5 p.m. on Zoom

Thea posing in front of a mountain range and small town

Recent advances in machine learning are continuously reshaping how historians work with ancient written sources. This talk examines how AI can support (and not replace) historical interpretation through two collaborative projects: Ithaca and Aeneas, which use neural networks to contextualize, restore, attribute and date Greek and Latin inscriptions.
The talk will focus primarily on Aeneas and show how generative models can move quantitative epigraphy beyond simple counting or string matching, by identifying textual and contextual parallels across vast datasets of Latin inscriptions, integrating visual evidence, and proposing probabilistic restorations of damaged texts. It will argue that responsible, transparent AI systems can extend both close and distant reading, helping scholars discover new patterns in the Roman epigraphic record, while preserving interpretive rigor.

Thea Sommerschield is an Assistant Professor in Greek History and Digital Humanities at the Department of Classics and Ancient History of Durham University. Her research develops and applies machine learning models to ancient Mediterranean written cultures, exploring new ways to understand and write about history, and challenging how we think about the ancient world using AI. Since obtaining her DPhil in Ancient History (University of Oxford), Thea has been Leverhulme Fellow (Nottingham), Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow (Venice), CHS fellow (Harvard) and awardee at the British School at Rome.

The Digital Humanities Series is open to the public.