Building Artificial Intelligence Agents for Digital Humanities (DHSI 2026)

Description

This hands-on, project-based course introduces scholars, educators, and practitioners in the humanities to the creation and use of generative AI agents. Participants will learn how to design, customize, and interact with agents capable of interpreting and generating text, structured data, images, and sound. The course incorporates computational methods into humanistic inquiries in practical and creative ways. We will experiment with Large Language Models, Large Vision Models, Large Audio-Language Models, and Multimodal AI. Designed for digital humanists of all technical backgrounds, the course empowers participants to harness these tools ethically and imaginatively, transforming how they explore meaning, structure knowledge, and tell stories across data formats. Datasets and tools will be provided, though participants are encouraged to bring their own data and experiment with it. The course culminates in a collaborative Project Studio, where participants will showcase the generative agents and prototypes developed throughout the week.

Instructor(s)

Yadira Lizama-Mué is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Western University. She has a degree in Computer Science Engineering from the Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas in Havana and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Western University. Her work applies AI-driven methods to peace research, cultural analysis, and digital humanities, core areas reflected in this course. At Western University, she teaches hands-on Digital Humanities courses that introduce students to programming as a tool for understanding and interacting with information in the form of text, structured data, images, sound, maps, and networks. Her research and teaching consistently bridge technical and humanistic domains, empowering learners to explore and create with AI critically and imaginatively.