Digital Methods and Ai for the Study of Italian Literature

The course aims to introduce students to the main methods of the Digital Humanities and to the applications of AI in the study of Italian literature, with particular attention to the processes of building and analyzing textual corpora: from the automatic transcription of manuscripts or early printed books, to data cleaning and encoding (in tabular or XML format), and on to quantitative analysis techniques and the presentation of results through charts and maps. The ultimate goal is to develop in students a critical awareness of the use of AI and digital tools in the humanities.

Knowledge: knowledge of the methods and digital tools used to acquire, build, and analyze a corpus of literary texts; knowledge of the main digital formats and the fundamentals of text encoding (in particular the TEI-XML standard); knowledge of the most common generative AI models and of the critical scholarship on their application to the study, research, and teaching of Italian literature.
Abilities: build a corpus of literary texts using automatic handwriting recognition tools (Handwritten Text Recognition) and data-cleaning software; apply quantitative analysis techniques to the study of literary texts, represent the results through charts and maps, and interpret them within the framework of literary analysis; evaluate the use of AI in the study of texts; integrate digital tools with traditional methods of literary criticism.