RenAIssance Studies: Techne, Technicity, and Artificial Intelligence
In what senses might AI be theorized as a type of RenAIssance technology of re-generation that connects early modern thoughts on mind-body and modern models of ideation? Submit your proposal for our panel on RenAIssance Studies: Techne, Technicity, and Artificial Intelligence at the Renaissance Studies Association in Boston, March 20–22, 2025. View the call for papers online.
How might artificial intelligence text-generating mechanisms breathe new life into existing words through new assemblages and intermediality? Can they recycle and re-generate patterns of creativity?
In what senses might AI be theorized as a type of RenAIssance technology of re-generation that connects early modern thoughts on mind-body and modern models of ideation?
There are tangible and intangible ideological connections between technologies of representation from the invention of the printing press to the latest algorithmic text-generating mechanisms.
This session explores how our current debates about generative AI and algorithmic technologies are informed and bolstered by early modern epistemologies, such as Cartesian mind-body dualism.
Conversely, current scientific and able-bodied models of relating to the world and its representation in datasets also send a new light on assumptions behind empiricism and early modern understanding of techné–the craft and technical affordances of writing and all forms of representational technologies from the codex book to stage performance.
We welcome short papers that explore the intersection between the technicity of humanity and notions of regeneration and between early modern and contemporary models of distributed and artificial intelligence. There will be an opportunity to publish in a planned special issue.
Primary Field: Digital Humanities
Secondary Field: Early Modern Studies
Submit your abstract to Alexa Alice Joubin ajoubin@gwu.edu
Don T. Rodrigues dtrodrig@odu.edu
