[Commlist] CFP: HMN Seminar: Methods, Storytelling, and Generative AI

Call for Seminar Participation, Aarhus University, Sandbjerg Estate, 
October 6-9 2026
*
*
*HMN Seminar: Methods, Storytelling, and Generative AI*

The aim of this interdisciplinary scholarly retreat is to bring together 
researchers from all fields working with the intersection of AI and 
storytelling to reflect on and discuss how we study narratives that are 
no longer authored, circulated, or experienced exclusively by humans.

New practices of storytelling are emerging and existing ones are 
transformed with the popular uptake of LLM-based chatbots across 
professional, public, and recreational settings. Today, LLM-infused 
storytelling impacts all forms of textual practice: from art and 
creative writing to journalism, politics, and public debate over 
marketing, SoMe, and influencer culture to everyday conversations, 
therapy, and intimate interactions, to name a few. For scholars working 
with narratives, these developments pose fundamental challenges, several 
of which revolve around questions of method. We invite contributions 
that address issues of methodology in this evolving landscape of 
human-machine narration.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

  *
    How can existing qualitative methods (e.g., close reading,
    positioning analysis, rhetorical analysis, interviews) and existing
    quantitative methods be adapted or revised to meet these new
    narrative practices?
  *
    How can narrative theory account for human–machine co-creation?
  *
    How can we analyze the ways in which interactions with LLM-based
    chatbots transform the generation and reception of core narrative
    elements such as story, discourse, and narrative act?
  *
    What kind of data do we need and what analytical approaches can be
    developed to understand narration with and to chatbots?
  *
    How do we analyze the way LLM-platform infrastructures (e.g.,
    training data, guardrails, alignments) shape or create narrative
    practices?
  *
    How can core story-related concepts within narrative theory,
    literary theory, rhetoric, journalism studies, psychology,
    linguistics, and media studies such as ‘intentionality’,
    ‘causality’, ‘agency’, ‘purpose’, ‘author’, ‘meaning’, and ‘origin’
    be rethought and investigated empirically in light of the current
    transformation?
  *
    What forms of data, evidence, and interpretation emerge through
    human-machine storytelling?
  *
    How do we work, critically and reflected, from a starting point of
    corporate and technological black boxing by Big Tech?
  *
    How can the interdisciplinary development of methods to unpack
    AI-storytelling be pursued and ensured?


To start answering questions such as these, the seminar invites for 
contributions that may be
exploratory or programmatic, fully formed or work in progress; the 
format is based around 30 minutes presentations from each participant. 
We hope the seminar will lead into a publication on methods, 
storytelling, and generative AI. *Confirmed seminar participants and 
speakers are Alexandra Georgakopoulou (King’s College, UK) and Torsa 
Ghosal (California State University, US).*
*
*
Practical information

  *
    Seminar dates: 6-9 October 2026
  *
    Abstract submission deadline: 15 June 2026
  *
    Notification of acceptance: 25 June 2026
  *
    The seminar is free and all accommodation expenses are covered.
    Travel expenses must be covered individually.
  *
    Submission: Send abstract (max 250 words) and a short bio (max. 100
    words) to (norsi /at/ cc.au.dk) <mailto:(norsi /at/ cc.au.dk)>
  *
    Organisers: Associate Professor Stefan Iversen, Assistant Professor
    Ann-Katrine S. Nielsen, Postdoc Pernille Meyer, all Aarhus
    University, Denmark
  * Funding: The seminar is funded by the research project GAITS (IRDF
    2026–2030)


This HMN Seminar (short for Human-Machine narration) is organized by GAITS
(https://projects.au.dk/gaits <https://projects.au.dk/gaits>) and takes 
place at the Sandbjerg Estate in Southern Denmark October 6-9, 2026. It 
welcomes a limited number of participants to allow for in-depth 
discussions and shared conceptual development. The seminar is free and 
all accommodation expenses are covered. Travel expenses must be covered 
individually.
Apply by sending a brief bio and a 250-word abstract, describing your 
ongoing work with methods, storytelling, and generative AI to Stefan 
Iversen ((norsi /at/ cc.au.dk) <mailto:(norsi /at/ cc.au.dk)>) no later than June 15, 
2026.
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