Toronto Metropolitan University
Centre for Digital Humanities
November 2025
- CDH events are open to the TMU community and beyond.
- Also, check out the workshops hosted by the Collaboratory!
The Centre for Digital Humanities (CDH) is temporarily located on the 4th floor of the Podium (POD) building (where the School of Law is currently situated) and is planning to have a permanent home in the Library building (LIB) in the future. CDH events are held virtually (on Zoom) and in-person in the TMU Libraries’ Collaboratory.
Join us! If you have an idea for a CDH-hosted event or a question, please contact CDH Director Jason Boyd (jason.boyd@torontomu.ca) or CDH Manager Reg Beatty (rbeatty@torontomu.ca).
CDH Virtual
Drop-Ins
Each month, weekly drop-ins will be dedicated to a specific theme. Tiny Tools Tour, Web Walks, and DH Workbench are explorations of a digital resource or tool for research, creativity, and/or teaching. Stories in Play features discussion of entries in the Playable Stories Archive and episodes of the Playable Stories: Unarchived podcast, both of which are focused on storytelling in games. Reading Bytes is a reading group for discussion of published digital humanities scholarship. DH@TMU Talks feature CDH members presenting their research.
READING BYTES
Tuesday November 4
noon-1:00pm EST on Zoom
Critical AI Literacy
Jason Boyd
Join us for a discussion of Lisa Siriganian’s “Against Theory–now with bots! On the Persistent Fallacy of Intentionless Speech,” which discusses whether ChatBots and algorithmically-generated content should have free speech rights.
SMALL WEB
Hybrid Event: On Zoom and In-person at the Collaboratory
Tuesday November 11
noon-1:00pm EST
One Ringy-Dingy: The Internet Phone Book is Calling…
Reg Beatty
Join Reg as he examines the Internet Phone Book (2025), a book called by its creators “a directory for exploring the vast poetic web.” We’ll have a copy on hand.
Kristoffer Tjalve and Elliot Cost were drinking coffee outside a bookstore in Athens and finishing up another project (diagram.website) when the idea came to them of making a physical object to highlight the slightly odd, eccentric corner of the current internet that most fascinates them – in Tjalve’s words, to “seek alternatives to nostalgia for a lost web.”
We’ll look at the structure, design, and production of the book as well as the collections of essays it includes.
Finding The TMU Library Collaboratory:
The main entrance to the Library Collaboratory is via the SLC Building.
Elevator: Take the elevator (opposite the main entrance) up to the 3rd floor of the SLC Building. Exit and turn left: the Library Collaboratory is at the end of the hall, marked with large yellow doors.
Stairs: Take the main stairs (on the right of the entrance) up to the second floor. Keep to the right and follow the stairs up to the third floor. Walk past the DMZ and the DME to the end of the hall. The Library Collaboratory is at the end of the hall, marked with large yellow doors.
AI FUTURES
Tuesday November 18
Noon-1:00pm EST on Zoom
Imagining and Critiquing AI Futures
Jason Boyd
One vision of future AI is that it will become independent of human control and an existential threat. Fullbright’s 2017 exploration game Tacoma suggests that what AI can become, for good or ill, ultimately reflects the moral and ethical choices of the humans who interact with and use it. Join Jason for an exploration of the AIs of Tacoma and how AI deployments hold up a mirror to humanity.
DH WORKBENCH
Tuesday November 25
Noon-1:00pm EST on Zoom
Revitalizing the Essay with Twine
Jason Boyd and Jeremy Andriano
Join Jason and Jeremy for a discussion about how a hypertext authoring platform, Twine, can be used to reimagine the essay in response to GenAI technologies. Types of essay that will be discussed include the commonplace essay, the branching essay, and the ludic essay.