May 13 – seminar “Exploring the digital heritages of reading"

The seminar “Exploring the digital heritages of reading: multilingualism, automatic detection and annotation” will be led by visiting researcher Dr. François Vignale from Le Mans University. In his lecture, he will introduce the interdisciplinary project READ-IT, which brings together social sciences, Digital Humanities, and computer science to study reading experiences in Europe across different times and contexts.

The seminar will explore innovative methods and tools for analyzing multilingual text corpora, automatically identifying and semantically annotating descriptions of reading experiences, as well as assessing the impact of reading on individuals’ lives. Technologies developed within the project will also be presented, including natural language processing (NLP), ontologies, and semantic search solutions that enable large-scale exploration of digital sources.

Dr. François Vignale works at Le Mans University (3L.AM lab). His research focuses on the study of reading practices and cultural history in combination with Digital Humanities and Information Sciences (knowledge organization, data modeling, textual data analysis). He has authored or co-authored 20 papers. Within the EU-funded READ-IT project, he was in charge of the design of the Reading Experiences Ontology (REO) and coordinated the ICT aspects, in particular the integration and validation of NLP-based data exploration tools.

The seminar will take place on May 13 at 15:00, in person at the Reading Room of the Archives of Latvian Folklore, Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia (5th floor of the National Library of Latvia), as well as online via Zoom.

Working language: English.

Please register whether you plan to attend in person or online: ej.uz/dh-seminars-13052026

The seminar is organized within the project “University of Latvia and Institutes in the European Research Area – Excellence in Research and Collaboration” (No. 1.1.1.5/3/25/I/011).