OPEN SESSIONS

01. GABRIEL EGAN AND HEEJIN KIM. AI for Shakespearean Research
(25 July, Polo Zanotto, T1, 11.15-12.30)

This hands-on and demonstration event is intended to show what is possible in the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) by researchers seeking to generate new knowledge in the field of early modern drama. Our concern is with how researchers can train and/or fine-tune their own models to address their own particular research questions. The session will start with an overview of how LLMs work before getting into the details of fine-tuning one and discovering exactly how it reached its decisions (the well-known interpretability/explainability problem).

1. WHAT IS A LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL AND WHAT IS ‘TRAINING’? by Gabriel Egan (Minutes 1-15).

1.1 Building a Markov Chain of probabilities from a short text
1.2 Markov Chains expressed as matrices
1.3 Neural networks and back propagation

2.1 Audience hands-on with Word Embedding handout
2.2 Meanings as directions in high-dimensional space
2.3 Hands-on demo of Word2Vec on Google Colab

3.1 Fine-tuning as neural stylometry
3.2 Learning stylistic contrasts from early modern drama
3.3 What fine-tuning reveals that bag-of-words models cannot

4.1 The black-box problem in computational literary studies
4.2 Interpreting neural decisions at the passage level
4.3 Testing explanations rather than trusting them

02. THEO BLACK AND AMANDA VIALVA. BIOphelia
(26 July, Polo Zanotto garden, 10.40-11.10)

In our shared era of ecological crises, centring Ophelia’s salient relationships with plants in Hamlet allows us to ‘hold the mirror up to Nature’ in vital, hopeful new ways. Investigating her botanical knowledge, enhancing her agency and biophilic alignments, BIOphelia as a performance sharing seeks to activate an eco-feminist revival of Ophelia’s role within a play preoccupied with man-made destruction and extend its reverberations at-large. The show is scripted and directed by Theo Black and features Cornell alum and NYC-based actor Amanda Vialva.

03. PETRA BJELICA, ANA PINTER, MARTA BJELICA, IGOR BENČINA. Отело
(21 and 23 July, Teatro Scientifico-Teatro Laboratorio, 21.00)

Отело (Othello) is an immersive lecture-performance by Petra Bjelica (University of Verona/Threepenny Company, Serbia) that reinterprets Shakespeare’s tragedy through a contemporary Balkan lens, utilizing augmented reality (AR) and live biodata as its core scenography. The performers’ biodata—breath, pulse, movement—is translated in real-time into a responsive digital environment, forming a ‘digital net’ that materially embodies Iago’s manipulative schemes. This technological framework drives the production’s central interrogation: Is truth visible? Is the visible real? By focusing on the male gaze and the control of bodies, the performance critically explores the construction of Balkan identity, ultimately asking: if Balkan masculinity is framed as Europe’s ‘barbaric other’, how then is femininity positioned as the ‘other’s other’?