ELO at MLA 2026 – Electronic Literature Organization

The Electronic Literature Organization is sponsoring two sessions at MLA 2026 in Toronto exploring alternatives to extractive edtech and new approaches to AI in the humanities. Both sessions bring together digital humanities scholars, electronic literature practitioners, and critical thinkers to examine how we can shape rather than simply react to AI’s presence in our classrooms and research.

Open Source Humanities in the Age of AI

Session 82 | Thursday, January 8, 2026 | 3:30–4:45 PM | MTCC 206F

With edtech approaches to generative AI increasingly taking center stage on campus, how can we learn from ethical, feminist, and open-source efforts in digital humanities and electronic literature to build meaningful alternatives? Participants share brief provocations with examples ranging from material zines and feminist poetics to software platforms and sustainable publishing, followed by a discussion of strategies and tools.

Presider: Anastasia Salter (University of Central Florida)

Speakers: Kavi Duvvoori (University of Waterloo), Lai-Tze Fan (University of Waterloo), Leonardo Flores (Appalachian State University), John Murray (University of Central Florida), Kiera Obbard (University of Guelph), Lee Skallerup Bessette (Georgetown University)

Topics include mycelial strategies for algorithmic culture, human-centered AI literacy for the classroom, open-weight models as alternatives to proprietary platforms, visualizing feminist poetry with open-source Python tools, lessons from FOSS communities in electronic literature, and zine-making as resistance to extractive technologies.

View full session details, abstracts, and speaker bios →

Distant Coding for the Digital Humanities

Session 213 | Friday, January 9, 2026 | 10:15–11:30 AM

Scholars explore the relationship between generative AI and the future of digital humanities programming using agent-based tools. Participants will be introduced to a beginner-friendly method commonly referred to as “vibe coding,” which emphasizes describing and solving problems through code rather than editing code directly, for tasks such as distant reading and digital humanities prototyping.

Presenters: Anastasia Salter (University of Central Florida), Lai-Tze Fan (University of Waterloo)

This hands-on session explores agentic AI as a cultural technology reshaping digital humanities practices, including distinctions between agentic and generative AI for scholarly work, agent-based coding tools like Claude Code, and practical applications for distant reading, text analysis, and DH prototyping.

View session materials, demos, and further reading →

Both sessions are sponsored by the Electronic Literature Organization. We hope to see you in Toronto!