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13.01: an Open Lecture “Using Machine Learning and AI to Analyze Interviewer Questions in Holocaust Oral Histories”by Prof. Dr. Todd Presner

On 13th January Prof. Dr. Todd Presner will give an open lecture titled “Using Machine Learning and AI to Analyze Interviewer Questions in Holocaust Oral Histories” as a part of the Voices Unbound: Lecture Series on Digital Oral History. This event starts at 14:20 (CET) and accommodates hybrid format offering an opportunity to participate online. To secure your spot please follow instructions on Evenbrite page.

Prof. Dr. Todd Presner. Image courtesy: https://elts.ucla.edu/person/todd-presner/

Todd Presner is Chair of UCLA’s Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies and serves as Special Advisor in UCLA’s Office for Research and Creative Activities (2018-present). Previously, he was the chair of UCLA’s Digital Humanities Program (2011-21), and from 2011-2018, he served as the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director of the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies. From 2018-21, he was Associate Dean of Digital Innovation. He holds the Michael and Irene Ross Chair in the UCLA Division of the Humanities. His research focuses on European intellectual and cultural history, Holocaust studies, visual culture, and digital humanities. Presner’s newest book was just published with Princeton University Press: Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory  (2024). His previous books include: Mobile Modernity: Germans, Jews, Trains (Columbia University Press, 2007), Muscular Judaism: The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration (Routledge, 2007), and HyperCities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities  (Harvard University Press, 2014). 

The abstract of the talk is as follows:

Dr. Presner will begin with an overview of his new book, Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory (Princeton University Press, 2024), which uses a wide-range of computational methods to read and listen to Holocaust testimonies. He will, then, focus on one particular project: using language transformers to study clusters of topics in nearly 90,000 interviewer questions (across four oral history corpora). He will conclude by discussing the recent research of his “AI and Cultural Heritage” lab, showing how Large Language Models can help disambiguate unclear references and provide additional context for testimony analysis. 


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
valentinaprishchepova (December 16, 2024). 13.01: an Open Lecture “Using Machine Learning and AI to Analyze Interviewer Questions in Holocaust Oral Histories”by Prof. Dr. Todd Presner. HDSM. Retrieved May 16, 2025 from https://hdsm.hypotheses.org/4435


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