Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ

Because Words Matter

Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ has received a  grant to launch Generative Futures: Critical Language Inquiry in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.  

This three-year, campus-wide initiative is grounded in the liberal arts conviction that knowledge becomes deeper, more durable, more responsible, and more actionable when we slow down to examine the language(s) through which we think, learn, teach, and create. The initiative springs from the humanities-driven conviction that meaning emerges through language. Our world is shaped and interpreted through not only words, but also images, sounds, code, and other symbolic systems that allow knowledge to move across time, culture, and discipline. 

Because Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is built from and produces linguistic patterns, our project approaches such systems not simply as a technological development but as a deeply language-based phenomenon requiring humanistic interpretation and intervention. In a time where GenAI promises frictionless access to knowledge, this project cultivates deeper understanding by foregrounding interpretation, translation, context, and the power dynamics embedded in communication across every field, from the arts and humanities to the social sciences, natural sciences, and interdisciplinary study.  

Through faculty development initiatives, new and revised courses, undergraduate research opportunities, and portable Critical AI Literacy modules designed for use across the curriculum, Generative Futures will help our campus ask sharper questions about what GenAI amplifies or flattens and how liberal arts inquiry can guide more just, inclusive, and responsible engagement not only with emerging technologies, but also the languages used to understand our world.  

Such endeavors are guided by a core set of questions: 

• How does language construct, perform, and contest conceptions of identity, power, and knowledge over time, and how might we leverage such conceptions for our continued social justice work in an age of artificial intelligence? 

• Where might humanistic inquiry not only resist the ways that large language models flatten and homogenize linguistic and cultural diversity, but also work to reshape such technology inflected futures? 

• What ethical choices are involved in translation—across languages, media, and between humans and machines—and how do these choices impact what is preserved, adapted, or silenced? 

• How can we develop and assess Critical AI Literacy that empowers students and educators to make educated and nuanced decisions about the use and non-use of GenAI technologies? 

Overlapping and Developing Frameworks

Language lies at the foundation of how humans understand and share knowledge. Accordingly, one significant avenue of inquiry for the humanities considers how meaning emerges through the interplay of words, images, sounds, gestures, and other expressive forms within historical and cultural contexts. In this broader sense, language includes any symbolic system through which people create, negotiate, and convey knowledge—from spoken and written language to mathematical notation and musical scores, from visual design and movement notation to the computational languages of algorithms and code. A focus on language(s) also recognizes the plurality of languages—English(es) and languages other than English—and the practice and value of multilingualism in our fields and the context of higher education at large.   

Accordingly, Generative Futures forwards two frameworks: 

Critical Language Inquiry (CLI) approaches language as a constellation of complexity, multiplicity, and power. Drawing on methods from the humanities, CLI understands language as a social construct that is in itself heterogeneous and in some form multilingual: composed of accents, dialects, registers, and diverse regional, local, Indigenous, diasporic, exilic, and transnational varieties. Language operates across genres and modalities, and is a vehicle for the creation, transmission, and negotiation of knowledge, identity, norms, and values. Language can be playful, unpredictable, and messy, yet it is never neutral. Within a social justice framework, it emerges as a tool of exclusion and oppression intricately intertwined with the legacies of nationalism, colonialism, capitalism, and other systems of power, while at the same time offering opportunities for resistance, solidarity, and belonging. Critical Language Inquiry asks how these dynamics shape institutions, disciplines, and knowledge production, and invites faculty and students to slow down and examine how meaning is constructed in our languaged world, cultivating the interpretive habits of attention, context, and critical reflection that are central to liberal arts learning. 

Critical AI Literacy (CAIL) methodologically engages with the design, implementation, social, cultural, and ethical implications of AI while seeking transparent, just, and responsible use. In the context of Generative Futures, it further explores how GenAI systems shape the production, interpretation, and circulation of language. It asks how GenAI systems are trained, how data shapes their outputs, and how issues of bias, inequality, labor, and environmental impact are embedded within their development and use. CAIL also invites reflection on how GenAI influences human thinking and knowledge creation, encouraging learners to consider when and how such tools might be used or deliberately set aside. By approaching artificial intelligence through humanistic inquiry, CAIL equips students across disciplines to engage emerging technologies with discernment, responsibility, and an awareness of their broader societal consequences. 

Together, Critical Language Inquiry and Critical AI Literacy approaches invite students and faculty to investigate not only how language works, but how emerging technologies transform its use and interpretation. In the context of the liberal arts, this dialogue encourages interdisciplinary exploration, strengthens critical thinking and metacognitive reflection, and equips the campus community to reevaluate how we use language(s) in everyday life and engage AI technologies with curiosity, discernment, and ethical awareness. 

We will inevitably find ways to strengthen these frameworks through iteration. In fact, that is both our hope and our goal. As faculty and students engage with the work of the Generative Futures project, we will collectively redefine what we mean by both CLI and CAIL through our teaching, research, and presentations. 

Ways to Get Involved

Colleagues from across the humanities—and from every division—are invited to join a shared exploration of Critical Language Inquiry (CLI) and Critical AI Literacy (CAIL) through a sequence of Crown Center for Teaching programs designed to enhance our Generative Futures Series, including lunch workshops, educator development days, educational learning communities, and summer reading groups. These gatherings are designed as low-barrier entry points: places to experiment with emerging questions, try out classroom-ready practices, and build a common vocabulary for talking about language, interpretation, and AI in ways that fit the Block Plan and the distinctive pedagogies of Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ. 

Faculty who want to bring this work directly into the curriculum can apply for Course Development Grants to create new offerings or revise existing courses in ways that foreground CLI and/or engage the stakes of GenAI for language, creativity, and knowledge. To ensure that grant-supported courses are grounded in shared frameworks and practices, participation in Generative Futures workshops, learning communities, or reading groups will be required for eligibility. The goal is not to standardize content across disciplines, but rather to raise awareness of the methodologies, questions, and considerations that guide, drive, and shape our collective work. 

Another way to get involved is through the development and/or adoption of portable CAIL modules—self-contained instructional units with curated readings and media, discussion prompts, and adaptable hands-on activities and assignments for building awareness around GenAI tools through the lens of the humanities and Critical Language Inquiry. CAIL Module Development Grants are available for faculty to propose and design learning interventions that surface the conceptual boundaries and ethical questions that would benefit all Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ students, while aligning with the college’s AI Philosophy and data privacy and security expectations. Faculty across campus will be able to integrate these modules at any level, from introductory courses through senior seminars, tailoring them to disciplinary methods while keeping the humanistic questions of voice, value, translation, bias, and responsibility at the center.  

Faculty may also participate by mentoring Student-Faculty Summer Research Projects that investigate questions of language, power, and technology through humanistic methods and, in many cases, result in digital humanities work.