The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures (DiLLS), drawing on a long-standing and well-established tradition in Digital Humanities, is naturally positioned at the crossroads between humanities and computer science. Today, Artificial Intelligence has become a structural component of contemporary society: it affects how we access information, produce and evaluate content, communicate, learn, and work, reshaping cultural and professional practices. In particular, the spread of Large Language Models (LLMs)—among the pillars of modern AI—has made language a strategic hub: texts, speeches, translations, summaries, and conversations are increasingly generated, mediated, or analyzed by generative Artificial Intelligence systems. In this scenario, the Department of Languages and Literatures represents a privileged context for AI research and study, as it places at the center precisely what these models process and transform: languages, texts, genres, registers, cultural traditions, and communicative practices.
For this reason, the Department promotes an active engagement with AI in the field of languages and literatures, both in research and in the conscious use of these technologies in teaching. Alongside the opportunities offered by AI tools, it is essential to develop a critical reflection on how they work, their limitations, and their impact: the quality and reliability of generated texts, bias, the representation of languages and cultures, the transformation of intellectual work, and new forms of textual authority. Within this framework, the Department aims to provide a point of reference for a rigorous, responsible, and innovative approach to Artificial Intelligence in linguistic and literary disciplines.
Research
In the research area, the Department plays a key role both in the development of Artificial Intelligence technologies—thanks to the presence of in-house computational and computer science expertise—and in the critical analysis of their impact on society and culture.
A central line of research concerns the development of AI methods and tools for Digital Humanities, with particular attention to texts and language. Through Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, large document collections are analyzed to extract structured knowledge—for example by automatically identifying people, places, works, and events and the relationships connecting them. Beyond extraction, research also focuses on methods for representing, integrating, and making this information reusable in a robust way. Activities related to the Semantic Web and Linked Data also fall within this framework and, in line with FAIR principles, support interoperability, quality, and inference over heterogeneous resources.
Alongside technological aspects, the Department devotes significant attention to the social impact of AI, with studies on diversity, equity, and inclusion. A specific focus is the analysis of bias in models, including stereotypes and prejudices related, for example, to gender, ethnicity, religion, and disability. The goal is to understand how these phenomena emerge in linguistic systems and to identify strategies to recognize and mitigate them, promoting a more aware and responsible use of technologies. A further line of research concerns the perception of AI in society.
These themes are developed in various contexts:
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Digital Arena for Inclusive Humanities (DAIH), an interdisciplinary center dedicated to integrating digital technologies and computational methods—including those of Artificial Intelligence—with humanities studies, particularly in linguistics, philology, and literary studies, with the aim of reducing cultural and social barriers and making knowledge more accessible.
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National and international projects, including ARMADA, which focuses on how to make LLM systems more reliable, especially in supporting data analysis.
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Third-party activities with institutions and companies, for example for the automatic analysis of large quantities of text (cf.“Le voci dell’inclusione”).
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Research groups of the “Inclusive Humanities” Project of Excellence. Within the research group “AI & creativity”, in collaboration with external partners—such as the collective Numero Cromatico (Rome)—experimental studies investigate how readers react to literary texts generated by language models: whether they perceive them as effective, engaging, creative, or inclusive. This perspective makes it possible to observe not only what AI is capable of doing, but also how it is reshaping the relationship with fundamental concepts such as authorship and creativity.
Teaching
In the teaching area, the Department integrates Artificial Intelligence both as an object of study and as a support tool for educational activities, with the aim of developing in students both operational skills and critical abilities.
Within the Department’s degree programs, 360 hours of computer science teaching are provided, mainly but not exclusively in the Digital Humanities curricula, including numerous laboratory activities, in which AI is addressed in a technical and practical manner: methods and tools are tested, and their applications, capabilities, and limitations are discussed, together with key issues related to reliability, transparency, and responsible use. At the same time, in several humanities courses, AI is used and discussed as part of the disciplinary pathway, guiding students toward an effective and conscious use of these technologies in different fields of study. This framework also includes advanced training initiatives dedicated to generative AI within postgraduate courses and PhD programs affiliated with DiLLS.
This focus on Artificial Intelligence is part of the Department’s long tradition of experimenting with digital technologies for and in teaching, with particular attention to accessibility and inclusion. Recently, the Department was involved in the AI4EDU project of the Integrated Plan of Activities and Organization (PIAO) of the University of Verona, coordinated by the group “Tecnologie Innovative per la Didattica” (Direzione ITC), which conducted an exploratory study on the use of AI technologies for teaching within the University’s e-learning platform.
In continuity with this path, a new pilot project is also investigating the use of AI tools to support the creation of study notes based on teaching materials provided by instructors, with the aim of supporting individual study and improving access to content for students with special educational needs.
