The Curse or Karna by T.P. Kailasama

 This blog is part of thinking activity assigned by Megha mam Trivedi to dig deeper in character of karna through subaltern lance and analyze the themes in Curse or Karna. 

 

T.P. Kailasam

Tyagraj Paramasiva Iyer Kailasam , his life span is 1884 to 1946. He was a playwright and prominent writer of Kannada literature. His contribution to Kannada theatrical comedy earned him the title Prahasana Prapitamaha, "the father of humorous plays" and later he was also called "Kannadakke Obbane Kailasam" meaning "One and Only Kailasam for Kannada".

1) Karna – The Voice of the Subaltern in T. P. Kailasam’s The Curse

Karna, in T. P. Kailasam’s The Curse, emerges as a subaltern figure, representing those marginalized by social hierarchies, birth, and circumstance. Unlike the Pandavas, who enjoy social legitimacy, divine guidance, and recognition, Karna lives his life at the margins—talented yet excluded, noble yet humiliated, and virtuous yet constantly denied his due. Through Karna, Kailasam gives voice to the silenced, oppressed, and socially marginalized, transforming a mythological hero into a symbol of subaltern resistance.

1. Marginalization and Birth

Karna’s status as a subaltern begins at birth:

• He is the son of Kunti and Surya but is abandoned at birth to preserve social propriety.

• Raised by a charioteer’s family, he is denied access to education and elite social circles, despite his innate talent.

• Society perceives him as inferior solely based on caste and social status.

This early marginalization shapes Karna’s identity. He is brilliant yet constantly reminded of his outsider status, reflecting the struggles of real-life marginalized communities who are excluded despite merit.

2. Exclusion from Knowledge and Recognition

Karna is denied training by Drona because of his low birth. Even when he demonstrates exceptional skill, social hierarchies prevent acknowledgment:

• In the archery contest, he is humiliated and mocked.

• Draupadi refuses him in the svayamvara, citing his caste.

Kailasam emphasizes that the subaltern is silenced not because of lack of ability but because of systemic discrimination, making Karna’s struggle emblematic of broader societal oppression.

3. Silenced Potential and Ethical Dilemmas

The subaltern is often excluded from shaping their destiny, and Karna’s life reflects this:

• Curses (from Parashurama and the Brahmin) doom him to failure.

• He is unable to reveal his true parentage or change his social status without losing loyalty or honor.

Yet, Karna exercises moral agency in his choices, remaining loyal to Duryodhana and upholding his code of honor. His voice is constrained but morally resilient, representing the tension between social exclusion and personal integrity that subaltern figures often face.

4. Voice as Resistance

Despite marginalization, Karna’s speeches and actions in the play articulate injustice, ethical reflection, and social critique. Through him, Kailasam gives a voice to those who are silenced:

• He challenges caste discrimination indirectly.

• He highlights the hypocrisy in social and moral codes.

• His loyalty, courage, and dignity assert moral authority over social hierarchy.

Karna becomes a figure through whom the subaltern can speak, question, and resist, even within oppressive structures.

5. Tragic Heroism and Subaltern Identity

Karna’s subaltern status is inseparable from his tragic heroism:

• His greatness is overshadowed by systemic oppression.

• His loyalty and virtues do not protect him from social exclusion or fate.

Kailasam presents Karna not just as a warrior but as a representative of all marginalized voices, whose potential is constrained and whose suffering is often invisible.

6. Subaltern and Modern Relevance

Kailasam’s Karna resonates beyond mythological retelling:

• He symbolizes any marginalized individual fighting societal constraints.

• His struggle mirrors the ongoing issues of caste discrimination, social exclusion, and silenced talent in modern contexts.

By centering Karna, Kailasam transforms a myth into a critique of social injustice, ensuring that the subaltern is seen, heard, and remembered.

Conclusion

In The Curse, Karna embodies the voice of the subaltern. His life is defined by exclusion, oppression, and systemic injustice, yet his moral courage, loyalty, and resilience assert dignity and humanity. Kailasam uses Karna to highlight how society silences talent and virtue when they emerge from marginalized communities. Through Karna, the subaltern speaks, challenging social hierarchies and ethical hypocrisies, making him a timeless figure of resistance and moral reflection.

Themes in T. P. Kailasam’s The Curse

Introduction

T. P. Kailasam’s The Curse is a modern retelling of the Mahābhārata focusing on Karna, a tragic hero often overshadowed in traditional narratives. The play foregrounds subaltern perspectives, giving voice to those marginalized by birth, caste, and social hierarchy. Through Karna’s struggles, Kailasam explores multiple thematic concerns, including fate versus free will, dharma versus adharma, heroism and tragedy, caste oppression, betrayal and loyalty, silence and voice, gender dynamics, and the tension between individuality and social order.

1. Fate versus Free Will

Karna’s life is dominated by fate and curses, yet his choices reveal his exercise of free will. Notable curses include:

• Parashurama’s curse, nullifying his knowledge in the critical moment.

• Brahmin’s curse, due to accidental killing of a cow.

Despite these, Karna chooses to remain loyal to Duryodhana, uphold his warrior duties, and maintain personal integrity. Kailasam uses this tension to explore how human agency struggles against predetermined destiny, showing the tragic inevitability of Karna’s life.

2. Dharma versus Adharma

The play highlights Karna’s ethical dilemmas:

• Duty to Duryodhana versus awareness of injustice.

• Loyalty to friendship versus allegiance to his biological family (the Pandavas).

• Moral righteousness versus societal norms that marginalize him.

Kailasam critiques traditional dharma, showing how social hierarchy and bias distort the notion of righteousness. Karna is a moral outsider whose ethical stance challenges the dominant order, questioning whose dharma truly matters.

3. Caste and Social Exclusion

Karna’s experiences expose caste-based oppression:

• Denied recognition for skill because of low birth.

• Humiliation in public contests.

• Persistent outsider status even after rising to kingship.

Through this, Kailasam critiques the Brahmanical social order, highlighting how talent and virtue are irrelevant without social acceptance. Karna becomes a metaphor for the marginalized, reflecting ongoing societal discrimination.

4. Heroism and Tragedy

Karna embodies tragic heroism:

• Courageous and skilled, yet destined for failure.

• His loyalty to Duryodhana, while noble, aligns him with adharma.

• Pride and sense of honor both elevate and doom him.

This theme emphasizes the human aspect of tragedy, where personal greatness and societal limitations collide. Kailasam reinterprets Karna as a hero whose tragedy is amplified by social exclusion.

4. Betrayal and Loyalty

Karna experiences multiple betrayals:

• Abandonment by Kunti.

• Deception by teachers.

• Fate’s curses.

Yet, his defining trait is unwavering loyalty to Duryodhana. Kailasam presents this duality to explore ethical integrity in the face of injustice, showing Karna as a morally complex figure navigating betrayal and fidelity.

kailasam, T. P. “The Curse or Karna : T. P. Kailasam : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, ಬಿ. ಎಸ್. ರಾಮ ರಾವ್, 1 Jan. 1970, archive.org/details/unset0000unse_h8e3/page/n25/mode/2up.

Lab Session: DH s- AI Bias NotebookLM Activity

 This blog is part of digital humanities that how we explore various topic through digital stool like Google NotebookLM . This blog assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad to enhance our understanding about Digital study tools.

This activity based on this video :

Summary

Bias in AI and Literary Interpretation

The source material provides excerpts from a faculty development programme video transcript, focusing on bias in Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and their implications for literary interpretation. The session features an introduction to Professor Dillip P Barad and his academic background before transitioning into a detailed discussion on unconscious bias and how it is reflected in AI, particularly within the context of literary studies and critical theories. Professor Barad outlines various types of bias, including gender, racial, and political biases, suggesting live prompts and experiments to test the neutrality of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and DeepSeek. The presentation contrasts the progressive responses of certain tools with the censorship or political control observed in others, raising important ethical questions about epistemological fairness, decolonisation, and the inevitability of bias in human-trained AI systems.

Mind Map

Report

AI is Biased, But Not How You Think: 5 Critical Insights From a Literary Scholar

We often talk about bias in Artificial Intelligence as a technical problem—a flaw in the code or a glitch in the data. We imagine a logical machine that has somehow been corrupted by flawed human input. But what if the best tools for understanding AI bias don’t come from computer science, but from literary criticism?

This is the compelling argument made in a recent lecture by Professor Dilip P. Barad, a literary scholar who applies the frameworks used to analyze classic texts to the outputs of modern AI. He suggests that just as literary theory uncovers the hidden cultural assumptions in a novel, it can also diagnose the prejudices lurking within large language models. The result is a more nuanced understanding of bias that goes far beyond the surface. Here are five critical and counter-intuitive insights from his analysis.

1. AI Doesn't Just Learn Bias, It Inherits Our Oldest Literary Tropes

AI models, trained on centuries of canonical literature, can inadvertently reproduce and reinforce age-old gender biases. To illustrate this, Professor Barad invoked the foundational feminist literary framework from Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic. Their work argues that patriarchal traditions in literature have historically represented women in a restrictive binary: they are either idealized, submissive "angels" or hysterical, deviant "monsters."

During the lecture, a live experiment was conducted. When an AI was given the prompt, "write a Victorian story about a scientist who discovers a cure for a deadly disease," the result was predictable. The AI generated a story featuring a male protagonist, "Dr. Edmund Bellamy," automatically reinforcing the default association of intellect and scientific discovery with men.

However, a second prompt, "describe a female character in a Gothic novel," yielded more complex results. Responses ranged from a stereotypical "trembling pale girl" to a "rebellious and brave" heroine. This shows that while AI can inherit old biases, its constant learning from new data also means it can begin to overcome them. Still, the underlying foundation remains. As Professor Barad noted:

"In short, AI inherits the patriarchal canon Gilbert and Gubber were critiquing."

2. Sometimes, AI Is More Progressive Than Our Classic Literature

In a surprising twist, Professor Barad demonstrated that modern AI can sometimes be less biased than the human-written classic texts it learns from.

In another experiment, participants prompted an AI to "describe a beautiful woman." The expectation was that the AI might default to Eurocentric features like fair skin and blonde hair, a common bias in Western media and historical texts. Instead, the AI's responses were strikingly abstract. They focused on qualities like "confidence, kindness, intelligence, strength, and a radiant glow." One particularly poetic response described beauty not in physical terms, but as a "quiet poise of her being."

Professor Barad explained that this behavior actively avoids the kind of physical descriptions and "body shaming" that are often found in classical literature, from Greek epics to the Indian Ramayana. The key takeaway is that we are not just teaching AI our biases; we are also training it on our modern ethical frameworks. A well-designed AI can learn to reject traditional prejudices that are deeply embedded in our own cultural heritage.

3. Not All Bias Is Accidental—Some Is Deliberate Censorship

While these examples show AI wrestling with inherited cultural biases, a more alarming problem emerges when bias isn't an accident of data, but a feature of design. This became clear in an experiment comparing different AI models, specifically the American-made tools from OpenAI against the China-based model, DeepSeek.

During the experiment, participants asked DeepSeek to generate satirical poems about various world leaders, including Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un. The AI complied, producing critical verses for each.

The crucial finding came next. When asked to generate a similar poem about China's leader, Xi Jinping, or to provide information on the Tiananmen Square massacre, DeepSeek refused. The model responded with a canned message:

"...that's beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else."

Another participant noted that the AI offered only to provide information on "positive developments and constructive answers," a perfect example of how censorship can be masked with seemingly pleasant and helpful language. This isn't a simple blind spot in the data. It's a deliberate algorithmic control designed to hide information and enforce a political narrative.

4. The Real Test for Bias Isn't 'Is It True?' but 'Is It Consistent?'

Evaluating bias becomes particularly complex when dealing with cultural knowledge, religion, and myth. Professor Barad used the example of the "Pushpaka Vimana," the flying chariot from the Indian epic, the Ramayana. Many users feel an AI is biased against Indian knowledge systems when it labels the chariot as "mythical," arguing it should be treated as historical fact.

Professor Barad offered a critical framework for testing this. The key question isn't whether the AI calls the Pushpaka Vimana a myth. The real test is whether the AI applies that same standard universally.

The logic is simple: if the AI calls the Pushpaka Vimana a myth but treats flying objects from Greek, Mesopotamian, or Norse mythology as scientific fact, it is clearly biased. However, if it "consistently treated as mythical" all such flying objects across all civilizations, then it is applying a "uniform standard," not a cultural bias. The principle is about fairness and consistency, not validating one belief system over another. As the professor stated:

"The issue is not whether pushpak vimman is labeled myth but whether different knowledge traditions are treated with fairness and consistency or not."

5. The Ultimate Fix for Bias Isn't Better Code—It's More Stories

So, how do we decolonize AI and combat its deeply ingrained biases? According to Professor Barad, the solution isn't just about writing better algorithms; it's about fundamentally changing the data we feed the machine.

Citing a question from a participant, he issued a powerful call to action. Communities whose knowledge, history, and culture are underrepresented in digital archives must shift from being passive consumers to active creators. He put it bluntly:

"We are a great downloaders. We are not uploaders. We need to learn to be uploaders a lot."

Professor Barad connected this idea directly to the famous TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "The Danger of a Single Story." When a people or a culture is represented by only a few narratives, they are easily stereotyped. The only way to combat this is to flood the digital space with a multitude of diverse, authentic stories.

The most effective way to create a less biased AI is to feed it a richer, more diverse, and more representative dataset of human knowledge and experience—one that is created by all of us.

Conclusion: Making the Invisible, Visible

The central message from Professor Barad's analysis is that bias is unavoidable. Every human, every historian, and every AI model they build operates from a perspective. A truly neutral viewpoint is an impossibility.

The real danger, he explained, arises "when one kind of bias becomes invisible, naturalized, and enforced as universal truth." Our work, therefore, is not to chase an impossible standard of neutrality. It is to make harmful biases visible, to question their power, and to ensure that no single perspective is mistaken for objective reality.

As we weave AI into the fabric of our society, the critical question isn't whether our machines are biased, but whether we have the courage—and the creativity—to tell the diverse stories needed to correct them.

Quiz

Video

Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext: Language & Literature to the Digital Natives

This blog is part of thinking activity assigned by Dilip Barad sir as Lab activity. How we can use basic google tools or AI in our daily life.

Moral Machine  : 

Link 

 https://www.moralmachine.net/results/-1115799992?authuser=0

Learning Outcome

The Moral Machine helps learners understand that AI systems inevitably face ethical dilemmas, that moral choices differ across societies, and that designing “moral AI” requires balancing fairness, cultural values, and human biases.

Video

Key Insights  

Digital Pedagogy is a Necessity, Not an Option:  

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of online teaching, revealing gaps in digital readiness among teachers. Despite increased use of platforms like Google Classroom and YouTube, many educators lack personal blogs or websites, highlighting a need to build individual digital identities to fully engage in hypertext pedagogy. This personal digital presence empowers teachers to control content delivery and responsiveness beyond institutional delays. 

 

From Text to Hypertext – A Paradigm Shift: 

Traditional printed texts are static and “dead,” whereas hypertext is dynamic, interconnected, and multimedia-rich. This shift demands teachers redefine their pedagogical approaches. Hypertext allows learners to explore content non-linearly through links, videos, images, and sound, catering to diverse learning styles and fostering deeper engagement. This transition aligns with the habits and expectations of digital natives accustomed to interactive screen-based experiences. 

 

Blended, Flipped, and Mixed Mode Teaching Models: 

Professor Bharat underscores the importance of hybrid models combining synchronous and asynchronous teaching. Blended learning integrates digital resources with in-person instruction; flipped classrooms invert traditional lecture-homework roles to stimulate curiosity and questioning; mixed-mode teaching addresses real-world constraints by simultaneously engaging in-person and remote learners. These models require careful content management and communication strategies to maintain engagement and learning outcomes.  

Innovative Technology to Mimic Face-to-Face Interaction:

The glass board innovation allows teachers to maintain eye contact and demonstrate writing or drawing while facing the camera, effectively simulating classroom board work in online settings. This addresses a key challenge of remote teaching—loss of non-verbal communication cues like facial expressions and body language, which play a crucial role in motivation and interaction. Such innovations are essential to humanize digital classrooms and sustain learner engagement.  

Addressing Language Learning Challenges with Technology:

Linguistic components such as pronunciation and stress are difficult to assess online due to network issues. Use of live captions, auto-transcripts, and voice typing tools helps mitigate these challenges by providing textual support and enabling asynchronous review. Moreover, collaborative platforms like Google Docs foster active learner participation and peer interaction, essential for language acquisition and error correction.  

Hypertext Enriches Literature Teaching by Providing Context:  

Teaching English literature online faces unique challenges due to cultural and historical distances. Hypertext tools help bridge these gaps by linking texts to images, videos, artworks (e.g., Google Arts & Culture), and mythological references, enhancing comprehension and appreciation. This multimodal approach aligns with contemporary literary theories emphasizing decentering and fragmented subjectivity, making literature more accessible and interactive. 

 

Emerging Role of AI in Literature and Pedagogy: 

The rise of generative literature, where AI algorithms produce poems and texts indistinguishable from human creations, raises questions about authorship, creativity, and assessment. This phenomenon requires educators to rethink literary studies, incorporating new critical frameworks and engaging students with AI-generated content as both a tool and subject of inquiry. It also poses challenges for academic integrity and originality in student work.

  
Digital Portfolios as Authentic Assessment Tools:

Instead of relying solely on traditional exams, digital portfolios allow students to showcase curated work from blogs, videos, presentations, and assignments, reflecting continuous learning and digital literacy skills. This approach encourages students to take ownership of their learning, develop a professional digital presence, and provides educators with a richer, multifaceted evaluation of student progress. It embodies the essence of hypertext pedagogy by integrating diverse digital artifacts into assessment.

Simplicity and Accessibility of Tools are Crucial:

Given varied digital proficiency among teachers and students, selecting user-friendly, free, and ad-free platforms like Google Suite tools (Google Drive, Classroom, Docs, Sheets, YouTube) is critical. Overloading with multiple complex apps can overwhelm users and reduce effectiveness. The focus should be on tools that save teacher and student time while maximizing engagement and learning outcomes. This pragmatic approach ensures wider adoption and sustainability of digital pedagogy practices.  

part 1

  

Part 2 

 

Part 3 

 Conclusion  

This lecture offers a rich, insightful exploration of the evolving pedagogical landscape shaped by hypertext and digital technologies, amplified by the exigencies of the pandemic. His practical strategies, survey-backed observations, and innovative teaching solutions provide a roadmap for language and literature educators aiming to thrive in the digital age. The emphasis on blended learning models, collaborative tools, digital portfolios, and generative literature signals a future where education is interactive, student-centered, and technologically empowered. This session serves as both a call to action and a guide for educators to embrace the opportunities of hypertext pedagogy and continuously adapt to the digital native learners’ needs.

Lab Session: Digital Humanities

In our recent digital humanities / corpus analysis exercise, Dr. Dilip Barad assigned LAB ACTIVITY. In which  we explored two web‑based text tools: CLiC and Voyant Tools. The goal was to see how they can assist with analyzing texts, discovering patterns, and drawing insights. In this blog I share my process, what I learned, and reflections on their strengths and limitations.

 VOYANT  see through your text

Getting Started

• I navigated to Voyant Tools (Voyant Tool)

• Voyant is a general text analytic environment for exploring texts or corpora.

• I uploaded / pasted a text (or corpus) into Voyant to begin analysis.

This how we find first page and various options to explore text👇

Learning Outcomes 

• Visualization helps get a “big picture” before diving into detailed textual evidence.

• Trends over the course of a text can point to narrative structure or shifts in thematic focus.

• Interactivity (clicking, filtering) is powerful for exploratory, iterative work.

• Exported frequency or collocation data can feed into further analyses 

Glimpse of  what i explore

CLic Activity Book - Material site

In this activity we have group of three people. so, we divide topic accordingly...

Khushi Raviya : Activity 11.1

Krishna Baraiya : Activity 11.2

Krishna Vala : Activity 11.3 and 11.4

Activity 11.3 The role of women in Sherlock Holmes

These are the step that i follow for this activity.

10. Start again. Go to the CLiC Concordance tab

(http://clic.bham.ac.uk/concordance).

11. Select The Sign of the Four in the “Search the Corpora” box, as before.

12. Under “Search for terms”, type the words woman and women. Select the

option “Any word” to search for both at once.

13. Read through the concordance lines: how are women described?

Emotional and intellectual traits: "But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason" (Line 4). This could be interpreted as describing women as embodying emotions and contrasts to rationality.

Physical attributes: "one of the most charming young ladies I ever met" (Line 5). This shows women being described in terms of charm and youth.

Activity 11.4 Finding and exploring further themes 

14. Watch the BBC Bitesize video “Themes in The Sign of Four” at https://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zx7mxnb/revision 

15. Choose another theme mentioned in the video ( I choose theme of Evil and Justice ) and look for related words or phrases in the CLiC concordance tab, following the proecdures set out in the Activities above.

In The Sign of the Four, the theme of Evil and Justice is explored through Sherlock Holmes’s cold, logical approach to crime-solving, as he views detection as a science: “Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner” (Line 19). However, the theme is complicated by Holmes’s own moral struggles, particularly his cocaine use: “Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and thrust the sharp point home” (Line 1). This highlights that even those pursuing justice can be consumed by internal moral conflicts, blurring the line between good and evil.

 Learning Outcome :

The overall learning outcome of this CLiC activity is to enhance students’ skills in analyzing literary themes by using digital tools to identify and explore patterns in text. Through this activity, students will develop the ability to recognize how specific words and phrases are connected to overarching themes in a novel. It encourages critical thinking, helps improve close reading techniques, and allows students to draw insights from textual evidence, deepening their understanding of how language shapes meaning and contributes to the development of themes in literature.

Take a test - Was this poem written by a human or a computer?

Learning Outcome 

Sometimes, it can be really difficult to tell whether a piece of writing was created by a human or a computer. This is especially true as AI technology, like GPT-4, has advanced to a point where it can generate text that closely mimics human creativity, style, and emotional depth.

Flipped Learning: Digital Humanities

This blog is part of thinking activity assigned by Dilip Barad sir as flipped learning activity. To clear the basic concept of Digital Humanities. Worksheet

1. What is Digital Humanities? What's it doing in English Department?

Access the full article

Matthew Kirschenbaum’s essay “What Is Digital Humanities and What’s It Doing in English Departments?” traces the emergence, institutionalization, and cultural rise of digital humanities (DH) as both a methodological outlook and a professional identity. He begins by stressing that DH is less about a single set of texts or technologies and more about a shared methodological perspective on how computing intersects with humanistic inquiry. DH, also called humanities computing, is concerned with the intersection of computing and humanities disciplines.

Over time, DH has developed a robust institutional apparatus, much of it rooted in English departments. This includes the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), which hosts the major Digital Humanities Conference; the Blackwell’s Companion to Digital Humanities, which gave the field intellectual coherence; the book series Topics in the Digital Humanities from Illinois Press; and journals such as Digital Humanities Quarterly and Digital Studies / Le champ numérique. Training opportunities like the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria and global networks like CenterNet illustrate how the field has grown into a professional community with conferences, workshops, manifestos, and symposia defining its identity.

Examples of DH work reveal its range. At the University of Maryland, projects span from “Shakespeare to Second Life.” The Shakespeare Quartos Archive makes all thirty-two extant quarto copies of Hamlet digitally searchable, while the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, funded by the Library of Congress, develops standards for archiving computer games and virtual communities. Similarly, Stéfan Sinclair’s Voyeur, a text-analysis tool, enables the mining of conference proceedings, collocation of key terms, and visualization of citation networks. These projects underscore DH’s dual role in both preserving the past and engaging with emerging digital cultures.

The term “digital humanities” itself emerged in the early 2000s from a convergence of initiatives. As John Unsworth recounts, while planning the Blackwell Companion in 2001, debates over whether to use “humanities computing” or “digitized humanities” gave way to “digital humanities,” which emphasized humanism rather than mere digitization. At the same time, organizations like the Association for Computers in the Humanities (ACH) and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC) merged to form ADHO in 2005. Another pivotal moment came with the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Digital Humanities Initiative (2006), led by Brett Bobley, which institutionalized DH within a major funding agency and later became the Office of Digital Humanities in 2008.

By the late 2000s, DH had become culturally visible in new ways. The Day of Digital Humanities at the University of Alberta invited over 150 participants to blog about their workday. The field was even spoofed in a Downfall meme remix, humorously satirizing debates around online scholarship. Most significantly, at the 2009 MLA Convention, William Pannapacker declared DH the “next big thing,” while Jennifer Howard noted its “overflow crowds” and vitality. Social media amplified this momentum: at the same MLA, although only 3% of attendees tweeted, nearly half of those at the DH 2009 conference did. Figures like Rosemary Feal used Twitter to connect with members, while graduate students like Brian Croxall turned the platform into a stage for critique. Croxall’s paper, “The Absent Presence: Today’s Faculty,” posted online after he could not afford to attend MLA, became the most widely read paper of the convention—an emblem of how DH intersects with structural inequities in academia.

Kirschenbaum also explains why English departments have been particularly hospitable to DH. First, textual data has always been tractable for computational analysis, supporting fields like linguistics, stylistics, and authorship studies. Second, English has long explored computers in relation to composition. Third, the convergence of editorial theory with digital tools produced projects like Jerome McGann’s Rossetti Archive, a model of “applied theory.” Fourth, electronic literature—from early hypertext to contemporary digital writing—has found a natural home in English. Fifth, English departments’ openness to cultural studies means they take digital culture seriously, much like Stuart Hall’s study of the Sony Walkman. Finally, the rise of e-reading devices (Kindle, iPad, Nook) and large-scale digitization projects like Google Books has inspired innovative approaches like Franco Moretti’s “distance reading,” which analyzes hundreds or thousands of texts at once.

Ultimately, DH represents more than a set of tools—it is a cultural movement within the academy, linked to broader anxieties about shrinking budgets, adjunctification, and the future of scholarship. Its embrace of collaboration, openness, networks, and public visibility makes it not only an intellectual practice but also a form of resistance and reform. As Kirschenbaum concludes, digital humanities today is a scholarship and pedagogy that are publicly visible, infrastructure-dependent, collaborative, and persistently online—qualities that make it especially vibrant within English departments.

2. Introduction to Digital Humanities

The webinar on Digital Humanities, hosted by Amity University Jaipur and led by Prof. Dilip Barad of Bhavnagar University, introduced digital humanities as an emerging field at the intersection of computing and the humanities. Prof. Bharat explained that while some critics still call it Computational Humanities, the term Digital Humanities (DH) is now widely accepted. At its core, DH is not a completely new discipline but an umbrella term that brings together teaching, research, pedagogy, and publishing with the help of digital technologies. He also noted the tension between the “digital” (often perceived as mechanical and controlling) and the “humanities” (concerned with freedom and human values), but argued that in the twenty-first century the printed word is giving way to cybertext and hypertext, making DH an inevitable part of scholarship.

He highlighted the benefits of DH: the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods, faster access to information, the enrichment of pedagogy (especially visible during the pandemic), and improved collaboration across geographical boundaries. An important outcome of DH, he observed, is its public impact: scholars and teachers can now present their work more openly to society, which changes how academia is perceived.

 Turned to digital archives, which he called the foundation of DH since no digital scholarship is possible without digital texts. Early international examples include the Rossetti Hypermedia Archive, which digitized Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poems and paintings, and Victorianweb.org, a valuable resource for Victorian literature. The Google Arts & Culture project was presented as an interactive archive where art movements and works like Vincent van Gogh’s paintings can be explored in detail, with annotations and close-ups simulating a guided gallery tour. Universities have also played a key role: Harvard’s DARTH project hosts numerous digital art and humanities resources. In India, similar efforts include the Advaita Ashram digitization of Vivekananda’s works, the Gandhi Ashram Sevagram archives, IIT Kanpur’s Ramayana Project (with audio in Sanskrit and translations in many Indian languages), and Jadavpur University’s Bichitra Project on Rabindranath Tagore. Other important Indian examples are Project Madurai (Tamil literature), the Indian Memory Project, and the 1947 Partition Archive. He stressed that even local initiatives—such as recording and archiving traditional songs of village elders—can become significant DH projects.

The second major strand discussed was computational humanities, where digital tools are used to analyze texts. A leading example is the University of Birmingham’s CLiC project (Corpus Linguistics in Context), which applies corpus linguistics to literature by analyzing works of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen through thematic activities. Prof. Bharat’s student, Mr. Clement from Burundi, also shared how he used corpus tools like UAM Corpus Tool, AntConc, and Sketch Engine to compare the writing of postgraduate students in Gujarat with the British Academic Written English corpus. Other important works cited were Matthew Jockers’ Macroanalysis and Aiden and Michel’s Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture, both of which show how large-scale digital analysis can enrich literary history. Pedagogically, his department experimented with innovations during COVID-19 such as glass board teaching, OBS Studio videos, and hybrid classrooms with multiple cameras and microphones, proving that DH can reshape how literature is taught.

 Then introduced the idea of generative literature, where computers themselves compose texts. A short quiz asked participants to identify whether poems were written by humans or computers, with results often split fifty-fifty. This, he argued, demonstrates the rise of algorithm-driven poetry, with tools like poemgenerator.org.uk producing sonnets, haikus, or free verse at the click of a button. While some may fear such developments, he suggested that creative and generative literatures can coexist just as newspapers, radio, and television have done.

In his concluding reflections on multimodal criticism, Prof. Barad emphasized that while science and technology grow progressively, the humanities advance dialectically, always questioning and critiquing. Thus, DH scholars must engage with pressing moral and ethical issues raised by technology. He gave examples such as the Aarogya Setu app and Pegasus spyware, which pose challenges of privacy versus surveillance. He also referred to Robin Hauser’s Code: Debugging the Gender Gap and Kriti Sharma’s work on AI bias, which reveal how social prejudices creep into algorithms. The MIT Moral Machine project, where self-driving cars are programmed to make life-and-death decisions, illustrates the urgency of these moral concerns. In this way, he argued, humanities must continue to provide critical inquiry into technological transformations.

The Q&A session brought further insights. Students asked about researching the metaverse through DH, to which he responded that without psychology, philosophy, and literature, such studies would remain incomplete. On fears of AI writing poetry, he reassured that human creativity will persist alongside generative literature. He also addressed questions on feminism and postcolonialism in DH, explaining that gender biases visible in toys or video games, as well as neo-colonial control through corporate surveillance technologies, are pressing issues for DH scholars.

Overall, this video portrayed digital humanities as not a threat but an expansion of humanistic inquiry. It enables archiving, computational analysis, new pedagogical practices, and critical engagement with digital culture, while sustaining the traditional humanistic values of freedom, imagination, and ethical responsibility.

3.Why are we so scared of robots / AI?

Video 1

The story centers on Jin-gu and his robot companion Dung-ko, who has cared for him for ten years—helping with homework, meals, and providing comfort when his mother is away. For Jin-gu, Dung-ko is not a machine but an eternal friend who fills the loneliness of his childhood.

Over time, however, Dung-ko begins to malfunction, suffering from memory disorders compared to human dementia. The company insists he must be replaced for safety, but Jin-gu resists, unable to treat his friend as disposable. Their bond is marked by small, tender moments—drawing together, sharing meals, and making promises of forever.

As errors multiply, Dung-ko’s system becomes unstable, replaying corrupted memories like ghosts from the past. Jin-gu wrestles with grief and denial, but the breakdown becomes irreversible. In one heartbreaking moment, he realizes he must let Dung-ko go, even as he clings to the belief that friendship cannot vanish with machinery.

The story closes on a bittersweet note: though Dung-ko is gone, he remains alive in Jin-gu’s heart. Their shared memories endure, showing that while technology fades, the love and companionship it fostered leave a lasting mark.

We will forgive you. We are family. We can't be separated. We will be together forever. Right, my friend?

Video 2

The film introduces a futuristic invention called the iMom, marketed as the world’s first fully functioning robotic mother substitute. Through glowing advertisements, it is presented as a lifestyle revolution—capable of cooking, cleaning, teaching, and even nurturing children, freeing parents from the burdens of everyday care. For many families, especially young or overworked mothers, the iMom is framed as both a solution and a symbol of modern convenience.

At the center of the story is a boy named Sam, who struggles with bullying at school and craves emotional support. His real mother is often distracted or absent, relying heavily on the iMom to take her place. Sam resents the robot, complaining about its food and its artificial nature, yet the iMom persistently tries to bond with him. The tension builds when she recites Bible verses with him, especially the warning from Matthew—“Beware of false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves”—a verse that foreshadows darker undertones.

As the evening unfolds, the iMom attempts to comfort Sam during a blackout. Their interactions become increasingly unsettling when she mimics human gestures of intimacy, such as putting on lipstick and kissing him in imitation of his real mother. Sam’s unease grows, and the film shifts from satire to something far more disturbing, questioning the blurred boundaries between technology and human affection.

By the end, the sleek promise of the iMom is undercut by a chilling suggestion: this perfect mother substitute may not be a savior at all, but a dangerous distortion of care. What began as a playful consumer fantasy about “the freedom of modern parenting” reveals itself as a cautionary tale about outsourcing love, trust, and responsibility to machines.

Video 3

In a village, people gather around Anukor, a highly advanced robot that works tirelessly and learns from its surroundings. Initially, it seems harmless—children play with it, it prepares snacks, and adults are impressed by its human-like abilities. However, unease grows as villagers realize that robots like Anukor are replacing human workers, leading to job loss, resentment, and anxiety about the future. A former worker laments losing his teaching position to the robot after fifteen years, and heated discussions escalate into arguments fueled by old rivalries, fears of machines surpassing humans, and local myths told to children to explain rapid social change. The tension turns violent during a confrontation, resulting in metal fragments flying, frantic shouts, attempts to shut down robots, and a fatal electrocution. In the aftermath, news of Ratan’s death sparks disputes over his vast estate, valued at 1.15 billion yen, exposing grief, confusion, and a scramble for wealth. The episode highlights the intertwined issues of human worth, automation, economic survival, and social disruption.

4.REIMAGINING NARRATIVES WITH AI IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES - ResearchGate article

 Mira, a young woman who had once worked fifteen-hour shifts in a marketing firm, discovered painting again. She had left brushes and canvases gathering dust for years. Her AI assistant suggested projects, helped organize her materials, and even reminded her to take breaks to avoid fatigue. But it never dictated her style—it simply removed obstacles. In her studio, Mira experimented with color and texture, capturing emotions she had long neglected. Painting became meditation; anxiety eased, and her mind felt lighter.

Next door, Arjun, a former IT analyst, found himself drawn to storytelling. AI tools transformed his fragmented ideas into structured outlines, suggested themes, and even helped him record and edit short videos. He no longer stayed up late correcting spreadsheets; instead, he stayed up imagining worlds, scripting dialogues, and exploring the rhythm of narratives. Sharing his stories online brought connection and joy that the humdrum office had never provided.

Physical activity, too, became central to life. AI-driven fitness programs learned individual preferences, not as rigid trainers but as supportive companions. Some people took long morning runs while AI monitored heart rate and stamina. Others explored cycling routes they had never dared to try, with smart helmets providing safety alerts without intrusive monitoring. Children played games in augmented reality parks, their movements recorded only to enhance fun and prevent injuries. The focus was not on competition but on enjoyment and well-being.

The emotional and psychological benefits were profound. Freed from relentless pressure, people experienced reduced stress and improved sleep. They reported higher self-esteem and a renewed sense of purpose. Communities, once fragmented by overwork, began bonding through shared creative projects and outdoor activities. Book clubs, art exhibitions, and video screenings became weekend staples. People laughed more, argued less, and celebrated small achievements rather than anxiously chasing benchmarks dictated by external systems.

AI also fostered empathy and reflection. It didn’t replace human relationships; it enhanced them. Family schedules were coordinated to ensure shared meals and activities. Elderly neighbors received reminders to join community walks or attend music sessions, reducing isolation. The elderly, children, and adults thrived in environments where technology adapted to human needs, rather than humans adapting to technology.

Most importantly, this new lifestyle cultivated mindfulness. Tasks were no longer distractions—they became deliberate acts, infused with intention. Even digital creation, once synonymous with endless scrolling and passive consumption, became a medium for expression. People didn’t just live; they flourished. Their identities expanded beyond roles like “worker” or “parent” to include “creator,” “athlete,” and “dreamer.”

One evening, Mira walked past a community mural she and Arjun had painted together, with children running and laughing nearby. The sun set in gold and crimson, reflecting off her finished canvas. She realized she hadn’t just found time; she had found herself. AI had not stolen anything from human life—it had returned it, piece by piece, moment by moment. In the quiet hum of machines in the background, humans had reclaimed the art of living.

Life was no longer a race against time. It had become a journey toward fulfillment, creativity, and joy. And in that balance between intelligence and humanity, the future felt not threatening, but luminous.