Autumn 2025
Publishing Lab: From Manuscript Culture to AI-Augmented Reading
Led by Gabrielle Benabdallah, HCDE PhD Candidate
This DRG traces the evolution of scientific publishing technologies, from waste books and manuscripts to AI-generated summaries. Over the course of ten weeks, we'll investigate how each era’s tools shape how knowledge is created, shared, and interpreted. We’ll explore how the act of publication transforms ideas into public knowledge, and what that means in an age of algorithmic readers.
We will read texts that span print history (Eisenstein, Johns, Chartier), media studies (Kirschenbaum, Drucker), and current research on AI for (scientific) publishing and communication. Alongside this, we’ll use off-the-shelf and custom AI tools to document our weekly sessions, generate highlights from conversations based on new parameters each week, and use the knowledge produced and exchanged during the DRG as material to investigate this DRG’s core question: what role do media, analog and computational, play in shaping the possibilities of knowledge?
At the end of the DRG, researchers will have built a historical overview of key publishing technologies (manuscript, moveable type, internet, AI); a shared library of session transcripts and highlight cards; speculative designs and proposals for the next stage of scientific publishing. This DRG is part 1 of 2 (part 2 will take place in Winter 2026).
Tentative weekly activities:
- Week 1: Scientific Communication: a brief overview
- Weeks 2–3: Manuscript & Print Culture: scribes, presses, and the stabilization of knowledge.
- Week 4: AI and Text: first encounters with machine-assisted reading.
- Weeks 5–8: AI and Science: case studies on AI in literature review, annotation, and citation tracking.
- Week 9: Speculative Publishing: design sprint + presentations.
Details and how to apply:
- Meeting place and times: In-person, Thursdays 2:30-3:30 p.m.
- Credits: 1-3, based on hours spent on work outside of class time hours.
- Who should apply: HCDE students will be prioritized, but students from any department or college should apply.
- To apply: Please complete this Google Form by Sept 5 at midnight.
- Anticipated notification date: Sept. 16, 2025
- Questions? Email Gabrielle Benabdallah (gabben@uw.edu)