Charles Pletcher
@charlespletcher.org
Ancient tragedy, reception studies, digital humanities
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
This and the discussion about how academics can now just read AI summaries of things really drives home how much these guys always confuse the product for the goal. You don't do a coloring sheet because you want to have a colored sheet at the end!!! The coloring is the point!!!
December 21, 2025 at 11:39 PM
This and the discussion about how academics can now just read AI summaries of things really drives home how much these guys always confuse the product for the goal. You don't do a coloring sheet because you want to have a colored sheet at the end!!! The coloring is the point!!!
Excited to release the new minimal-computing Pausanias Reader in Progress: pausanias.opencommentaries.org/about (If you find an empty comment, that's the "in Progress" part)
Enormous thanks to @eltonteb.bsky.social and the rest of Digital Periegesis team for their help with named entity linking!
Enormous thanks to @eltonteb.bsky.social and the rest of Digital Periegesis team for their help with named entity linking!
A Pausanias Reader in Progress
pausanias.opencommentaries.org
December 16, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Excited to release the new minimal-computing Pausanias Reader in Progress: pausanias.opencommentaries.org/about (If you find an empty comment, that's the "in Progress" part)
Enormous thanks to @eltonteb.bsky.social and the rest of Digital Periegesis team for their help with named entity linking!
Enormous thanks to @eltonteb.bsky.social and the rest of Digital Periegesis team for their help with named entity linking!
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
I'm thrilled to report that the Perseus Digital Library has been selected for a 2025 Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI) award from @schmidtsciences.bsky.social! Read more about our plans here (sites.tufts.edu/perseusupdat...).
.
.
Perseus Digital Library Updates » News and announcements from the Perseus Digital Library
sites.tufts.edu
December 12, 2025 at 9:57 PM
I'm thrilled to report that the Perseus Digital Library has been selected for a 2025 Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI) award from @schmidtsciences.bsky.social! Read more about our plans here (sites.tufts.edu/perseusupdat...).
.
.
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
I'm honored to be part of the team alongside @alicatlibrarian.bsky.social, @pnadelofficial.bsky.social, @charlespletcher.org, Lisa Cerrato, Gregory Nagy, Riccardo Strobino, Clifford Wulfman and Ph.D. candidates Sarah Abowitz and Si Wu.
December 11, 2025 at 6:59 PM
I'm honored to be part of the team alongside @alicatlibrarian.bsky.social, @pnadelofficial.bsky.social, @charlespletcher.org, Lisa Cerrato, Gregory Nagy, Riccardo Strobino, Clifford Wulfman and Ph.D. candidates Sarah Abowitz and Si Wu.
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
“Beyond Translation: Opening up the Human Record” is among the HAVI projects awarded by @schmidtsciences.bsky.social.
Congratulations to PIs @philologistgrc.bsky.social and @dasmiq.bsky.social!
Congratulations to PIs @philologistgrc.bsky.social and @dasmiq.bsky.social!
JUST ANNOUNCED: Schmidt Sciences has awarded $11M to 23 teams globally for our Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI).
These projects bring AI to history, archaeology, literature, and film, unlocking new understandings of human culture.
Learn more: buff.ly/tvTUYwY
These projects bring AI to history, archaeology, literature, and film, unlocking new understandings of human culture.
Learn more: buff.ly/tvTUYwY
December 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
“Beyond Translation: Opening up the Human Record” is among the HAVI projects awarded by @schmidtsciences.bsky.social.
Congratulations to PIs @philologistgrc.bsky.social and @dasmiq.bsky.social!
Congratulations to PIs @philologistgrc.bsky.social and @dasmiq.bsky.social!
Who “writes” an LLM-translated work of literature? Even if it isn’t a 1:1 copy, is an AI translation at scale just pure plagiarism? Any middle ground between stealing and creating new resources? (maybe relevant article: www.theguardian.com/books/2024/m... — Venuti probably relevant here too)
AI translation: how to train ‘the horses of enlightenment’
Translation algorithms have greatly improved in recent years, but can they work on literature? Human practitioners of the art are not convinced
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Who “writes” an LLM-translated work of literature? Even if it isn’t a 1:1 copy, is an AI translation at scale just pure plagiarism? Any middle ground between stealing and creating new resources? (maybe relevant article: www.theguardian.com/books/2024/m... — Venuti probably relevant here too)
This is how news/media got around for most of human history. Sophocles' _Women of Trachis_ provides something of a thought experiment in what happens when the traditional avenue for news delivery becomes unreliable (hint: it ain't good)
the thing about social media I keep saying is that it makes EVERYBODY into a potential media outlet
and some of those media outlets gained reach/influence comparable to the traditional media, and gained it far faster than they gained any consciousness of the responsibility that should come with it
and some of those media outlets gained reach/influence comparable to the traditional media, and gained it far faster than they gained any consciousness of the responsibility that should come with it
Nobody's saying online posters have more accountability than elected Democrats. It's that they have *some* accountability, i.e., greater than zero, which adds up over many accounts, and the problem is that accounts with large followings like Internet Hippo seem to believe it is zero.
November 21, 2025 at 6:37 PM
This is how news/media got around for most of human history. Sophocles' _Women of Trachis_ provides something of a thought experiment in what happens when the traditional avenue for news delivery becomes unreliable (hint: it ain't good)
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here
November 11, 2025 at 7:14 PM
I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
From today's Chronicle of Higher Ed briefing. I am *never* an advocate of cutting programs. But I am curious to see if there will be the same type of "students aren't majoring in this, so let's cut the program" discourse around computer science as there always is for the arts and humanities.
November 11, 2025 at 12:38 PM
From today's Chronicle of Higher Ed briefing. I am *never* an advocate of cutting programs. But I am curious to see if there will be the same type of "students aren't majoring in this, so let's cut the program" discourse around computer science as there always is for the arts and humanities.
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
lol
November 6, 2025 at 4:47 AM
lol
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.
November 5, 2025 at 5:14 AM
Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.
The processing instruction found in many TEI documents—which never advanced past Working Group Note www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE... —breaks some XML parsers
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition)
www.w3.org
November 4, 2025 at 3:40 AM
The processing instruction found in many TEI documents—which never advanced past Working Group Note www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE... —breaks some XML parsers
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
the power of uh, reading books
a genuine problem is that a lot of this stuff is just completely alien to the mass media elite
like who else besides weirdos like me take time to analyze what the intellectual righties are saying
like who else besides weirdos like me take time to analyze what the intellectual righties are saying
November 3, 2025 at 3:11 AM
the power of uh, reading books
Cleaned up the previous sentence embeddings comparisons—cleaner calculation of similarity for tragedies, and now both charts use the same scale (in autumn hues 🍂)
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
November 1, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Cleaned up the previous sentence embeddings comparisons—cleaner calculation of similarity for tragedies, and now both charts use the same scale (in autumn hues 🍂)
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
I might need to update the original plot, but so far it's interesting to note that the messenger similarities don't seem to be a result of consolidation across tragedies, which remain quite distinct (at least from the perspective of sentence embeddings) #dh #ancmedsky
November 1, 2025 at 2:11 AM
I might need to update the original plot, but so far it's interesting to note that the messenger similarities don't seem to be a result of consolidation across tragedies, which remain quite distinct (at least from the perspective of sentence embeddings) #dh #ancmedsky
So sentence embeddings of messenger speeches in Attic tragedy show a modest but notable bump in semantic similarity toward the end of the 5th century (see attached image) — generic consolidation, maybe, but why? #ancmedsky #dh
October 31, 2025 at 8:11 PM
So sentence embeddings of messenger speeches in Attic tragedy show a modest but notable bump in semantic similarity toward the end of the 5th century (see attached image) — generic consolidation, maybe, but why? #ancmedsky #dh
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
We have been working at Perseus on an initial release of a new browser for the Art and Archaeology collection. You can read more about it here (sites.tufts.edu/perseusupdat...)
Announcing a new release of the Perseus Art & Archaeology Artifact (A&A) Browser » Perseus Digital Library Updates
sites.tufts.edu
October 15, 2025 at 12:31 PM
We have been working at Perseus on an initial release of a new browser for the Art and Archaeology collection. You can read more about it here (sites.tufts.edu/perseusupdat...)
Could I repurpose this for an upcoming Greek midterm? Give students a ChatGPT- or Claude-translated passage (that we have translated in class) and ask them the same question(s)
scarlet letter reading quiz: give students a sparknotes passage and ask what it misses—a significant detail, some tension, a connection to another text only a member of our class might see
October 9, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Could I repurpose this for an upcoming Greek midterm? Give students a ChatGPT- or Claude-translated passage (that we have translated in class) and ask them the same question(s)
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
As an instructor, I'd rather see your fever dream, No Doze-fueled 4AM essays written at an IHOP rather than anything generated by an LLM.
Hope this helps
Hope this helps
I wrote a 15 page report on heraldic symbolism in medieval armor and weapon design for my art history class the night before it was due (8am class). Made up 90% of it (only found one book for reference) and got an A. GenAI could fucking never.
October 9, 2025 at 4:25 AM
As an instructor, I'd rather see your fever dream, No Doze-fueled 4AM essays written at an IHOP rather than anything generated by an LLM.
Hope this helps
Hope this helps
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
i agree. there's something very dostoyevskian about how the modern sources of terror don't seem to be formally ideological but just seem to be purely postmodern terror, causing terror for the sake of terror
Hot take but apolitical internet brainrot terrorism feels more disturbing than strictly political.
September 12, 2025 at 2:41 PM
i agree. there's something very dostoyevskian about how the modern sources of terror don't seem to be formally ideological but just seem to be purely postmodern terror, causing terror for the sake of terror
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
Chris Rufo being an idiot about Leo Strauss:
September 6, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Chris Rufo being an idiot about Leo Strauss:
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
10/10. Chef's kiss. No notes. 💯
September 6, 2025 at 11:30 PM
10/10. Chef's kiss. No notes. 💯