Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 104.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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    [1]    From: Peter Robinson <http://www.talesofcanterbury.org>
           Subject: A Critical Edition of the Book of the Tales of Canterbury (26)

    [2]    From: Lingjia Zhao <L.Zhao6@lboro.ac.uk>
           Subject: 🆕 New article on AI and sensitive colonial archives (56)


--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2026-07-30 08:20:14+00:00
        From: Peter Robinson <http://www.talesofcanterbury.org>
        Subject: A Critical Edition of the Book of the Tales of Canterbury

[The following concerns one of the longest running projects in 
the digital humanities, hence publishing Robinson's announcement
here. --WM]

We take pleasure in presenting the first three parts of our Critical
Edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s /The Book of the Tales of Canterbury/.

The whole edition is introduced at www.talesofcanterbury.org. There 
you will find a summary description of the edition with links to its parts.

The first three parts of the edition are:

The General Prologue at www.talesofcanterbury.org/GP
<http://www.talesofcanterbury.org/GP>
The Miller’s Tale at www.talesofcanterbury.org/MI
<http://www.talesofcanterbury.org/MI>
The Tales of the Reeve and Cook, edited by Tom Farrell, at
www.talesofcanterbury.org/RE <http://www.talesofcanterbury.org/RE>

Further parts of our edition will be released as they become available.

Please repost.

Barbara Bordalejo and Peter Robinson, General Editors.
Universities of Lethbridge and Saskatchewan


--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2026-07-28 14:09:30+00:00
        From: Lingjia Zhao <L.Zhao6@lboro.ac.uk>
        Subject: 🆕 New article on AI and sensitive colonial archives

Dear all,

We are pleased to share our new open-access article:

Should sensitive archival images be shown? The case for applying AI to
colonial archives

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-026-09552-x

Published in Archival Science, the article explores how archives should manage
colonial photographs depicting violence, nudity, coercion and other sensitive
subjects.

Co-authored by Lise Jaillant, Matthew Kidd and Lingjia Zhao, the study draws on
fifteen interviews with professionals working across GLAM institutions in the UK
and continental Europe. It also includes a computer-vision test involving twenty
colonial photographs from the Archives Nationales d’Outre-mer in France,
allowing us to consider both the potential and the limitations of AI.

AI can help archives to:

  *   identify potentially sensitive material at scale
  *   improve metadata and description
  *   make difficult collections easier to discover

However, automated tools remain limited, particularly when the meaning of an
image depends on historical and cultural context.
We therefore propose a practical framework combining:

 automated triage
human review and curatorial judgement
clear labelling of machine-generated descriptions
warnings, restrictions and takedown procedures
consultation and co-governance with source communities

The central argument is that AI can support responsible access, but archivists
and source communities must retain authority over what is made visible, how it
is described and when access restrictions are needed.

This research forms part of GENIAC: Generative Artificial Intelligence for
Archival Images of the Colonial Period, funded by the British Academy. The
project explores how AI can support responsible access to colonial images from
the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, working with source
communities from formerly colonised countries.

Citation:

Jaillant, L., Kidd, M. & Zhao, L. Should sensitive archival images be shown? The
case for applying AI to colonial archives. Arch Sci 26, 36 (2026).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-026-09552-x

We welcome perspectives from colleagues working with colonial collections,
archival practice, digital humanities and responsible AI.

Best wishes,
GENIAC Research Team


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