This Digital Humanities project proposes an innovative approach to Artificial Intelligence applied to Byzantine sigillography. Our proposal combines computer vision, knowledge engineering and mathematical modeling of spatial relationships to help with the interpretation of Byzantine seals. The goal of this research is to (i) work on the recognition of writings on seals, (ii) analyze iconographic scenes and (iii) propose solutions based on AI/ML techniques to interpret damaged areas based on existing insights. This project will be led by Victoria Eyharabide (young researcher and coordinator) who gathered a women’s team of experts comprised of Pr. Béatrice Caseau (Byzantine history), Pr. Isabelle Bloch (image understanding and AI) and associate Pr. Laurence Likforman (computer vision). This project brings a unique opportunity to develop a new multidisciplinary research collaboration while enabling a young researcher to strengthen her leadership and coordination skills.

Oulipo, “Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle” was founded a little over fifty years ago, in 1960, by the mathematician François Le Lionnais and the writer Raymond Queneau. This group specializes in the study of all of the possibilities offered to literature by structures born of mathematics and informatics. The success of the group has generated an impressive following in and outside France. A systematic analysis of Oulipo will allow us to scrutinize what may be the last avant-garde literary group existing in France, with an obvious international dimension (26% of its members are not French). The Oulipo group, whose works touch on all literary genres, seems to play for literature of the second half of the twentieth century a federating role equivalent to that of surrealism for the first half of the century. Fifty years after its inception, in the midst of the “great digital conversion”, Oulipo appears to be one of the best sites for reflection and creation in the face of the current technological transition of literature. As a matter of fact, new technologies have not only revealed the relevance of Oulipian questioning, but also its productivity and necessity in the daily lives of millions of readers, be it on the internet, on tablets or in e-books. The “potential” dimension of Oulipo therefore represents also the potential for the renewal of our vision of literature as well as our methods of teaching it, ideally in large part devoted to humor and creativity. The project title, “Différences de potentiel” (“DifdePo”), underlines the variety of possibilities provided by Oulipo’s research, the diversity of literary approaches typical of its members as well as the creativity resulting from the confrontation of opposing polarities… The project aims to create an international federation of researchers, all already working on Oulipo. We wish to put in place synergies that will allow us to get an overview of the group and its production in its different forms. We will emphasize interdisciplinary perspectives, since the very foundation of Oulipo is interdisciplinary (mathematics, informatics and literature). Once completed, the project will lead to a better knowledge of this relatively ignored hotspot within the history of 20th century literature (Oulipo has much influence over non-Oulipian aspects of contemporary art and literature). On a theoretical level, at issue is also a reflection on the manner with which Oulipo causes us to redefine our own conception of literature (notably by questioning such notions as the author and inspiration, inherited from romanticism). Finally, we wish to fill out the documentation on Oulipo available to researchers in the field by permitting access to new texts (paper editions as well as on-line databases), and creating a website devoted to that database. Thanks to the trust established between Oulipians and several members of this project, including its coordinator, we have obtained full support from Oulipo, including access to unpublished archives and several sets of correspondence not yet published. The project is entirely innovative as no such international research group devoted to Oulipo presently exists. The exceptional size of the research team (about thirty members, including ten foreigners), the high caliber of partner teams (under the double framework of universities and the CNRS), and the rich diversity of the expected results make for a very ambitious project. Fifty years after its inception, we have begun to understand that Oulipo is a potential source of wealth for the literary heritage of France and the world. We believe it is time to honor this heritage and make it better known. Such are the goals assigned to this project.

LIBEX is an interdisciplinary corpus-based project federating linguists, jurists, historians, literature and philosophy scholars from France and Quebec who focus on freedom of expression, of creation, of conscience and discrimination. Their research will concentrate on the relationship between religion and society, as key issues regarding the articulation of freedom of conscience and freedom of creation and the resulting social tensions will be studied. Considering that the past thirty years were marked by a growing number of public controversies and even legal proceedings against cultural or social events such as the writings, comments or performances of artists, journalists, polemists, or the wearing of signs or clothing perceived as marking a religious affiliation, several questions guide our reflection: how are freedom of expression, creation and conscience articulated with the principles of secularism in the public space? Can the right to humour be a line of defence, including for “non artists”? Has state censorship been replaced by public debates launched by associations or groups on social networks? Does the media coverage of court proceedings aim to generate self-censorship, even among creators? Tensions are visible in polemics and legal procedures aiming at restricting the expression when religious matters, in a broad sense, are at stake in the public sphere (for insults / libel / slander / blaspheme / public lewdness / breach of the peace / protection of the youth / incitement to discrimination / humour / parody / breach of the law on secularism..) while the means to communicate with the greatest number of people have multiplied. Practical cases will be examined through a corpus of trials, literature and media texts (social networks included) with a comparative, diachronic and synchronic perspective in a mediative objective. Our goals are to understand where these tensions come from and what creates them, how controversial speeches are received and generated, what argumentative dynamics are in circulation, and how creative and legal practices evolve together in a context of live dissemination of information, whether true or false. Relying on the methods of discourse analysis, LIBEX will propose tools of understanding and reflection to civil society in the face of controversies involving freedom of expression, creation and conscience (judicialized or not) so that debates and/or judgments can be based on accurate facts and analyses supported by ALLSHS research. The aim is to deconstruct the hurtful discourses in circulation by placing them in context and by relating them to broader strategies of persuasion.

The project aims to study the way in which Bersuire, in the 14th century, translated Livy's History of Rome, a translation whose influence would be capital on the constitution of the French lexicon, political in particular, and the construction of a historical science, based on Western conceptions of Roman institutions. The team will also study the influence of this translation until the 16th century. and up to Spain and Italy. To carry out this large-scale study, it is first necessary to have access to the text of Bersuire, from which we have kept three Decades, i.e. groups of 10 books. The team will produce the critical edition, in digital version for decades III and IV. The recruitment of two doctoral students, guided by specialists in digital edition, will make it possible to carry out this essential step. Then specialists in literature, philology, lexicon, history, as well as two post-docs recruited within the framework of the project, will study the various fields considered.