Generative AI and Digital Humanities Narrative Reconstruction
A special issue of Future Collections, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (ISSN 3043-0550).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 282
Editors
Interests: knowledge organization and retrieval; smart libraries
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally transforming how narratives are constructed, interpreted, and experienced within digital humanities. From large language models rewriting literary classics to multimodal AI generating immersive historical reconstructions, these technologies are redefining the boundaries of storytelling, authorship, and cultural representation. However, this transformative potential raises critical questions about authenticity, agency, ethics, and the very nature of humanistic inquiry in the age of machine-generated content.
This Special Issue aims to explore the intersection of generative AI and digital humanities, with a particular focus on how AI-driven tools and methodologies are reshaping narrative practices. We invite contributions that examine both the theoretical implications and practical applications of generative AI in reconstructing, reimagining, and re-presenting humanistic narratives through digital means.
We seek interdisciplinary research that addresses how generative models—including but not limited to large language models (LLMs), diffusion models, and multimodal architectures—are being employed to create new forms of digital storytelling, interactive heritage experiences, and computational narratology. Equally important are critical reflections on the epistemological, ethical, and sociocultural implications of delegating narrative authority to artificial systems.
This Special Issue provides a dedicated platform for scholars, practitioners, and critics to examine how generative AI is reconfiguring the relationship between technology and narrative in the humanities. We welcome submissions that combine technical innovation with humanistic rigor, offering new insights into how AI can both enhance and challenge traditional modes of narrative construction and interpretation.
Possible Topics of Submissions:
This Special Issue is interested in, but not limited to, the following topics:
- Posthuman authorship and narrative agency in human–AI collaborative systems;
- Ontology and epistemology of machine-generated narratives: truth, plausibility, and narrative theory revisited;
- Ethical frameworks for AI-generated narratives: authenticity, bias, and cultural representation;
- Large language models for adaptive storytelling and interactive narrative generation;
- Multimodal generative systems for reconstructing historical events, artifacts, and environments;
- Human–AI co-narration: how users engage, negotiate, and co-construct meaning with generative narrative systems;
- Evaluating AI-generated narratives: metrics, benchmarks, and qualitative assessment frameworks;
- Immersive and embodied generative narratives for participatory heritage experiences;
- Digital archives and generative interfaces: reanimating collections through narrative AI;
- Generative AI and narrative equity: accessibility, diversity, and pluralism in digital storytelling;
- Generative AI as a research method in digital humanities.
Prof. Dr. Dan Wu
Prof. Dr. Bailing Liu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Collections, Libraries, Archives, and Museums is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- adaptive storytelling
- artificial intelligence
- benchmarks
- chatbots
- computational methods
- conversational interfaces
- cultural heritage
- cultural representation
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