{"id":40802799003,"date":"2026-10-26T14:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T18:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/?post_type=tribe_events&p=40802799003"},"modified":"2026-10-26T14:05:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T18:05:25","slug":"ink-electricity-when-grammar-wasnt-enough-machine-storytelling-in-the-1960s-and-1970s","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/event\/ink-electricity-when-grammar-wasnt-enough-machine-storytelling-in-the-1960s-and-1970s\/","title":{"rendered":"Ink & Electricity: \u201cWhen Grammar Wasn\u2019t Enough: Machine Storytelling in the 1960s and 1970s\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Dennis Yi Tenen<\/a> will deliver the 2026 Ink & Electricity lecture, \u201cWhen Grammar Wasn\u2019t Enough: Machine Storytelling in the 1960s and 1970s.\u201d Tenen brings a literary perspective to the discussion of machine intelligence, tracing the path from early grammar-based story generators to their eventual convergence with frame-based approaches. This convergence marked the historical origins of automated machine storytelling that anyone would want to read or listen to; it changed machine-generated nonsense, \u201cidiot poetry,\u201d into machine-generated narrative.<\/p>\n

The lecture will be held Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2026, from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Great Hall Auditorium. Refreshments will be available starting at 5:30 p.m. Faculty are encouraged to invite their students. The lecture is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n

Tenen is professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, where he also directs the Narrative Intelligence Lab<\/a>. His books include \u201cPlain Text: The Poetics of Computation<\/a>\u201d (Stanford University Press, 2017), \u201cLiterary Theory for Robots<\/a>\u201d (W.W. Norton, 2024), and \u201cAuthor Function: A Literary History of Artificial Intelligence,\u201d which is under contract with University of Chicago Press. Tenen is a longtime affiliate of Columbia\u2019s Data Science Institute and was formerly an engineer in Microsoft\u2019s Windows group and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. His code runs on personal computers worldwide.<\/p>\n

An interview with Tenen on “Urgent Futures” offers a preview of his ideas about AI\u2019s hidden literary history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Ink & Electricity lecture series is supported by the Wayne D. McMurray endowed chair in the humanities. Its goal is to advance liberal learning in the digital age. Past speakers include Priya Joshi, Lisa Gitelman, Jonathan Rose, Pat Crain, and Ellen Gruber Garvey. Questions may be directed to Professor Kristin Bluemel<\/a>, event organizer and the Wayne D. McMurray endowed chair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Dennis Yi Tenen will deliver the 2026 Ink & Electricity lecture, \u201cWhen Grammar Wasn\u2019t Enough: Machine Storytelling in the 1960s and 1970s.\u201d Tenen brings a literary perspective to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":40802799210,"template":"","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"America\/New_York","_EventStartDate":"2026-11-17 18:00:00","_EventEndDate":"2026-11-17 19:00:00","_EventStartDateUTC":"2026-11-17 23:00:00","_EventEndDateUTC":"2026-11-18 00:00:00","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":true,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"$","_EventCurrencyCode":"USD","_EventCurrencyPosition":"prefix","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[40802282357],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","_tribe_events_is_hybrid":"","_tribe_events_is_virtual":"","_tribe_events_virtual_video_source":"","_tribe_events_virtual_embed_video":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button_text":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_at":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_to":[],"_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_event":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_views":"","_tribe_events_virtual_url":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artseries":[],"arts":[],"tribe_events_cat":[54,396,384,117,27,180,159],"class_list":["post-40802799003","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tribe_events_cat-alumni","tribe_events_cat-council-endowed-chairs","tribe_events_cat-cec-lecture-series","tribe_events_cat-current-student","tribe_events_cat-free","tribe_events_cat-lectures","tribe_events_cat-lectures-workshops-symposiums","cat_alumni","cat_council-endowed-chairs","cat_cec-lecture-series","cat_current-student","cat_free","cat_lectures","cat_lectures-workshops-symposiums"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/40802799003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/40802799003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802799213,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/40802799003\/revisions\/40802799213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40802799210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802799003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802799003"},{"taxonomy":"artseries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artseries?post=40802799003"},{"taxonomy":"arts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/arts?post=40802799003"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=40802799003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}