News

Cultural Analytics Talk with Taylor Arnold: Measuring Style and Structure in Television Comedy

May 7, 2026
Mia Salinas & Yeonwoo Lee

From Friends to Modern Family to Saturday Night Live, these are just a few examples of famous and popular TV comedies. Even though they all belong to the comedy genre, these shows differ greatly in structure, including camera techniques, scripting, and overall style. There are different ways to identify what a comedy series is, such as the use of a laugh track or a live audience. However, another way to analyze comedy is through computational methods. A Professor of Data Science at the University of...

Cultural Analytics inaugural lecture “Universality and Diversity in Story and Song” with Manvir Singh

November 19, 2025
BIDS Staff

The new Cultural Analytics speaker series — a collaboration between the UC Berkeley School of Information and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) — launched on October 2 with its inaugural speaker, Manvir Singh, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UC Davis. The series builds on inaugural talks in the past two years by...

Melanie Walsh presents “AI Fiction in the Wild”

February 10, 2026
Ankita Biyani

The Cultural Analytics Series, jointly organized by the UC Berkeley School of Information and Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS), highlights research that uses data-driven methods to study cultural phenomena.

In the fall of 2025, the series featured the presentation "AI...

The Center for Cultural Analytics Spring Lecture featured Professor Tina Eliassi-Rad

March 18, 2024
Lilli Wessling Hart

On March 7, 2024, the Center for Cultural Analytics hosted its Spring lecture event. BIDS Associate Faculty Director Tim Tangherlini welcomed Tina Eliassi-Rad, a professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University, to UC Berkeley.

...

Digital Dunhuang Caves: Preserving a World Heritage Site Through Data and Technology

July 23, 2025
Tyler Hawthorne

In April, BIDS welcomed Dr. Tianxiu Yu, Vice President of the Dunhuang Academy, and Dr. Yanpeng Song, Director of the Academy’s Information Center, for a special seminar exploring how large-scale digitization is preserving one of the world’s most significant cultural sites:...

Hannes Bajohr presents his work "Artificial and Post-Artificial Texts: The Reader’s Expectation after AI"

April 18, 2025
BIDS Staff

On March 10, Hannes Bajohr, Assistant Professor in the Department of German at UC Berkeley, presented his work on “Artificial and Post-artificial Texts”, considering the reader’s expectations after AI.

As ChatGPT summarizes, with some help from Prof Bajohr to encourage succinctness:

“In this seminar, Hannes Bajohr explores how the widespread use of AI-generated texts...

Nina Beguš presents her work "Artificial Humanities"

February 10, 2025
BIDS Staff

On February 3, Nina Beguš, a researcher and lecturer at UC Berkeley, presented her work "Artificial Humanities" to attendees at the BIDS Suite in Sutardja Dai Hall and online. We in the audience were invited to understand how fictional narratives shape the human creation and understanding of artificial intelligence.

Beguš focused on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion: published in 1911 and...

Professor David Blei presents "Beyond Roll Call: Inferring Politics from Text"

September 28, 2023
Lilli Wessling Hart

On September 27, 2023, BIDS’ Center for Cultural Analytics hosted its inaugural event with special guest Professor David Blei. His topic exemplifies the Center's focus on data-driven analysis of cultural phenomena.

Beyond Roll Call: Inferring Politics from Text

"The ideal point model is a staple of quantitative political science. It is a...

Professor Rita Lucarelli organizes workshop centered around digitization of ancient Egyptian coffins

November 28, 2023
Lilli Wessling Hart

On November 28, 2023, BIDS sponsored a special event at Sutardja Dai Hall. Professor Rita Lucarelli, a Center for Cultural Analytics faculty leader, brought together subject matter experts to present on the digitization of ancient Egyptian coffins and their shareability in museum and academic environments. Following are the presenters and their topics:

Rita Lucarelli (UCB): Tridimensional rendering of ancient Egyptian...

Miguel Escobar Varela gives "Multimodal Models for the Study of Culture" workshop week closing talk

May 29, 2026
Lilli Wessling Hart

On the final day of the “Multimodal Models for the Study of Culture” week, Tim Tangherlini, BIDS Associate Faculty Director and Cultural Analytics Group Lead, welcomed Miguel Escobar Varela to campus, describing him as a fellow “computational folklorist” in addition to his official positions as an associate professor at the Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies and the deputy director of the ...