The Digital Lab

The SIS Digital Lab is a space for dialogue and research on the digital turn in Italian Studies. Whatever stage you are at — from PhD researcher to senior scholar — you will find something here to support your work: practical tools and a community exploring what our field needs to grow in a digital age.

We ask the questions that matter: How is the field changing? What skills and ethical frameworks are needed? What does our community actually require to thrive? These questions shape everything we do. Here, members can work through real challenges together: building digital literacy and developing interdisciplinary research, teaching and career pathways at the intersection of Italian Studies and Digital Humanities.

The Digital Lab was established by Emanuela Patti in 2025, and is now led by Federica Coluzzi, SIS Digital Portfolio Holder, with the support of Marco Ruggieri, Website and Social Media Co-ordinator.

For any questions, please get in touch with Digital Portfolio Holder Federica Coluzzi at Federica.Coluzzi@warwick.ac.uk.

Past Events

2025-2026

SIS Session on Digital Humanities with Cecilia Piantanida at SIS Biennial Conference, Trinity College Dublin/University College Dublin (9-11 July 2026)
How is AI reshaping the assessment of culture modules? Drawing on data about students’ uses of and attitudes towards generative AI, Piantanida’s presentation argued that assessment should move beyond attempts to prevent AI use and instead foster language sustainability by promoting cultural research, creativity, and critical AI literacy. Project-based learning and authentic assessment can help maintain academic integrity by foregrounding the learning process, although no form of assessment is entirely AI-proof. Rather than seeking definitive solutions, educators should consider the trade-offs associated with different assessment formats and review them regularly as technologies and student practices evolve. The discussion highlighted two further challenges: the environmental impact of generative AI and the institutional constraints that can hinder curriculum reform. Both require collective responses. Critical AI literacy should encompass ethical, social, and environmental awareness, while institutions need more responsive processes to ensure that curricula and assessment remain relevant, equitable, and pedagogically sound in a rapidly changing educational landscape.

Cecilia Piantanida is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary Italian literature and culture, with a particular emphasis on comparative and transnational perspectives. Her current work explores the implications of generative artificial intelligence for literary creativity, authorship, and cultural production, as well as its pedagogical applications in higher education. In 2024-25, she served as Artificial Intelligence Lead for the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick. In this role, she led a curriculum review aimed at integrating AI into language and cultural assessments, delivered staff training on AI applications in teaching, and oversaw the development of the School’s AI Policy. She is currently a member of the University of Warwick Action Group on Curriculum Futures, which is developing a new curriculum framework at institutional level.

2024-2025

SIS Themed Conference 2025 ‘Italian Studies at the Digital Turn. Practice, Methods, Interdisciplinarity’, Leeds (23-24 June 2025)

The 2025 Society for Italian Studies themed conference, Italian Studies at the Digital Turn: Practice, Methods, Interdisciplinarity, took place at the University of Leeds on 23-24 June 2025. The event explored how the field has responded to the profound shifts brought by digital and computational methods over the past decade — from the rise of the Semantic Web and social media to the growing impact of Generative AI on research, teaching, and cultural life. Over two days, more than fifteen panels and roundtables brought together scholars at every stage of digital engagement, alongside a keynote from Elena Pierazzo (Université de Tours) and a closing plenary on the field’s challenges and opportunities. Sessions ranged from digital editions and DH tools for textual analysis to AI in language teaching and the future of literary authorship. The conference also marked the launch of the SIS Digital Lab, with a hands-on training session led by Joe Dale on practical AI tools for Italian Studies.