In-Person

Computational Text from A to Z +

Daniel Shiffman | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2536 | Wed 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:14
4 Point, a2z, alexa, api, awesome, bots, chromeextension, code, coding, codingtrain, danshiffman, data, Elective, exploratory, Fall 2026, fun,, generativetext, Graduate, In-Person, javascript, love, machinelearning, markov, markovchains, ml, node, nodejs, p5, p5.js, poetry, programming, regex, shiffman, tensorflow, text, textanalysis, textgeneration, textual_analysis, twitter, twitterbot, voice
Last updated: March 31, 2026

This course is a survey of programming strategies and techniques for the procedural analysis and generation of text-based data. Topics include analyzing text based on its statistical properties, automated text production using probabilistic methods, and text visualization. Students will learn server-side and client-side JavaScript programming and build single-page web applications as well as bots for social media networks. Additionally, this course will critically investigate and explore open-source and commercial machine learning models for text and image generation. The course includes weekly homework coding exercises and an open-ended final project.

Computational Approaches to Narrative +

Allison Parrish | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2198 | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, awesome, coding, computation, Elective, enjoyable, Fall 2026, fun,, game_design, Graduate, In-Person, informative, interactivefiction, narrative, nonlinearstorytelling, practical, programming, python, reading, stories, theory
Last updated: March 31, 2026

Beginning with the release of Crowther and Woods’ “Colossal Cave Adventure” in 1977, the potential and unique affordances of computation as a means of storytelling have become more and more apparent. Combining approaches from literary theory, anthropology, computational creativity and game design, this class considers how narrative structure can be represented as data and enacted through computation, and invites students to implement practical prototypes of their own interactive and procedurally-generated narratives using a variety of technologies.

Topics include (but are not limited to) hypertext fiction, “choose your own adventure”-style branching narratives, text adventures, visual novels, story generation from grammars and agent-based simulations. Students will complete a series of bite-size weekly assignments to present for in-class critique. Each session will also feature lectures, class discussion, and technical tutorials.

Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media or equivalent programming experience.