Professor Matthew Reynolds - Workshop: Constraints as a Route to Creativity with GenAI (and In General)

Date

20 Mar 2026

Address

Seminar Room, Room 7.45, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Professor Matthew Reynolds - Workshop

Constraints as a Route to Creativity with GenAI (and In General)

Date: Mar 20, 2026 (Friday)

Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm

Venue: Seminar Room, Room 7.45, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Registration is required. Seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

For HKU members (HKU Portal login is required): https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?ueid=105510
For non-HKU members: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=105510

Abstract

Verse form, narrative voice, Oulipian lipograms – all are constraints which release creativity through the paradoxical act of confining it. What happens if we impose these or similar constraints on Large Language Models (LLMs)? - and how might this stimulate our own creativity, in translating/versioning and/or in single-author writing? Please bring a device with which to connect to an LLM, a text or idea you would like to work with, and a readiness to explore and share.

Biography

Matthew Reynolds is Professor of English and Comparative Criticism at Oxford, where he founded and chairs the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation Research Centre (OCCT) and the associated Masters in Comparative Literature and Critical Translation. Some of his books are: the open access Prismatic Jane Eyre: Close-Reading a World Novel Across Languages (2023) which includes interactive digital elements; Prismatic Translation (2019); Translation: A Very Short Introduction (2016); The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue (2011); Likenesses (2013); The Realms of Verse (2001); and the novels Designs for a Happy Home (2009) and The World Was All Before Them (2013). He is currently leading a collaborative research investigation into 'AI, Decoloniality and Creative Poetry Translation' and developing an app to support creative, ethically reflective translation through language(s) in dialogue with AI tools.