Plenary Speakers
Joint 2026 CEAH Symposium and Technology for Second Language Learning Conference
October 15-16, 2026
Hybrid (Online & Iowa State University)
The Romance of Technology: The Human Desire for Intimacy with and Through Machines
Abstract: Though large language models are new, the urge for instantaneous, disembodied connection is not. The fictionalized diary – intimate, feminine, unfolding in real time – originated in the eighteenth century and invented a style that continues to inform chatbot communication in the present day. In this talk, I explore the history of the fictionalized diary form and a more recent example: Go Ask Alice, a novel which claims to be the “actual diary of a 15-year-old drug user” but was really written by Mormon mom Beatrice Sparks. What I find is a public fantasy masquerading as private feelings: a longstanding art of womanhood. It’s a history that rarely figures into discussions of AI but is essential for understanding how humans interact with chatbots – and why we’re so often left wanting more.
Academic Bio: Megan Ward is Director of Humanities Initiatives at Oregon State University, where she is also Associate Professor of English. Her research investigates how realist novels have influenced technology from the Victorian period to the present. Her first book, Seeming Human: Victorian Realist Characters and Artificial Intelligence (Ohio State UP, 2018) offers a new theory of realist character through the Victorian novel’s unexpected afterlife: the intelligent machine. Her scholarship has also appeared in journals such as New Literary History, Victorian Literature and Culture, and Studies in the Novel.
In addition, she engages public audiences across a variety of modes. As Center for the Humanities director, she convened a conversation series called Just AI: Socially Responsible Technology, featuring Karen Hao, Brian Merchant, and Meredith Broussard. She also writes for public audiences in venues such as The Atlantic, Wired, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books and is an Advisory Board member of the journal Public Humanities.
Robert Godwin-Jones
AI chatbots are neither sentient nor authentic (linguistically, culturally, emotionally): Does that matter for language learning?
Abstract: Despite warnings from leading AI pioneers and engineers, AI systems have not (yet) achieved consciousness nor shown signs of an intent to eliminate the human race. What they have demonstrated, however, is an uncanny ability to simulate human communicative abilities so well that they serve not only as powerful writing assistants, but also as learning partners, social companions, and even therapists. For language learning, potential AI sentience is less important than its ability to serve convincingly as a viable conversationalist and tutor. Studies have demonstrated, in fact, how beneficial AI chatbots can be in supplying writing/speaking practice in the target language while providing supportive feedback in a non-threatening environment.
Indeed, AI bots’ extraordinary language abilities have led to claims that they “facilitate an authentic, interactional language learning environment” (Chiu et al., 2023); or that “AI has the potential to aid learners in cultivating emotional resilience and empathy, crucial competencies for proficient cross-cultural communication” (Devaki & Mangayarkarasi, 2024). These (and others’) assertions signal that AI output is linguistically and culturally authentic enough to supply appropriate learning content, even substitute for human interlocutors, in acquiring interactional skills, developing intercultural competence, and receiving effective emotional support. However, that view ignores the statistical process used by AI systems to reproduce language and the limitations of that process for the linguistic features, cultural content, and emotional weight of its output. That has consequences for its ultimate effectiveness in language learning, as will be discussed in this presentation.
Academic Bio: Robert Godwin-Jones, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Language and Literature at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). At VCU he has served as Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages, Director of the Instructional Development Center (Office of Information Technology), and Director of the English Language Program (Office of International Education). He has been as a guest lecturer at universities in China, France, Germany, Vietnam, and India. His research is principally in applied linguistics, in the areas of language learning and technology and intercultural communication. He writes a regular column for the journal Language Learning & Technology on emerging technologies. His forthcoming book is AI and transformative technology in language learning, co-authored with Hayo Reinders, Oxford University Press, 2026.
Contact: tsll@iastate.edu