معرفی
Chris Tanasescu is Professor in the Faculty of Arts and an Adjunct Professor in both the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Ottawa, where he also serves as Senior Researcher in the School of Engineering and Computer Science. Since 2019 he additionally holds the Altissia Chair in Digital Humanities at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) within the Institut des civilisations, arts et lettres. Known artistically under the alias Margento, he is a poet, translator, and the Editor-at-Large for Romania and Moldova at Asymptote Journal.
Education
- Doctor of Philology in American Studies (2008)
Research Focus
Tanasescu’s scholarship and creative practice intertwine computational methods with literary and cultural studies. His core interests include digital humanities, graph-theoretic approaches to poetry, natural-language processing for metaphor detection, and algorithmically assembled literature. Working at the intersection of code and verse, he investigates how network science can illuminate translation dynamics, poetic form, and cross-cultural circulation of texts.
Recent Publications & Trends
Across his 2016-2018 output, Tanasescu has advanced data-intensive approaches to poetry analysis, combining deep-learning models with humanistic inquiry. His work on metaphor detection leverages large poetry corpora and neural networks, while his anthology US Poets Foreign Poets demonstrates algorithmic translation and generative editing. Collectively, these projects expand digital literary studies into new computational territories.
Teaching & Mentorship
At the University of Ottawa he currently teaches courses such as
- DHN 1500 – Arts et sciences humaines numériques
- DHN 4100 – Digital Humanities Capstone Project
- DHN 4500 – Projet de fin d’études en sciences humaines numériques
International Appointments
He has held visiting professorships at Université Paris 10 (2013-2019) and was a Senior Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Professor in San Diego, CA (2010-2011).
Creative & Editorial Work
Beyond academia, Tanasescu curates and edits literary translation projects, fosters Romanian contemporary writing on the global stage, and actively participates in digital and performance poetry scenes worldwide.
