Eleonora Lima is Lecturer in Cultural AI in the Department of Digital Humanities and Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, where she works on the EU-funded project Knowledge Technologies for Democracy (KT4D).

Her research sits at the intersection of Critical AI Studies, Narrative and Literary Studies, and Science and Technology Studies, focusing on three main areas.

First, she explores fictional and creative engagements with digital and AI technologies, building on her background in literature and media. She contributed to Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines (OUP, 2023), published a monograph on the advent of information technologies in Italy through the literary works of Italo Calvino and Paolo Volponi (Florence University Press, 2020) and several articles in this field, and authored the entry on Technology (2021) for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature.

Second, her work investigates dominant AI narratives, especially participation and justice in AI design and implementation. She currently leads the project AI Narrative Sovereignty for Older Citizens: Beyond Literacy, Towards Epistemic Fairness, developing theoretical frameworks and practical tools for older people’s meaningful inclusion in AI discussions. The project employs sensory narrative and creativity-based approaches to promote epistemic justice, and received support from the Creative Practice Catalyst Fund in 2025. It is developed with Prof Kate Devlin (DH) and We and AI, in partnership with libraries, community centres, and organisations such as Age UK London.

Finally, she situates current AI developments within their historical and cultural contexts. Her ongoing work for KT4D primarily focuses on this.

Eleonora was previously a Marie Curie Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. She holds a PhD in Italian and Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was Graduate School Fellow.

Research interests

• AI narratives

• Technology and Literature (AI literature, e-poetry)

• Cultural history of computing

• Critical AI Studies

• AI public literacy

Teaching

Since 2022, Eleonora has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the Department of Digital Humanities.

Expertise & public engagement

Eleonora’s interdisciplinary work has led to numerous collaborations within and beyond academia, including the Global Humanities Institute 2024: Design Justice AI (Critical AI @ Rutgers and the University of Pretoria); EmpoderaLIVE in Málaga, dedicated to Digital Citizen Sovereignty; the Ethically Aligned Design for the Arts Committee (IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems), advocating for ethical AI design in the arts; Chayn, a global network tackling gender-based violence through survivor-led digital resources informed by data feminism.

Selected publications

For a full list of Eleonora’s publications, see her ORCID profile.

• [Peer-reviewed article] E. Lima, T. Morriseau (2025). ‘Can chatbots teach us how to behave? Examining assumptions about user interactions with AI assistants and their social implications’. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. https://doi.org/10.3389/frai.2025.1545607
• [Peer-reviewed article] E. Lima (2024). ‘AI Art and Public Literacy: The Miseducation of Ai-Da the Robot.’ AI and Ethics (Special issue: The Ethical Implications of AI Hype). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-024-00488-5.
• [Peer-reviewed chapter] E. Lima (2023). ‘The Android as a New Political Subject: The Italian Cyberpunk Comic Ranxerox.’ In K. Dihal and S. Cave (eds.), Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines, Oxford University Press, 55-72. DOI:10.1093/oso/9780192865366.003.0004.
• [Peer-reviewed article] E. Lima (2023). ‘Le città invisibili as Cybertext and Cyberspace: Italo Calvino, Ted Nelson, and Arata Isozaki,’ Italian Studies, April, 78: 192-209. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00751634.2023.2220538. Runner Up for the journal Italian Studies article prize.
• [Peer-reviewed article] E. Lima (2020). ‘Between Divinity and Dullness: The Advent of Personal Computers in Italian Literature.’ Quaderni d’Italianistica, 40(2): 5-42. https://doi.org/10.33137/q.i..v41i1.