Join us at the USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study for our first Polymathic Pizza of 2026, featuring guest discussants Taj Frazier (Associate Professor of Communication) and Khalil Iskarous (Professor of Linguistics).

Wednesday January 28th 2026

5:00-6:30PM

at the Harman Academy, Doheny Memorial Library Room 241

To RSVP, fill out this GOOGLE FORM

Language. Whatever form it takes ~ verse, movement, visuals, music ~ it is the connective tissue between us.  It defines who we are. It holds our culture. It can disrupt, create, elevate, and empower.

Technologies such as AI and deep learning are now in the mix with human cultural production of language. For instance, Taj Frazier tells us Hip Hop artists are on the forefront of using AI to transform their sound and visual imagination.  In a completely different discipline, Khalil Iskarous says linguists like himself are employing machine and deep learning to recover endangered languages in peril of being lost forever.

For our spring 2026 opening Polymathic Pizza event Professors Taj Frazier and Khalil Iskarous will guide us through their respective fields of research to show us how AI and machine learning are enhancing and transforming their domains of language in its myriad forms. Both scholars agree that AI is a tool to enhance human expression but caution us that this technology is not the expression itself.  Join us to explore technology used to create and recover…empowering language beyond words.