2026 Franklin Lecture: …After the Ellipses – Loss, Lacuna, and Drift in Human and Machine Understanding

Computational linguist Daniel Hardt (Copenhagen Business School) and science and technology studies scholar Nanna Bonde Thylstrup (Copenhagen University) are the invited speakers for the Franklin Lecture at the University of Toronto on Monday, May 11, 2026.

This year’s lecture explores the ontologies of human and machine understanding, with particular attention to what is missing, omitted, or elided, and why such absences are fundamental to meaning and knowledge. Examining ellipsis, loss, and lacuna through the distinct yet intersecting lenses of computational linguistics and science and technology studies, Hardt and Thylstrup consider the politics and ethics of data, machine learning, and digital infrastructures.

Taking seriously the provocation that elisions, ellipses, and loss are fundamental features of human understanding across all registers—and that omitted parts are constitutive of systems of knowledge—the lecture asks whether AI models are capable of this kind of interpretive work. If ellipsis can register embodiment, constraint, and gendered expression, what does it mean to read, interpret, and respond to such dynamics in systems that neither breathe nor inhabit a body?

Named after renowned Canadian physicist, science and technology scholar, and activist Ursula Franklin, the Franklin Lecture annually hosts a scholar or public intellectual whose work has significantly shaped discourse on technology and society. Past lecturers have included Cory Doctorow, McKenzie Wark, Charlton McIlwain, and Jodi Dean.

We hope you will join us for this timely conversation.