Workshop: AI Methods for Research of Folkloristic Narratives

In recent years, artificial intelligence has opened new pathways for interpreting large-scale cultural and historical data, enabling researchers to identify latent patterns, structures, and discursive shifts that would remain hidden through traditional methods. Folkloristic narratives—fairy tales, myths, legends, and oral stories—form one of the richest and most culturally embedded forms of human expression. Yet, despite their complexity and abundance, they have rarely been subjected to computational methods on a meaningful scale. 

Why should we analyse folktales with AI? Because these narratives carry encoded models of social behavior, political imagination, moral reasoning, and cultural identity—models that evolve over time and differ across societies. AI, particularly large language models (LLMs), now offers tools powerful enough to detect recurring motifs, classify tale types, and even extract embedded values from a diachronic and intercultural perspective.

The central aim of this workshop is to develop interdisciplinary methodologies for analyzing folkloristic corpora using AI-based tools, combining both qualitative insight and quantitative rigor. The bilateral project specifically addresses the sociocultural dynamics behind the popularity and adaptation of specific folktales in different societies, including Slovenian narratives and their intercultural ties. It builds on the idea that tale structures, motifs, and characterfunctions are not universal givens, but are culturally shaped  responses to social, political, and historical conditions. Computational approaches—especially those using LLMs—enable large-scale diachronic and synchronic analysis of these narratives, helping us understand their transformations over time and across Regions.