Digital Archive Barbara Frischmuth

Barbara Frischmuth is one of Austria’s most important contemporary authors. Her premortem bequest is publicly available at the Franz-Nabl-Institute for Literary Research in Graz, the Austrian National Library and the Adolf Haslinger Literary Foundation, Literature Archive Salzburg. However, the philological research on her work shows considerable gaps both in academic research and in the systematic and annotated documentation of her oeuvre along with its academic and journalistic reception. Moreover, there are no comprehensive digital representations, material collections or analyses that could advance the scholarly examination of her work.   

The project’s objective is to enable profound and broad scientific research regarding Frischmuth’s oeuvre. To this end, main tasks of the project include the consolidation of the archive holdings, the documentation and comprehensive philological description of both the primary sources and their academic and public reception in a digital environment. The academic and journalistic reception will be brought into focus both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results of the analysis of reception and primary work will be linked and systematically cross-referenced.   

To support these tasks, the team of ACDH-CH provides a technical solution for collecting, curating and presenting the body of data. 

Located at the interface of archival, German studies and the digital humanities this project and its multi-perspective approach not only makes a significant contribution to the academic research of Frischmuth’s oeuvre, but it also establishes an exemplary, innovative open access system for collecting, structuring and indexing literary texts and their reception.