“And whispering websters stealing through this world Discredit so much literature and praise” (W. H. Auden)
“the Austrian Society for Literature is neither a club nor a coffee house” (Stella Musulin)
”The trouble with great literature is that any asshole can identitfy with it” (Peter Handke)
“Literature is the fragment of fragments.” (J. W. Goethe)
The research unit "Literary&Textual Studies" is dedicated to the exploration of literary and non-literary texts by means of Digital Humanities methods and thus brings together all literary and textual studies research projects based at the ACDH-CH.
The unit’s research agenda focuses on texts from German-speaking and other European regions, encompassing text types and genres such as pamphlets, poems, correspondences, posters, novels, diaries, plays, translations, as well as newspapers and periodicals. These texts are examined within the context of the unit’s three main research areas Authors & Editions, Periodicals & Corpora, and Linked Data & Vienna Time Machine.
A common goal of all research projects within the unit is the scholarly analysis, annotation, and public availability of a broad range of texts and resources. Following standardised parameters, these are systematically prepared in the form of openly accessible digital editions, corpora, databases, and research platforms.
The projects in the research unit “Literary&Textual Studies” adapt and transform established methods of textual analysis and interpretation for their use in the digital sphere. Moreover, they further develop available technologies in collaboration with the “DH Research & Infrastructure” unit to gain new scientific insights into the texts under investigation.