Research team
Expertise
My expertise grows out of the fields of Modern German Literature (PhD 2008, Trier) and Germanic Media Studies and Cultural Studies (habilitation 2019, Duisburg-Essen). I am particularly interested in German-language culture and literature from the 18th century to the present, with a focus on the 20th century and the present. I concentrate on three fields: First, I work on the systematization and sustainable establishment of web literary studies, which is especially interested in the follows of digitization and communication in social media for literature, for literary communication and for the work and publication practices of literary studies itself. As a subdiscipline of digital humanities and of digital literary studies, web literary studies analyzes, among other things, digital literature and web literature, new forms of digital publishing (in literature and in the open humanities), digital literacy, digital memory culture, and new models of author’s rights. Second, I develop studies of subversion, based on the broad model of political writing that I built in my book „Literatur und Subversion“. I apply this model to contemporary (German-language) literature, to avant-garde and experimental literature of the 20th and 21st centuries, and meanwhile also to subversive films, music, and web artists. Third, I work on comparative studies of multilingual literature in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and on the reflection of (urban) spaces in literature, especially of Brussels and the Ruhr Area.
Digital Literary Writing Processes: Concepts and Practices in the German-Speaking Area.
Abstract
In a post-digital society, for Literary Studies it is necessary to examine digital literary writing processes in detail from both a literary-theoretical as well as a praxeological perspective. This will essential to adequately describe the transition from a literary production based on the categories, practices and myths of the Gutenberg Galaxy (for instance: 'the author as a genius', 'the privileged literary work') to different form of digital literary production (by authors who are surrounded by online sources, social media activities and AI tools). The interdisciplinary approach of Web Literary Studies and the focus on German-speaking literary discourses will help to answer four research questions: 1. How can Web Literary Studies adequately describe digital literary writing processes – in a media-historical distinction from analogue literary writing processes – in terms of terminology and concepts? (literary-theoretical dimension of terminology and concepts) 2. Which (also digital) methods and techniques should be used in the documentation of digital literary writing processes? (methodological and technical dimension) 3. How can the data obtained in the project on digital literary writing processes be archived in a sustainable way and made freely available for reading and academic re-use? (editorial and documentary dimension) 4. How can concrete digital literary writing processes, their progression, their techniques, their production of meaning be concretely examined and how can digital literary writing processes be appropriately analysed? (praxeological and literary-analytical dimension) In the centre of the project, case studies on contemporary German authors from different aesthetic fields will provide the necessary data of digital literary writing processes that will be analysed. In this process, qualitative methods as author interviews and analyses of the written literary texts and its epitexts are applied. In addition, the project aims to interdisciplinary integrate (digital) methods from Writing Studies and other disciplines, like keystroke logging, screen capturing and videography to to be able to comprehensively document and analyse digital literary writing processes. If the project is successful, it will not only have produced concrete research results on various digital literary writing processes and made concrete research data available. It will also have contributed to expanding the methodological apparatus of Literary Studies and helped to develop standards of the analysis of digital literary writing processesResearcher(s)
- Promoter: Ernst Thomas
- Fellow: Nassen Leonore
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project