fortext lab

The approach looks promising and definitely worth exploring. So while Steffi dives back into STS literature to see what these frameworks can reveal about literary histories, we’re excited to watch the project unfold! (3/3)


Literary histories intertwine complex contexts while shaping and stabilizing canon(s). This week we explored whether knowledge production within them can be analyzed with the help of ideas from Science & Technology Studies (STS). (2/3)

In this week’s project seminar, Steffi from our team shared a peek at her PhD project, which explores the question: What shapes literary histories as texts? (1/3)

Many thanks to all colleagues and of course Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre for their trust and collaboration over the past three years 🙏 (4/4)

Seeing how positively our portals and services are received by the community makes the effort worthwhile. This is why we are already developing future visions to keep our work meaningful beyond this funding phase – so stay tuned! (3/4)

We revisited three years of projects, shared challenges and key learnings – and once again, it became clear that we are all in the same boat, navigating the everyday joys and hurdles of editorial and development processes together. (2/4)

rote Tafel der Stiftung mit Schrift: Lehre bereitet Wege für die Zukunft

Last week, Steffi from our forTEXT team attended the final “Fokus Portale” workshop in Hamburg, hosted by Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre - reflecting on the past funding phase of our forTEXT journal and annotation software @catma.bsky.social. (1/4)

Many thanks to all colleagues and of course Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre for their trust and collaboration over the past three years 🙏 (4/4)

Seeing how positively our portals and services are received by the community makes the effort worthwhile. This is why we are already developing future visions to keep our work meaningful beyond this funding phase – so stay tuned! (3/4)

We revisited three years of projects, shared challenges and key learnings – and once again, it became clear that we are all in the same boat, navigating the everyday joys and hurdles of editorial and development processes together. (2/4)

Thank you to all participants for coming to Darmstadt and making this a successful, fun and energizing 2nd installment of what will hopefully become a longer workshop series! [title image generated with Gemini - notice anything off?] (5/5)

RSE Workshop Participants in Darmstadt

The importance of community building and exchange can't be overstated. To quote the unnamed: "The best ideas are had when drinking a beer [or an organic, unsweetened and alcohol-free hot apple-cinnamon drink] together!" We did just that over an Indian dinner and a visit to the Xmas Market. (4/5)

Key takeaways 💡: 1) RSEs want/need a plan that is continuously reviewed and updated, 2) project proposals must include time estimates, risks and hidden tasks from the beginning (be realistic), and 3) time must also be set aside for testing, documentation and other best-practice activities. (3/5)

We discussed how we as RSEs should exert influence in the larger project context, team and project management practices, project templates and CI/CD, and how to manage information security and data privacy requirements. Everyone also gave a short presentation about their current work. (2/5)

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small one-and-a-half day workshop here in Darmstadt for research software engineers. A prior workshop with the same participants had taken place at University of Bielefeld in spring. The primary topic this time was (software) project management. #DHTech #RSE (1/5)

We look forward to lively discussions in Luxembourg!

You can find the full conference program here 👉 2025.computational-humanities-research.org/programme/

@comphumresearch.bsky.social
#CHR #CHRConference #ComputationalLiteraryStudies (6/6)

They will show how LLMs can be used to systematically analyze how literary histories depict objects and perspectives across three canonical German literary-history works — revealing recurring patterns in what gets included and how it is framed. (5/6)

During Friday’s CLS session (15:00 - 16:30), @evelyngius.bsky.social, Stefanie Messner and @axelpichler.fedihum.org.ap.brid.gy will present a case study on the analysis of literary histories. (4/6)

Using a newly released corpus of 10,000 verb-class annotations, they will demonstrate how verb semantics can illuminate genre patterns and thematic structures in German-language fiction.


Session: LLMs and Content Mining (11:00 - 12:30, December 11) (3/6)

@hanshatzel.bsky.social & Chris Biemann, together with @haimostiemer.bsky.social & @evelyngius.bsky.social from our lab, will present a novel, scalable approach to building semantic text profiles in literary texts based on verb classes. (2/6)

This year’s CHR2025 conference in Luxembourg started yesterday, and we will be there to share insights into the two following projects #CHR2025 (1/6):

See our abstracts for more information:
👉 doi.org/10.63744/IwD...

👉 doi.org/10.63744/cUQ...

What makes data "nice," ethical, and trustworthy, and how much "messiness" do we actually need for good research? Big questions that will keep us thinking.
Many thanks to @hjischauer.bsky.social and Elias Kreyenbühl for organizing such a wonderful workshop! (4/4)

Over two inspiring days the workshop explored today’s challenges in working with metadata: What kinds of data criticism do we need, and which models truly work?
Berenike Hermann beautifully tied it all together in her keynote "Data, Knowledge and Meaning." (3/4)

Last week, our colleague @haimostiemer.bsky.social shared a talk on how computational literary sociology works with metadata – not just to describe texts, but to help us reconstruct the dynamics of literary fields in the spirit of #Bourdieu. (2/4)

What happens when colleagues from archives, libraries, and the humanities come together to talk about metadata? A wonderfully inspiring workshop "Metadaten in den Humanities" with great people and great conversations at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich! #metadata #CLS #Humanities (1/4)

There is still time to get started on the shared task. The test phase will be held in January.

This week you can find many of us organizers at @comphumresearch.bsky.social. Feel free to reach out; look for @evelyngius.bsky.social, @haimostiemer.bsky.social, and @hanshatzel.bsky.social.

Call for Paper from website

Excited about the #JCLS articles and working on a #ComputationalLiteraryStudies draft yourself?
Be part of the journal and submit to our Conference Track by January 8: jcls.io/site/cfp/
#CCLS2026 #CLS #LiteraryComputing #CfP

We were very impressed by the high aims Shota Rustaveli Institute and are looking forward to future collaboration! (5/5)

In the future they also want model Georgian literary history as knowledge graphs, allowing the discovery of new connections between texts like “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” by the institute’s name giver Shota Rustaveli and various other Georgian texts. (4/5)

Projects include the computational analysis of poetry and the creation of digital scholarly editions of literary texts and letters. His own project will deal with annotating the depiction of consciousness in Georgian autobiographical texts. (3/5)