DFG network “The knowledge of digital literature” approved

The DFG has approved a scientific network on the topic of “The knowledge of digital literature”. The applicant is Prof. Dr. Annette Gilbert.

Digital literature – literature that is, in a nontrivial way, produced with computers – has seen a considerable upswing in recent years; contributing factors have been both new technologies (artificial intelligence and natural language processing) and an expanded literary field of activity (social media). The present research network aims to examine contemporary digital literature in its epistemic, hermeneutic and didactic functions and potentials. The starting premise is that in no other literary field do technical expertise and text production enter into such close symbiosis as in computer-based literary writing. Its epistemological interest is often characterized by a high degree of aesthetically mediated media reflection, while its methods – which consider digitality primarily as a textual condition – are often similar to those of digital humanities, media archaeology, and AI research. Digital literature, this research network argues, is therefore – before any analysis and interpretation in literary and media studies – itself a type of knowledge production. What digital literature knows – about literature and text as well as about digitality and its materiality, mediality, and performativity – shall therefore be investigated in a close interplay between artistic practice and theory formation. This goal requires the flexible organizational framework of a DFG network, in which not only academics but also literary practitioners are significantly involved. This is especially so as in the field of digital literature a plurality of actors are involved both in academic and literary production; thus it is no longer possible to meaningfully distinguish between research and art. As a mediareflexive practice with a multimodal output, digital literature, then, requires multidisciplinary approaches, which is why scholars from a variety of fields (literature and media studies, digital humanities, design studies, computer science, critical code studies, interface studies, linguistics, history of science, social sciences, philosophy) are invited to enter into a dialogue.