Virtual Texts: The Making of ‚Text‘ as Object of Knowledge in Literary Studies (B04#)

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The research project B04 Virtual Texts: The Making of ‚Text‘ as Object of Knowledge in Literary Studies investigates the role of the virtual in the constitution of texts as the central objects of literary history and phi- lology. It is based on the assumption that texts do not simply exist as given, but that textuality is attributed to them and that they are produced by different transcriptive procedures. The project follows the working hypothesis that these processes of text-constitution and the conceptualizations of text by which they are determined involve virtuality: They often presuppose potential, intangible, non-actualized but theoretically hypostasized texts or textual states as reference values and they bestow them with a very strong influence on reception and interpretation. In order to examine historical and contemporary forms of textual constitu- tion alike virtuality is understood in two ways: On the one hand (1) it is perceived as an effective capacity in processes of text constitution – a textual entity that ist absent and present at the same time. On the other hand (2) it is understood (in a technical sense) as a specific option of perception and interaction that is offe- red by digitally constituted text(-image)-objects to their human recipients and users. Digital and non-digital text constitution thus becomes comparable regarding (1), while they differ with respect to (2). Following the research program of the SFB 1567 Virtual Lifeworlds, the project investigates into the dif- ferent affordances, the perceptual conditions, and the operationality that are associated with the virtuali- zation of text in non-digital processes of text constitution and with digitally constituted virtual text-image objects. Yet, it does not aim at a meta-theoretical reflection of this question but takes up existing theoretical and methodological considerations to discuss them with regard to a specific example and to test them em- pirically in the context of a new digital edition. Thus, past and recent ways of modeling text and textuality can be juxtaposed. Koenemann’s von Jerxheim Sunte Marien Wortegarde (1240–1316) and the anonymous De Mynnen Rede (14th century) offer a material that seems to be particularly well suited to pursue this question: Their ge- stalt, materiality, and transmission history, their writing practices and their ways of staging textuality differ in many respects from the coherence- and cohesion-expectations usually associated with literary studies. They interfere with ‚classical‘ textual concepts and taxonomies, and they even blur the boundaries that usually define a text. Thus, the material offers a complex set of problems against which means and effects of textual constitution can be highlighted.