re-late – re-use – re-vise

Large Language Models and Their Potential for Variant and Intertextuality Studies in the Digital Humanities

The development of AI-based methods has triggered a veritable revolution in the digital humanities in recent years, the consequences and trajectory of which are difficult to grasp or foresee. This applies not least to digital scholarly editing and computational literary studies, where large language models (LLMs) are being intensely debated, without a shared set of best practices yet emerging.

The goal of our workshop is to test the application potential of large language models (LLMs) in digital editions and computational literary analysis, very concretely using a classic use case in these fields: the detection, visualization, and analysis of textual variants and intertextuality, so as to tie methodological innovations back to research questions that matter in the humanities. LLMs open up new ways to identify semantically and contextually similar passages in large corpora, even across language and edition boundaries. Especially in philological work with variants of textual transmission, adaptations, and intertextual relations, such models can be usefully employed, including as a complement to existing qualitative and quantitative methods. The workshop is aimed at researchers and students in literary studies, scholarly editing, and the digital humanities, as well as related disciplines. Alongside methodological impulse talks, the focus will be on practical application examples in which the use of LLMs will be systematically discussed, reflected upon methodologically, and tested in application-oriented settings.

The slides and materials for the presentations are available as PDFs via Zenodo. The abstracts of the presentations can be found here.

Practical information

• Schedule: see here!
• Registration: Please send a short notice to Gabriel Viehhauser.
• Location: Jura Soyfer Saal, Hofburg, Batthyanystiege (next to entrance to Sisi Museum under the Michaela Kuppel, but turn right before entering the museum; see here for how to get to the Sisi Museum and here for a map of the building).
• Coffee and snacks will be served during the coffee breaks.