Peter Handke's notebooks. A genetic-critical and annotated digital edition

• Applicant: Dr. Ulrich von Bülow
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 435049492

1) Wider research context: The 75 notebooks Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke wrote between 1971 and 1990 document a rigorous practice of recording spontaneous impressions of consciousness. The density and diversity of the notes as well as their design with colorful pens and a variety of drawings make them works of art in their own right. Within them Handke tested new aesthetic pro-cedures, which led to a turning point in his poetics. Together with his manuscripts of literary works and his correspondences, these notebooks introduce a wide range of new approaches to an important phase in Handke's oeuvre. Literary and editorial studies as well as digital Humanities are all part of the project's theoretical framework. 2) Objectives: The long-term project comprises the publication of all 75 notebooks on the edition's website: https://edition.onb.ac.at/handke-notizbuecher (open access). After the successful edition of 22 notebooks the current proposal includes the 26 subsequent notebooks from 1979 to 1986 (3.967 pages), which are to be published according to the established standards: as philologically reliable, easily accessible and citeable texts, that can be checked against the facsimile. They are accompanied by concise comments and supplemented by indexes of places, persons and works. New tools and features will include search functions and the visualization of travel itineraries. 3) Methods: The project can draw on the detailed guidelines for transcription, editing and tagging, an existing TEI schema and an optimized and proven workflow. According to modern digital stand-ards all texts will be transcribed with the aid of Transkribus handwritten text recognition (HTR) and tagged in TEI-XML. Features are developed in an agile manner. The digital edition is hosted and archived within the technical infrastructure of ÖNB/GAMS. 4) Innovation: This edition conducts fundamental philological research. The first publication of the notebooks represents a significant contribution to a deeper exploration and interpretation of Handke's work. It facilitates new areas of research and promises insights into the poetics and intertextuality of his writing as well as his particular writing methods and the genesis of his works. Innovative DH research approaches pave new paths for digital projects.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Cooperation Partner: Privatdozent Bernhard Fetz, Ph.D.