This workshop on “Digital Analysis and Operationalization in Literary-Historical Research” facilitates a room for researchers working with digital tools and methods to identify and discuss shared methodological challenges and explore solutions for computational approaches in textual studies. The aim is to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and advance our collective understanding of how computational methods can be integrated into humanities research in meaningful and sound ways. The workshop will be enriched by the participation of experienced scholars in the field, who will share their insights and contribute actively to the discussions with their methodological and practical expertise.

Ph.D.-students and early career-researchers are invited to participate in a workshop on operationalization and digital methodological challenges in literary-historical research on the 24^th of September 2025.

The research unit HISTAC invites you to an open seminar on “Digital Analysis and Operationalization in Literary-Historical Research” on September 23 (see other poster). The seminar aims to explore and reflect on how we approach operationalization in digital research, how we interpret results from digital analysis of textual materials and how these might have consequences for our original research question, design and the relevance of our empirical data.

A workshop will follow on September 24 where a group of researchers working with digital tools and methods can identify and discuss shared methodological challenges and explore solutions for computational approaches in textual studies. The aim is to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and advance our collective understanding of how computational methods can be integrated into humanities research in meaningful and sound ways. The workshop will be enriched by the participation of experienced scholars in the field, who will share their insights and contribute actively to the discussions with their methodological and practical expertise.

To take part in the workshop the participants are asked to submit a working paper (max. 2 pages) describing their project and the digital methodological challenges they face. During the workshop each participant will present their operationalisation challenges, receive feedback and contribute to the discussion of other’s work.

We particularly welcome papers that address topics such as:

• Case studies that test or challenge specific methods of operationalization
• Conceptual reflections on modelling literary or historical phenomena
• Genre, character, or rhetoric as operationalizable categories
• Intersections between distant reading and close interpretation
• The role of interpretation in data selection, cleaning, and presentation

Submit your paper to Ea Lindhardt Overgaard (elt@cc.au.dk) before September 1 2025.

Time and place: September 24, 2025. Hejmdal, Peter Sabroes Gade 1, 8000 Aarhus C.

Programme TBA

Lunch and coffee will be provided.

The seminar is supported by AUFF, HISTAC and the Ph.D.-Programme Arts, Literature and Cultural Studies.

Kontaktinformationer: Ea Lindhardt Overgaard (elt@cc.au.dk) og Maria Nørby Pedersen (manp@cc.au.dk).