Life Narrative and the Digital

Life Narrative and the Digital: Outlining the Contours of an Emerging Field

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.14.42759

Keywords:

life-narrative scholarship, digital humanities, interdisciplinarity

Abstract

This cluster emerged from a two-day international workshop and conference, “Life Narrative and the Digital 2023”, which took place at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in September 2023, and which was aimed at stimulating a conversation on the ‘possibilities, uses, and challenges of digital methods and technologies for auto/biographical research and practice.’ The contributions assembled in this cluster continue, and in many ways intensify, such an inter- and multi-disciplinary exchange between life-writing scholarship and digitally-oriented research. Taken together, they offer a panoramic vision of the diverse, and often highly innovative, scholarly work that is situated at the crossroads of auto/biography studies and digital technologies. They highlight the rich spectrum of source types, (cultural, historical, and geographical) contexts, methodological approaches, and themes that characterise this field of investigation, from (co-)constructing and (re-)presenting life narratives via social media and computer games to applying digital tools and methods that aid the study of lives and/or life writing. The cluster makes a timely contribution to an increasingly vibrant area of research that bridges traditional and digital humanities.

Author Biographies

Timo Frühwirth, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Timo Frühwirth is a postdoctoral researcher at the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His current research focuses on formal data modelling, including formalizing uncertainty and interpretation. He is co-editor of the Auden Musulin Papers, a scholarly digital edition of letters and literary papers by W. H. Auden in the estate of Stella Musulin (https://amp.acdh.oeaw.ac.at).

Sandra Mayer, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Sandra Mayer is a literary and cultural historian at the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on life writing, authorship and celebrity, transnational encounters, and digital editing. She is the author of Oscar Wilde in Vienna (2018) and has (co-)edited books and special issues on ‘The Author in the Popular Imagination’ (2018), Life Writing and Celebrity (2019), ‘Life Writing and the Transnational’ (2022), ‘Refugee Tales’ (2023), and Authorship, Activism and Celebrity: Art and Action in Global Literature (2023). She is co-editor of the Auden Musulin Papers, a scholarly digital edition of letters and literary papers by W. H. Auden in the estate of Stella Musulin (https://amp.acdh.oeaw.ac.at).

Published

2025-07-04

Issue

Vol. 14 (2025): EJLW

Section

Life Narrative and the Digital

Copyright (c) 2025 Timo Frühwirth, Sandra Mayer

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