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Call for Paricipation: Digital Humanties Data Sprint

Literature ≠ Data? A Digital Humanities Data Sprint on Ianina Ilitcheva’s Literature on Twitter

On 23–24 July 2026, a two-day data sprint will take place at the University of Klagenfurt, utilising, amongst other sources, data from the tweet archive of the author Ianina Ilitcheva ( https://www.ii.at ). Ianina Ilitcheva (1983–2016) was a writer and artist. She created installations and worked as a painter, wrote, composed poetry and drew in both analogue and digital formats. Between 2011 and 2016, Ianina Ilitcheva was active on Twitter, tweeting her thoughts, expressing her political views, interacting with friends, and experimenting with language and the medium. Her approximately 39,000 tweets bear witness to friendships, travels, her everyday life, her wealth of ideas, her humour and her linguistic artistry.

The event will address these and other potential research questions:

  • What does it actually mean for texts when they are posted on social media and thus become digital data? What processes of reduction or expansion take place – and where do they end up as data afterwards?
  • How can digital methods be used to visualise literary corpora? What considerations and insights arise when using various visualisation techniques (e.g. network graphs or AI-supported analyses)?
  • How does a Twitter archive become a subject of academic research, and what questions can it help answer? Who owns such data, and who is permitted to interpret it or use it for academic purposes? What responsibilities do researchers bear when dealing with personal and/or literary digital content?
  • How did the author use the Twitter format to create a particular kind of literature and atmosphere? How does she process pain, grief and illness? How do the texts ironically and critically challenge medical myths and solutions?

The Data Sprint is specifically aimed at early-career researchers (Master’s students and PhD candidates) at Austrian universities and research institutions who are interested in working critically with digital data, experimental methods and collaborative research formats. No specific prior knowledge is required. The Data Sprint thrives on the diverse disciplinary backgrounds and methodological experiences of the participants.

The aim of the Data Sprint is to explore and analyse digital data collaboratively in order to develop initial research questions and methodological approaches. Following the sprint format (Kocksch, Ojala, Kinder-Kurlanda 2022), participants work towards concrete outcomes within a limited timeframe, with the focus being less on the perfection of the results and more on experimental work, mutual learning and critical reflection on digital methods.

The Data Sprint is situated within the field of Critical Data Studies and aims to bridge the gap with the Digital Humanities. It explores the possibilities and limitations of digital data and methods, the contexts in which they are created and used, and discusses how digital research practices both enable and constrain insights. The Sprint aims to support early-career researchers in developing a reflective, methodologically informed and critically engaged understanding of the use of social media data in the Digital Humanities.

Building on theoretical insights and texts from Critical Data Studies, which participants will read and study in preparation, the course will explore different methodological approaches to digital data whilst reflecting on their epistemological underpinnings.

Working in small interdisciplinary groups, participants will analyse Twitter data from the archive of Ianina Ilitcheva’s tweets, hosted in Klagenfurt. During the sprint, this data will be available on-site in a secure research environment in a more comprehensive form than the publicly accessible dataset.

Schedule

11 May 2026, 1.00–3.00 pm: Introductory session (ONLINE)

  • Introduction to concepts in Critical Data Studies
  • Discussion of the literature to be studied in the run-up to the Data Sprint

23–24 July 2026: Data Sprint workshop (University of Klagenfurt campus)

Day 1:

  • Archive presentation and introduction to the datasets and their history
  • Discussion and application of concepts from Critical Data Studies
  • Start of the Data Sprint

Day 2:

  • Continuation of the Data Sprint
  • Presentation of the results of the sprint

29 July 2026, 10 am–12 pm: Reflection on the Data Sprint (ONLINE)

Participation and Practical Information

The event is funded by CLARIAH-AT. Accommodation for one night between the two workshop days is included, and participants will also receive a travel allowance. A total of 18 PhD and Master’s students from Austrian universities with an interest in the Digital Humanities (DH) who successfully apply in response to this call are eligible to participate.

If you are interested, please send your CV and a statement of up to one page explaining your interest in the application by 4 May 2026 to the organisers: Do you already have potential research questions? Do your previous research topics indicate a particular area of interest?

Parts of the event, texts and instructions will be in English.

Organisers

Speakers

  • Laura Kocksch (Universität Aalborg)
  • Mace Ojala (Universität Bochum)

Literature

Drucker, J. (2011). Humanities approaches to graphical display. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 5(1), 1–21.

Drucker, J., El-Assady, M., Hinrichs, U., Windhager, F., & Akbaba, D. (2024). Visualization and the Humanities: Towards a Shared Research Agenda (Dagstuhl Seminar 23381). Dagstuhl Reports, 13(9), 137– 165.

Gaderer, R. (2022). „Deprivation: Energiezustände digitaler Medien und sozialer Netzwerke (Ilitcheva/Faiz).“ In J. Müggenburg (Hrsg.), Reichweitenangst. Batterien und Akkus als Medien des Digitalen Zeitalters. (S. 279–292). Transcript.

Grömmke, V. (2026). „Virtuelle Kurzform: @blutundkaffee. Ein Transfer-Objekt zwischen Twitter und Buch.“ Virtuelle Lebenswelten – Sonderforschungsbereich 1567 an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Kocksch, L., Ojala, M., & Kinder-Kurlanda, K. (2022). Data Sprint Learning. Exercising Proximity to Data in Teaching Situations. Dígitos. Revista de Comunicación Digital, (8), 31–50.

Law, J. (2004). After Method: Mess in Social Science Research (New.). Routledge Chapman & Hall.

Mol, A., Moser, I., & Pols, J. (2015). Care: putting practice into theory. In: A. Mol, I. Moser, & J. Pols, (Hrsg.), Care in Practice. (S. 7–26). Transcript.

Schneider, L. (2024). „,und wenn der Tod kommt, dann mir ins Gesicht‘. Ianina Ilitchevas Twitteraccount ,@blutundkaffee‘“. In L. Schneider, Radikale Verletzbarkeit. Schreibweisen bewusster Selbstentblößung zwischen Sozialen Medien und Literaturbetrieb. (S. 134–184). Transcript.

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