Toponyms as Entry Points into a Digital Edition: Mapping Die Fackel (1899-1936)

International audienceThe emergence of Spatial Humanities has prompted for interdisciplinary work on digitized texts. In this paper, I present a visualization of toponyms co-occurrences in the satirical literary magazine "Die Fackel" ("The Torch"), published by the satirist and language critic Karl Kraus in Vienna from 1899 until 1936. I set out on a distant reading experiment which consists in drawing lines on the map in order to uncover patterns which are not easily retraceable during close reading. The first map displays unfiltered lines of thought, whereas the second one grounds on a qualitatively refined analysis. I also discuss their status in the context of a digital humanities study. The maps are to be released as additional feature to the existing digital edition. Software and gazetteer are available under open-source licenses. Drawing on Kraus’ vitriolic recording of political life, toponyms in Die Fackel tell a story about the ongoing reconfiguration of Europe