Love and kisses – digital letters

Symbolbild: Blumenstrauß, Füller und Liebesbrief

Researchproject

Research data management

Love and kisses – digital letters

How do love letters reflect social developments? The project examines private correspondence spanning two centuries using citizen science formats, combining linguistic analysis with digital participation and innovative methods of text analysis.

Project lead:	Prof. Dr Stefan Schmunk
Duration:	March 2021 to October 2024
Funding body:	Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), grant reference: 01BF2110A‐C

Participating institutions:

Love letters are cultural artefacts of private life – and, at the same time, an expression of social developments, forms of communication and constructions of identity. The citizen science project ‘Gruß & Kuss’ is dedicated to the linguistic and media analysis of such letters spanning two centuries. Alongside the academic analysis, the project focuses on civic participation: members of the public are actively involved in the research, cataloguing and digital processing of the material. In this way, a culturally significant body of sources – which has hitherto received little attention – is being brought to light and prepared for long-term preservation in memory institutions.

Project Progress

The project follows a multi-stage, participatory research approach. Formats for involving citizen scientists are being developed across several milestones – ranging from low-threshold introductory opportunities to research-oriented workshops.
In the first milestone (“ExplorationLab”), participants learn digital methods of text cataloguing.

In ‘Blind Date Café / Stelldichein’, the second milestone, citizensdevelop their own thematic clusters and research questions. This is also where the ‘Love Coding App’ is created, which allows content to be tagged and linked in a playful way.
The third milestone (“Love-Coding-Lab”) connects communities across regions and creates physical meeting spaces in libraries as an interface between academia and the public.
Three thematic clusters structure the focus of the content: love in crises and conflicts, long-distance love in mid-life, and secret love. The formats combine analogue, digital and in-situ participation and are accompanied by tutorials and contributions for the public and the academic community.

Objective

The project aims to carry out the scholarly cataloguing, digital processing and sustainable preservation of epistolary evidence relating to everyday culture. At the same time, it seeks to open up new avenues of participatory research that involve citizens as active co-creatorsin humanities research and embed them in the field in the long term.