Data visualization has become a prolific method in digital literary studies to represent the results of a research process. While it is most commonly used to communicate these results to a scholarly audience, there is an increasing number of cases that exhibit an analytical use of the method in order to gain a better understanding of the textual data under investigation (cf. [Jessop 2008, 283]; [Sinclair et al. 2013]). A common definition of data visualization is: “The use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition” [Card et al. 1999]. Although literary text can be transformed into abstract data with the help of statistical or computational methods like natural language processing, this is not the kind of data that literary scholars practicing an hermeneutic approach are concerned with. Here, scholars are dealing with subjective and ambiguous data, usually in the form of text annotations, for which conventional data visualization is not adequate (cf. [Drucker 2018]). Precisely this discrepancy between conventional data visualizations used and the interpretative data and processes to be visualized is the starting point of our considerations for a more reflective interface and visualization concept for literary analysis and interpretation processes.

As Meister et al. point out: “Most current DH visualizations are thus epistemological one-way avenues toward knowledge, from data via rendering algorithm to visual display” [Meister et al. 2017]. But the process of understanding texts and other cultural artifacts in the humanities is a continuous, dynamic interplay of modeling as well as reasoning operations. These operations repeatedly affect a dynamic data model in form of enrichment and reconfiguration (cf. [Gius et al. 2017, 115]). The hermeneutic approach is a specific form of the process of understanding, which has significance especially for literary and cultural studies. In the humanities, the term hermeneutic (hermeneuein in Greek means “to say, to explain, to translate” [Palmers 1969, 13]) generally stands “for the practice of exegesis (i. e. interpretation) that leads to understanding, [...] [as well as] for the theory of interpretation as a reflection on the conditions and norms of understanding and linguistic utterance in general” [Mittelstraß 2008, 364][1]. Already developed as a practice in ancient times, hermeneutics took different forms over the 19th century, especially in Schleiermacher’s and Herder’s approach, then around 1900 in Dilthey’s conception and finally in the 20th century in the thinking of Heidegger, Gadamer and the “Konstanzer Schule”. As a result, the following distinction has become established in the humanities. On the one hand, hermeneutic refers to a literary-philological art theory of the interpretation of texts (and other cultural artefacts). We speak of literary hermeneutics. On the other hand, hermeneutic is a philosophical discipline with an universalistic claim that is concerned with the conditions of humanistic understanding per se (cf. [Nünning 2008, 281]; [Stiening 2016, 54]). In this context, we are talking of hermeneutic philosophy. However, both meanings of the term are strongly interdependent and partly overlap in different theories of the humanities.

In digital humanities research, there has been some discussion on how the digital humanities might live up to expectations and methodological requirements associated with a digitally supported hermeneutic practice (cf. [van Zundert 2016]; [Rockwell and Sinclair 2016]). Often a very broad notion of hermeneutics as a theory of understanding (as opposed to explaining) is applied. We can observe results that have arisen from these discussions in a number of software tools (e.g. Catma, Voyant). These tools are, for example, replicating traditional scholarly activities that are considered a part of the interpretation process. Unsworth [Unsworth 2000] gives a systematic account of “scholarly primitives”, as he calls these activities, some of which are applied by scholars during the interpretative process. Among these are annotation, comparison and representation. As for annotation, this is often the starting point of hermeneutic practice: highlighting parts of a document and writing down comments in the margins are two of the oldest scholarly techniques.

While the integration of these primary activities into digital tools certainly is a step towards hermeneutics in the digital realm (or digital literary hermeneutics), most of these efforts have been rather agnostic about the epistemological premises of hermeneutic theory. We argue that visualization could serve as the missing link between fundamental hermeneutic premises and digital (literary) hermeneutics. We claim that visualizations not only have to fulfill certain conditions to adequately support literary analysis and interpretation. Rather, we assert that, in referring to the traditional theory of hermeneutics, these qualities can be distinctively described and designed for. We define hermeneutic visualization as:

The use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of text annotations to manipulate, reconfigure and explore them in order to create visual interpretations that can be used as arguments and allow a critical reflection of the hermeneutic process in light of a research question.

By clarifying the premises and postulates for hermeneutic visualization, we address two research desiderata. First, a systematic elaboration of the implicit premises of hermeneutic text interpretations is still missing. What premises of hermeneutics do we have to consider when we want to use visualizations as tools for the interpretation process? We propose four premises for hermeneutic visualizations. These can be summarized as (1) differentiation author/text, (2) hermeneutic circle and (3) dependency text/recipient.

Second, data visualizations within the DH scholarship are often limited to a representational usage. The current data visualization paradigm in the digital humanities foregrounds operations and transformations of input data at the expense of the human user whose agency as producer and interpreter of visualizations is largely ignored. This has triggered a conceptual and technical reification of visualization that invites its misinterpretation as an objective representation. At worst, visualizations are taken as quasi-objects that appear to exist on the same ontological level as the objects whose properties they claim to faithfully represent. But especially in digital literary studies, we are dealing with data that rather refer to an interpretation process. Polyvalence is a characteristic of this data generated by interpretation. Because of the assumed objective nature of the data, polyvalence is not accounted for in the visual representation of the visual variables, which raises a range of questions: What demands must be made on a critical interface and visualization concept for hermeneutic text interpretations? What do hermeneutic visualizations look like? How do we create them? In order to tackle these questions we propose four postulates for hermeneutic visualizations: Two Way Screen, Quality, Parallax and Discourse [cf. [Meister et al. 2017]; [Drucker 2018]]. These four postulates serve as guidelines for creating hermeneutic visualizations and embedding them in user interfaces. To get our postulates on a concrete footing, we will demonstrate their usefulness with the help of the interactive visualization prototype “Stereoscope”.

In our paper, we want to raise awareness for the extent to which research in digital humanities always contributes to the “epistemic self-enlightenment” [Albrecht et al. 2015, 10] of one’s own discipline. This article aims to show how digital humanities research is based on a thorough and continuous reflection of the epistemological principles at work. Our article represents an attempt to think visualization in terms of literary hermeneutics. Contrary to current narratives of an “end of theory” (cf. [Anderson 2008]) or a post-theoretical era (cf. [Scheinfeldt 2012]) in the DH, we argue for a productive discussion of theories, in our case literary theories. Against this background, we believe that the question of hermeneutic visualizations gains an exemplary status. We are not only interested in demonstrating possibilities of operationalization for the singular case of hermeneutic visualizations. Rather, we believe that our case of hermeneutic visualization can be regarded as a prototypical procedure with respect to the question of methodology in digital humanities research in general. The issue of “hermeneutic visualization” is, we argue, both a demonstration object and a medium of reflection.

Here is the structure of our argument: In section 2, we will begin with a short synopsis of the development of classic hermeneutics and an exposition and explanation of the three epistemological premises. Against this backdrop, we will discuss how visualizations are well-suited to represent these activities, but are also lacking qualities in order to meet the epistemological premises. Section 3 will address these lacking qualities by discussing four postulates. In section 4 we will then demonstrate how these postulates have been addressed in a software prototype. In closing, we reflect on the results and discuss directions for future research.

This section is initially dedicated elaborating implicit premises in hermeneutic literary theory. These premises are then the lens through which we discuss current hermeneutical approaches in digital humanities, especially with regard to the role of visualizations.

As we have seen, one issue of the current approaches to digital hermeneutics is the disregard of the epistemological premises of hermeneutics, i.e., the differentiation between intention of author and text, the holistic idea of the understanding of the whole and its parts (circularity of the interpretation process), as well as the dependency between the text and the recipient (subjective and context-dependent reasoning process). Second, the visualizations used in the DH seem to contradict the hermeneutical premises. We see a distortion of the hermeneutic interpretation process, for example, in the use of visualizations that do not take into account the polyvalence of interpretative data. However, in order for visualizations to be used as the missing link in the process of “becoming hermeneutical” in the digital humanities, we need a concept of visualizations that meets the following four postulates as guidelines: Two Way Screen, Quality, Parallax and Discourse. We understand these postulates as transformers of and mediators between the theoretical hermeneutic model and the concrete visual arrangement.

The postulate of the Two Way Screen refers to the interface, which should not be restricted to rendering, but allow manipulation as well. More precisely, a commitment to the Two Way Screen implies that the screen serves as an interactive and visual environment in which interpretation (ranging from low-level annotation and structuring to high-level theorizing activity) takes place, not only gets displayed [cf. [Drucker 2018, 252]].

The structure of the interface does not serve as a mere representation space for an interpretative result. Rather, the interface provides incentives to engage and to change bidirectionally between the representation of text data and the modelling of text data. This means that actions taken by changing any graphical feature as an act of interpretation are registered as new data and/or as changes in the data model on the fly. The underlying principle is to get away from the flat screen as a space of display by acknowledging the additional dimension of interpretative activity [cf. [Drucker 2016]]. The postulate of the Two Way Screen is based on the holistic premise, as it allows a continuous shift between exploring the visualization to learn something about the text (the whole) and applying that new knowledge to change text data (the part), in consequence, creating new representations. Here, as well as in the postulate of Quality, the constructedness of the data becomes apparent and we can grasp it “as capta, taken and constructed” [Drucker 2011].

While the postulate of the Two Way Screen formulates the necessity of providing means for changing and constructing interpretative data through the visualization, it does not specify how the data might be visually represented. To this end, the postulate of Quality demands the incorporation of the epistemological qualities of hermeneutic practice into the visualization. Responding to the hermeneutic premise of the dependency between text and recipient, Quality takes into account the subjective and contextual quality of the data by showing the annotated text data as capta. We suggest an extension of the use of Bertin’s visual variables (position, color, tone, size, shape etc.) [cf. [Bertin 1983]; [Meirelles 2019, 175]] to the encoding of capta, allowing literary scholars to express interpretative dimensions like salience or relatedness [cf. [Drucker 2018, 249]].

The third postulate of Parallax stresses the importance of providing multiple views on the object of hermeneutic inquiry [cf. [Drucker 2018, 260]]. The term parallax “(Greek παράλλαξις (parallaxis)), meaning ‘alternation’” [cf. Oxford English Dictionary] is a metaphorized terminus technicus of optics. We understand Parallax as visual multiperspectivity or multiple points of view that reveal the ambiguity of a text. Coles [McCurdy et al. 2016] stresses the aesthetic importance of the “ambiguity of meaning” in contrast to scientific replicability. Ambiguity, as Berndt [Berndt 2009, 122] points out, “denotes a fundamental ‘equivocalness’ that engenders ‘uncertainty’ and ‘doubt’.” The visualization in its parallax function, hence, provokes an ambiguity of a maybe “assumed” certainty or evidence. This provocation generated by the visualization relates to the premise of dependency between text and recipient once more and puts the situatedness and partialness of the hermeneutic reasoning process into effect. Moreover, the ambiguity evokes a “questionability whose astonishment gives cause to further research” [Mersch 2009, 111]. Instead of limiting the points of view, the postulate of Parallax increases the possibility for productive contradiction in the reasoning process.

The last postulate Discourse defines the role of the visualization in the argumentation. Following Latour [Latour 1986], who claims that “the ways in which we represent our arguments changes the way in which we argue” (cf. [Hinrichs, Forlini 2017]), we think that a hermeneutic visualization fosters the critical reflection of the hermeneutic process itself. An argumentation comprised of text as well as visualizations as single observations differs from the mere textual form. The connection between visualization, annotations (the object of study) and textual arguments enables a complex, non-linear movement between these entities that does not restrict scholars to one possible reading, but allows a multitude of readings. Furthermore, the direct connection between annotations and visualizations creates a transparency of individual arguments that invites the author as well as the audience to critically reflect the argumentation. In this way, it lives up to the evaluation criteria rigor, intersubjectivity and validation mentioned in 2.1 and leads to an iterative refinement of the argumentation and an oscillation between part and whole, addressing the holistic premise in that way.

The postulates describe four interrelated aspects, under which visualizations can be beneficial for the hermeneutic process in the digital realm and act as hermeneutic visualizations. In the next part, we would like to underpin their validity by presenting their exemplary application in an interface concept and its prototypical implementation.

Referring to Boot’s [Boot 2009] model of mesotext as a particular configuration of annotations (mesodata) that relates to the primary text, as well as to the secondary text (an article for example), we incorporated a tripartite user interface in our concept. There is a text area on the left side holding the primary text a scholar is studying, a canvas in the middle that can represent different configurations of annotations of the text with different visualizations and a views area on the right side that allows a scholar to build arguments by saving different views of canvasses with tags and comments assigned to them (Fig. 2). All these parts are connected with each other, so that interacting with one part of the interface, such as a mouse hover over an annotation in the text area, leads to a highlight of that annotation in the canvas area (or highlight of the visually represented annotation, respectively).

Our concept will be illustrated by screenshots of our prototype Stereoscope that implements the most important features of the concept. Stereoscope is a web-based software prototype for visualizing two core processes of literary studies: hermeneutic exploration of textual meaning and construction of arguments about texts. In Stereoscope scholars can represent their manually created digital annotations with multiple visualizations to record and convey qualitative statements.[11] In this article, we use a German-based text, but Stereoscope can be applied to texts in other languages, too.

In this article, we suggested four postulates as guidelines for developing hermeneutic visualizations. The resulting visualizations are designed to promote the connection of digital literary hermeneutics with digital approaches, since they address the epistemological premises of hermeneutics, as we have shown in our exemplary prototypical implementation guided by the postulates.

Looking at the hermeneutic visualizations in the prototype, one might notice that they have an appearance similar to traditional visualizations. This leads us back to the question formulated in the introduction: What do hermeneutic visualizations look like? In other words: Are we able to name distinctive qualities of hermeneutic visualizations?

The answer to this is to be found in the nature of hermeneutic theory expressed by the three premises and operationalized by the four postulates. While certainty and importance are typical examples of partial, contextual, and subjective knowledge and are expressed with the help of visual variables in the prototype, the central holistic premise demands an iterative, circular process of generating meaning and forming arguments that becomes visible in the structure of the user interface, but not primarily in individual visualizations.

Future implementations might put a stronger focus on the premise of the dependency between text and recipient (represented by the Qualitative and Parallax postulate), which might result in more examples of visual variables depicting partial, contextual and subjective knowledge or even completely new visualizations. Newness for its own sake, however, has not been our concern here.

Although the presented prototype has been iteratively developed and reviewed by the researchers within our team based on a real-world hermeneutic scenario (Interpretation of Franz Kafka’s In der Strafkolonie), we are interested to learn more about other scholars’ experience with the prototype in order to further study the appropriateness of the postulates and the idea of hermeneutic visualization. To this end, the prototype has been launched on a website for other scholars to use.[12] In addition, the source code has been published on BitBucket[13] in order to give interested scholars the opportunity to contribute to the development. Being aware that our prototype cannot address all eventualities of hermeneutic activity, we deemed it important to enable scholars to extend the repertoire of hermeneutic visualizations that can be used as arguments. The source code provides a visualization template that can be used to develop other visualizations. Following Hinrichs et al. [Hinrichs et al. 2019], we encourage scholars to come up with new visualizations and adjust existing hermeneutic practices, in that way building “sandcastles” and experimenting with hermeneutic visualizations. The prototype itself necessarily has to be a generic tool, that is capable of supporting a diverse range of hermeneutic scenarios.

Finally, we hope that our research might inspire other researchers to investigate what premises need to be considered in order for visualization to benefit other interpretative approaches. Since some attributes like ambiguity are not specific to hermeneutics, but common to all theories of interpretation, this research might serve as a starting point for the development of respective approaches in other areas.

The research and the software prototype Stereoscope was developed as part of the 3DH project Three-Dimensional Dynamic Data Visualisation and Exploration for digital humanities Research at the University of Hamburg (04/2016–12/2018).[14] The project is conducted by Jan Christoph Meister. Associated members are Marian Dörk (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam), Johanna Drucker (University of California), Evelyn Gius (TU Darmstadt), Geoffrey Rockwell (University of Alberta), Florian Windhager (Danube University Krems).

Furthermore, we would like to thank Jan Christoph Meister, Jan Horstmann and Marian Dörk for comments and suggestions on this paper.