In recent years, the digital and nondigital humanities have seen an increased need for scholarly hypertext, manifesting in innovative online publishing initiatives. This is mainly due to two reasons: first, the desire to conceptualize and convey multiperspectivity in research, and second, the aim to transparently communicate complex data-driven research. In this paper, I argue that multilinear and multimodal hypertext formats have been underestimated so far but, in fact, offer a more suitable solution for representing complex narratives and argumentations than hypertext networks. While

Modeling is a critical task in the humanities. In a broad sense, scholars model conceptions, arguments, and narratives in their efforts of academic sense-making. In a narrower sense, digital humanities model data and metadata to achieve analytic insights. All these operations deal with complexity by relating many research objects to each other in a meaningful way, which can be difficult to document through traditional publication formats. For instance, spatial history emphasizes multivocality when conceptualizing space not as a static geographical entity but as a constructed category consisting of diverse layers of meaning attributed by historical actors. Data-driven research faces similar challenges when scholars semantically link data points, refer to these data in their narrative demonstration or weave methodological discussions into the overall argumentation. Digital humanities scholars do so in order to provide transparency and accountability for complex methodological operations – not as a practical but otherwise dispensable service to the reader, but

epistemologically to make possible an “Update für die Hermeneutik” (“update of hermeneutics;” my translation) [1]. Keeping such complex demonstrations coherent and concise is hardly feasible by the means of traditional printed publication formats.

These challenges have led to a growing demand for

interlinked and visually enriched publications in the (digital) humanities. Digital editions, data stories, or innovative book or journal formats have emerged. For instance, the Journal of Digital History (JDH) [2] combines three layers of

demonstration in every article: A “hermeneutic layer” features

methodological discussion, a “data layer” gives references to and a representation of digital data, and a “narrative layer” provides historiographical explanations. For the context of spatial history, Bodies and Structures 2.0, edited by David Ambaras and Kate Mc Donald [3], is a good example. The online edited volume uses Scalar [4] as a publishing tool to show “myriad modes of place-making and establishing senses of self.” [5] A third case is Shahzad Bashir’s study on Islamic pasts and futures. It thematizes Islam as a discursive construction, where ideas about Islam are intricately enmeshed in power structures. Furthermore, time is the fundamental category for this understanding: Time shapes the objects and narratives associated with Islam, as it shapes the beholders who construct Islam discursively. [6] Bashir translated this approach into an online format that lets users interactively explore multiple perspectives on Islam.

These examples show a strong correspondence between

conceptual approaches and hypertextual publication formats, as it has been addressed by hypertext research for a long time. In the words of David Kolb: “If hypertexts are to serve inquiry, they need to question and comment on their own and others’ form and relations, so they must be able to represent their own form and movement.” [7]

Despite these developments, relatively few books or articles exist in the (digital) humanities that can be considered truly hypertextual. This is due to different reasons. From a conceptual side, I would argue that hypertext has too rigorously been interpreted as a network. Only few works on scholarly hypertext claim that the network might have value for encyclopedic projects but not so much for individual academic publications [8]. This is because a reader’s (relatively) free navigation through a web of nodes and edges rather omits what we as scholars intend to demonstrate: Complex yet coherent narratives and argumentations. Even though multilinear hypertext has mostly been considered a weak form of hypertext, I would argue that it fulfills the scholars’ communicative intention to convey her arguments and her narratives to the reader – in a coherent way that still embodies multiperspectivity. This goes beyond what Kolb defined as thematic “regions” in hypertext networks.

A deeper analytical assessment backs this potential of

multi-linear hypertext: Interdisciplinary hypertext research has inquired about the narrative qualities of hypertext networks and user-made trails. It has also brought about post-structuralist approaches. But hypertext’s semiotic foundations have not been fully explored. On the one hand, we may agree with Kolb’s conclusion that scholarly hypertext must ‘comment’ on its own movement. And Nelson’s verdict is intuitive when he says that “any sequence cuts connections, just as any grouping omits items. The cutting of connections is the loss of information.” [9] But what are the semiotic

properties responsible for that, and what exactly does hypertext epistemically symbolize beyond its narrative structure?

Nondualist constructivism helps us here. It basically says

that we consistently execute practices of knowledge construction when modeling narratives and argumentation; but any correspondence to a reality outside language is not addressed. Following this thought, multilinear hypertext has the potential to explicitly represent the structural

‘constructedness’ of knowledge as narrative and

argumentative models – when conceived as nonlinear but coherently structured. In other words, multilinear hypertext can display the logical ‘architecture’ of works such as the examples presented in the prior section. Nondualist theory has been promoted by Joseph Mitterer [10] and Siegfried J. Schmidt [11] although both refrain from the term

‘constructivism.’ However, I would like to keep it to emphasize how we de facto construct argumentation and narrative. So, I use ‘constructivism’ in a moderate sense – as a procedural term.

Constructions of knowledge become even more

transparent for the reader when nodes and edges are visualized, resulting in a multimodal design. Multimodality research has shown that visualizations like graphs provide an overview of narrative and argumentative structures because, semiotically speaking, they are iconic [12]: They symbolize arguments and narratives by resemblance, which leads to a direct, simultaneous, and holistic perception [13]. The pioneers of multimodality research, Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, argue that such visual representations depict “analytical structures,” structures that present elements in relation to the overall configuration (“meronymical relations”) [14]. In this context, concepts of ‘spatial hypertext’ come into play. Although research has long been engaged with this multimodal design [15], deep epistemological and semiotic underpinnings are rare. Non-dualist constructivism and multimodality research provide, in my view, valuable contributions to fill this gap.

As the above-mentioned examples and many more

demonstrate, there is a need for scholarly hypertext publishing. However, the reality of academic publishing is a bit more complicated: Crafting multimodal hypertexts is time-consuming; it demands special skills and adapting new ways of conceiving coherence while producing well-structured works. Also, publications should be findable, which

underscores the role of academic publishers and established reputation regimes. These are legitimate concerns, and they are regularly raised. Nevertheless, I would argue that they are no categorial objections because we do have the means to meet such problems. First, persistent identifiers, such as DOIs, have become flexibly employed tools to reference and find

online content. Second, there are hypertexts hosted by big publishers: The JDH is backed by the De Gruyter publishing group. MIT Press published Bashir’s online book, in collaboration with Brown University Library’s Digital

Publications Initiative. And Nicholas Mirzoeff’s Scalar website on the Algerian history of revolutions is co-edited by Duke University Press [16]. So, several academic publishers already support innovative publication formats. This should inspire more initiatives to follow their lead.

From an epistemological standpoint, this would promote

multiperspectivity and multivocality in the (digital)

humanities. Multilinear and multimodal scholarly hypertext can bring coherent clarity and pluralistic arguments and narratives together. It is, in this respect, more consequent than any network hypertext.

[1] Fickers, Andreas. “Update für die Hermeneutik: Geschichtswissenschaft auf dem Weg zur Digitalen Forensik?” Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History (online edition) 17, no. 1 (2020): 167, https://doi.org/10.14765/zzf.dok-1765.

[2] https://journalofdigitalhistory.org/en.

[3] Ambaras, David R., and Kate Mc Donald, eds. Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History., 2021. Accessed April 19, 2023. https://bodiesandstructures.org/bodies-and-structures-2.

[4] https://scalar.me/anvc/scalar/.

[5] Ambaras and Mc Donald. “Why Think Spatially?” In Bodies and Structures 2.0. Accessed April 19, 2023. https://bodiesandstructures.org/bodies-and-structures-2/why-think-spatially?path=get-to-know-the-site.

[6] Bashir, Shahzad. A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2022. Accessed April 19, 2023. https://islamic-pasts-futures.org/.

[7] Kolb, David. “Scholarly Hypertext: Self-Represented Complexity.” In Proceedings of the Eighth ACM Conference on Hypertext - HYPERTEXT '97. Edited by Mark Bernstein, Kasper Østerbye and Leslie Carr, 29–37, here 33. New York, NY: ACM Press, 1997.

[8] Wachter, Christian. “Publishing Complexity in the Digital Humanities.” magazén: International Journal for Digital and Public Humanities 2, no. 1 (2021): 103–18. https://doi.org/10.30687/mag/2724-

3923/2021/03/004.; Wachter. “‘Medialization follows function!’:

Multimodaler Hypertext als Publikationsmedium (nicht nur) für die Geschichtswissenschaft” In DHd 2019: Digital Humanities: multimedial & multimodal: Konferenzabstracts. Edited by Patrick Sahle, 319–321. Frankfurt a.M.: DHd, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2596095.

[9] Nelson, Theodor H. Philosophy of Hypertext. Tokyo: Keio University, 2002, 24.

[10] Josef Mitterer. Die Flucht aus der Beliebigkeit. Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer,

2001.; Mitterer. Das Jenseits der Philosophie: Wider das dualistische Erkenntnisprinzip. Vienna: Passagen, 2000.

[11] Siegfried J. Schmidt. “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite

Radical Constructivism” Constructivist Foundations 7, no. 1 (2011): 1–9.; Schmidt. Die Endgültigkeit der Vorläufigkeit: Prozessualität als

Argumentationsstrategie. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2010.

[12] Cf. Peirce, Charles S. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce: Volume I:

Principles of Philosophy & Volume II: Elements of Logic. Edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.

[13] Cf. Stöckl, Hartmut. “Sprache-Bild-Texte lessen: Bausteine zur Methodik

einer Grundkompetenz” In Bildlinguistik. Theorien – Methoden – Fallbeispiele. Edited by Hajo Diekmannshenke et al., 45–70, here 48. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2011.

[14] Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. Reading Images: The Grammar of

Visual Design. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2021, 76.

[15] Bernstein, Mark. “Can We Talk About Spatial Hypertext?” In HYPERTEXT

’11: The Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia. Edited by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 103–12. New York, NY: ACM Press, 2011. Accessed December 27, 2020. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1995966.1995983.; Shipman, Frank M., and Catherine C. Marshall. “Spatial Hypertext: An Alternative to Navigational and Semantic Links.” ACM Computing Surveys 31, no. 4es (1999): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1145/345966.346001.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “‘We Are All Children of Algeria’: Visuality and

Countervisuality 1954-2011.” Edited by Duke University Press. Accessed August 29, 2022. http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/mirzoeff/index.