ruth weiss: Complete Published Works Critical Hybrid Edition

The aim of the project is to create a critical hybrid edition of the complete works of ruth weiss (1928-2020, name always in lower case). The edition brings together 20 volumes of poetry published by the US-Austrian Beat poet between 1958 and 2013, as well as 12 plays. Most of weiss’ volumes of poetry have been out of print for decades. The edition also collects around 200 poems that appeared in literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, etc. between 1950 and 2019 for the first time. It consists of a three-volume annotated print edition alongside an online open-access version with an extended, comprehensive commentary, which will be set up as a multimedia platform. In addition to various data and information illuminating the texts and biographical essays, this platform will also be able to make digitized original manuscripts, typescripts or (first) editions as well as other audio-visual files (e.g. of weiss' jazz & poetry performances, her film and stage work and interviews) freely available to experts and the interested public. In order to achieve the formulated project goals, extensive material research in archives is essential, the results of which will be incorporated into a data pool. Digital copies of all texts published during the author's lifetime must be produced (or prepared). A selection of the audio-visual tools that are also to be digitalized will be fed into a template to be developed during the creation of the online commentary. In addition the online commentary will also contain biographical essays in the form of different approaches. The annotated personal, time, place and other factual information will serve to contextualize ruth weiss' works in terms of biography, literary history and literary sociology and provide knowledge resources that can be used for a wide range of further research (e.g. [Transnational] Beat Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Exile Studies, Ecocriticism).