HyperNietzsche: The principle of dynamic contextualization

The information in HyperNietzsche is organized according to the principle of dynamic contextualization, which makes available to the user who is navigating through the site all the documents that are relevant to the page being viewed.

To accomplish this, the information has been divided into three areas: materials, authors, and contributions. In other words, the object of study (materials), the scholars who work with the materials (authors), and finally, the products of their work (contributions).

The Materials area contains digitized versions of all the primary sources for the study of Nietzsche, ordered according to the degree of their public character: the works that the philosopher intended for a public readership, the letters that he sent to only one reader (or to a very small circle), the manuscripts that he wrote for himself, the books in his personal library complete with his annotations, and finally the documents that concern his biography and so his private life.

The Contributions are arranged according to their proximity to the material. This means that the first group consists of transcriptions of notes or of other manuscripts. Next are the paths, i.e., the various different ways of ordering manuscripts and other documents: chronologically, thematically, or genetically. Chronological paths lay out all the documents in chronological succession: notes, manuscripts, letters, biographical documents, etc. Thematic paths precisely define a certain theme to be followed and then examine how different texts, written during various periods, are related to the theme. Genetic paths are the most complex and the most interpretive because they bring into play chronological, thematic, and biographical elements, as well as more general theories about creativity and the writing process.

Every imaginable kind of commentary – philological, genetic, philosophical, etc. – can be published in HyperNietzsche. Compared to the critical essays, these are characterized by their brevity and their close connection to the material upon which they comment. Essays, on the contrary, provide great freedom for the researcher and allow the materials and paths in HyperNietzsche to be analyzed according to criteria that refer to other areas of philosophical and literary history. They interact with other parts of the hypertext – or with other hypertexts – according to their own argumentative logic and thereby incorporate other literary, philosophical, and philological theories within the hypertext. In such a context, various philosophical positions can be measured against one another and, through links to the Materials, can be illustrated and verified.

Bibliographies on HyperNietzsche are organized according to a very flexible system in the form of databases. These databases are at the immediate disposal of the researchers and can be constantly updated. The bibliographical entries can be linked to the corresponding works, either in facsimile or in text versions. Translations are a form of contribution that can be applied all the other elements of HyperNietzsche. Translations may be made of materials, of contributions, and even of other translations. HyperNietzsche provides an excellent opportunity to compare translations and to encourage the translation of texts which are important for research.

The third area is a list of all the authors who have contributed to HyperNietzsche. A click of the mouse accesses the author's personal page, which contains a c.v. and a list of Hypertext contributions.

Now let us try simulate a researcher’s visit to HyperNietzsche, entering through the Materials area. Clicking on Works within the central frame opens a list of Nietzsche's published works. Next we choose the work that will serve as an example for the system: Der Wanderer und Sein Schatten, The Wanderer and his Shadow. A new set of windows appears that makes available everything in HyperNietzsche that pertains to this work.

Dynamic contextualization of
The Wanderer and his Shadow

In the upper part of this window, the three frames which provide access from the Welcome Page to the three major organizational areas of the hypertext have transformed into a menu with icons and, most importantly, have been contextualized. On the Welcome Page, these frames had linked up to all of the elements contained in HyperNietzsche: the Materials frame provided access to all of the materials, the Contributions frame to all the contributions, etc. Now, as if through the lookingglass, we are moving into the interior of the hypertext while being guided by the three icons that represent its logical structure and internal organization (the fourth icon, a small pensive Nietzsche on the top left, always takes us back to the Welcome Page).

Each of these icons now refers exclusively to the part of the hypertext that we are presently examining: in this case, clicking on the small safe that stands for Materials gives us access not to all HyperNietzsche materials, but only to those which concern The Wanderer and his Shadow; clicking on the feather icon calls up all the contributions that deal with this work; and a click on the two stylized faces calls up a list of all the authors who have written contributions on The Wander and his Shadow.

This structuring of the hypertext applies not only to each of Nietzsche's published works, but to each aphorism, manuscript page, letter, biographical document, etc.

When we contextualize something from the Materials (yellow background), for example aphorism 338 of The Wanderer, the Materials area contains the various digital representations of this aphorism in facsimile and text format. In the Contributions, meanwhile, one finds all the contributions pertaining to this aphorism: translations, philological notes, philosophical commentaries, genetic paths, etc. The Authors, finally, are all those who have written on aphorism 338 of s.

When we contextualize a Contribution (blue background), for example an essay by Luca Lupo on aphorism 338 of The Wanderer, the Materials are all the texts, manuscripts, and other Nietzsche documents that Lupo cites in his essay. The Contributions are 1) all the contributions of authors cited by Lupo, and 2) all the contributions of other authors that cite Lupo's text. The Authors, likewise, are all those who are cited in Lupo's text, and all those who cite his text.

Dynamic contextualization of Authors.

Finally, if we contextualize an Author (pink background), for example Luca Lupo, the Materials area contains all the Nietzsche materials that Lupo has used. The Contributions consist of all the contributions by Lupo and by all the authors Lupo cites. The Authors are those whom Lupo cites (with an indication of the passages where he cites them) and those who cite him (with an indication of where they cite him).

This hypertext system would allow, for example, a professor who is focusing on one of Nietzsche's aphorisms not only to have immediate access to all the translations of, philosophical commentaries on, and references to that aphorism, but also to be able to visit the web pages of those who have written on it and to get in contact with specialists who have similar research interests.