Hypertext

HyperNietzsche is a hypertext for research, publishing, and communication that is inspired by Open Source philosophy, favors the use of the copyleft, is structured according to a principle of dynamic contextualization, and is in a complementary relationship with more traditional sources and methods of scholarly research.

It is a hypertext for research because it aims to allow all researchers with access to the internet to consult digital facsimiles of Nietzsche’s texts, manuscripts, personal library, and all other relevant documents. It is thus structured as a virtual archive and laboratory in which researchers can have direct access to primary sources.

It is a hypertext for publication because, in addition to primary sources, it incorporates the scholarly commentary and critical work of researchers and establishes a systematic and structured network of links for all of these documents. In this way, it also takes on the functions of a non-profit academic publisher and a public library with the advantage of enabling the publication and consultation of all types of contributions at very low cost, very quickly, and with global distribution and accessibility. Moreover, the hypertextual system allows for citations of primary and secondary texts – such as are scattered throughout every scholarly work – to be transformed directly into hyperlinks, making the cited works available immediately. HyperNietzsche will thus be the ideal publishing venue for a great variety of texts: transcriptions of manuscripts; editions of texts; geneological, philological, and philosophical commentaries; brief scholarly notes; long interpretative essays; etc..

This kind of hypertext thereby becomes a means of communication between researchers that is much faster and more powerful than books or journals and much more systematic and effective than private correspondence and electronic discussion groups.