Contemporary transformations in scholarly practice invite us to rethink the relationships among editing, text, and data. In the humanities and social sciences, editing is no longer understood solely as a process of establishing, transmitting, or shaping texts; it also serves as a site for the production, structuring, and interpretation of textual data. Conversely, the very notion of “textual data” calls for critical reflection, both on the conditions under which such data are constituted and on their scholarly uses.

This two-day conference seeks to examine the links between editing and data through a range of theoretical, methodological, and practical questions. What distinguishes an edition from textual data? Under what conditions does editing produce data? What exactly do we mean by “textual data”? How do processes of editing, annotation, encoding, structuring, and dissemination transform texts into objects that can be used in research environments? Conversely, how does the use of textual data shape the ways we read, interpret, and understand texts?

By foregrounding the tension between textual materiality, formalization, and interpretation, this conference aims to bring together researchers, editors, librarians, archivists, digital humanities specialists, and anyone interested in the challenges of scholarly editing and textual analysis.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

- conceptual distinctions among text, document, edition, corpus, and data;

- the definition and status of textual data;

- the production of data through editorial practices;

- text encoding, annotation, markup, and structuring;scholarly editing, digital editing, and enhanced editions;

- the uses of textual data in research;

- methods for text analysis, text mining, visualization, and modeling;

- the relationship between textual data and interpretation;

- the epistemological implications of transforming texts into data;

- technical, ethical, legal, and institutional issues related to textual data;

- case studies, project reports, and works in progress.

We hope this conference will provide a space for collective reflection on what editing does to texts when it transforms them into data, and on what textual data, in turn, do to our practices of reading, analysis, and interpretation.

We welcome proposals in either French or English from established scholars as well as graduate students.

Proposals should include:

- a title;

- an abstract of approximately 250 to 300 words;

- a short biographical note (maximum 100 words).

Accepted papers will be allotted 20 minutes, followed by discussion.

Please send proposals to crihunum@gmail.com by June 1, 2026. The program will be announced in July 2026.