Viktor Illmer
IT Researcher @ EXC Temporal Communities, Freie Universität Berlin
I am interested in the way data models shape our understanding of the world, particularly in representing social phenomena such as gender within structured data systems. Lately, I have been exploring how declarative development and build environments, enabled by Nix, may support the replicability of research workflows and results in the digital humanities.
Publications
Research publications and papers
2025
- Schreibwirtschaft – Dramatikerinnen um 1800 in der Digitalen Einakter-Datenbank
w/ Dîlan Canan Çakir, Felix Lempp
BreiterKanon. Wiederentdecken, Lesen, Edieren Berlin
- Schreibwirtschaft – Dramatikerinnen um 1800 in der Digitalen Einakter-Datenbank
2024
- Univariate statistical analysis of a non-canonical literary genre
w/ Dîlan Canan Çakir, Frank Fischer, Carsten Milling, Lilly Welz
CHR2024 Aarhus - Chasing ‘Carmen Nova’
w/ Dîlan Canan Çakir, Frank Fischer, Mark Schwindt, Niels Penke, Lilly Welz
TEI 2024: Texts, languages, and communities Buenos Aires - Just the Type
w/ Julia Jennifer Beine, Frank Fischer
DH2024: Reinvention & Possibility Washington, D.C. - Decoding gender in Digital Humanities datasets
w/ Lisa Poggel, Aleksandr Lange, Pauline Junginger, Zeynep Ecem Pulas
DH2024: Reinvention & Possibility Washington, D.C. - Literatur im Wikiversum
w/ Bart Soethaert, Lilly Welz, Frank Fischer, Robert Jäschke
DHd2024. Quo Vadis DH Passau
- Univariate statistical analysis of a non-canonical literary genre
2023
- Internationale Autor*innen zu Gast in der DDR
w/ Frank Fischer, Lukas Nils Regeler, Jutta Müller-Tamm, Luise von Berenberg-Gossler, Franziska Diehr
DHd2023: »Open Humanities, Open Culture« Trier/Luxemburg
- Internationale Autor*innen zu Gast in der DDR
2022
- Modelling gender diversity
w/ Lisa Poggel, Franziska Diehr, Lindsey Drury
DH2022: Responding to Asian Diversity Tokyo/Online
- Modelling gender diversity
Talks
Presentations and workshops given at conferences
2025
- Statistik für Geisteswissenschaftler:innen
Lecture Einführung in die digitalen Geisteswissenschaften Berlin
- Statistik für Geisteswissenschaftler:innen
2024
- Univariate statistical analysis of a non-canonical literary genre
w/ Dîlan Canan Çakir
Computational Humanities Research 2024 Aarhus - Chasing ‘Carmen Nova’
w/ Frank Fischer, Dîlan Canan Çakir, Niels Penke, Mark Schwindt, Lilly Welz
TEI 2024: Texts, languages, and communities Buenos Aires - Infrastrukturelle Voraussetzungen für die digitale Gattungshermeneutik
w/ Dîlan Canan Çakir, Frank Fischer
Workshop: Digitale Gattungshermeneutik München - Decoding gender in Digital Humanities datasets
w/ Lisa Poggel, Aleksandr Lange
DH2024: Reinvention & Possibility Washington, D.C. - Measuring Public Engagement and the Valuation of Literature on Wikipedia
w/ Bart Soethaert, Frank Fischer
Workshop EXC 2020 Annual Conference 2024. Literary Value: Artistic, Academic and Critical Practices Berlin - Programmable Corpora and Network Analysis for Beginners
w/ Frank Fischer
Workshop CLS INFRA Training School ExploreCor: Using Programmable Corpora in Computational Literary Studies Vienna - Literatur im Wikiversum
w/ Frank Fischer, Bart Soethaert
Workshop DHd2024: Quo Vadis DH Passau - Statistik für Geisteswissenschaftler:innen
Lecture Einführung in die digitalen Geisteswissenschaften Berlin
- Univariate statistical analysis of a non-canonical literary genre
2023
- Querying the Wikipedia API to Explore the Positioning of Authors and Works
w/ Frank Fischer
Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikibase: Usage Scenarios for Literary Studies Berlin
- Querying the Wikipedia API to Explore the Positioning of Authors and Works
Teaching
Courses taught at university spanning a full term
2024
- Wikipedia und Wikidata in den Geisteswissenschaften
w/ Frank Fischer
Freie Universität Berlin
- Wikipedia und Wikidata in den Geisteswissenschaften
Events
Conferences and workshops I co-organised
2024
- Digital Humanities Code Review Day
w/ Lisa Poggel, Melanie Althage, Dillwyn Thier, Roya Zendebudie
Workshop Ada Lovelace Center for Digital Humanities Berlin - Linked Open Data and Literary Studies
w/ Frank Fischer
Conference EXC Temporal Communities Berlin
- Digital Humanities Code Review Day
Hyperlinks
Links to resources I find interesting
2025
- #genderUX (2015)
How to handle gender data on forms, if you have to
- Why is Git autocorrect too fast for Formula One drivers?
How changing option types can lead to silly effects
- #genderUX (2015)
2024
- telo misikeke
ilo sitelen tawa toki pona – a toki pona grammar checker
- git – ours vs theirs
Cheat sheet to demystify git terminology: What’s ‘ours’, what’s ‘theirs’? The answer might surprise you.
- TIL: CSVs are kinda bad. DSVs are kinda good.
DSVs seem interesting, but using the Symbol for Record Separator instead of the Record Separator itself seems criminal.
- The bizarre secrets I found investigating corrupt Winamp skins
Jordan Eldredge’s exploration yields some unlikely finds
- FFV1 video format
An open format for lossless video encoding
- TIL: What's the point in adding a new line to the end of a file?
By UNIX definition, a text file is a series of lines, and a line is any characters followed by a newline character. Without the newline, it’s not a text file.
- Who’s Afraid of Gender?
A relatively accessible and thoroughly enjoyable new book by Judith Butler on the panic surrounding ‘gender ideology’
- Symbols for Legacy Computing
These charming Unicode characters are a throwback to the early days of computing, featuring many block drawing characters and even stick figures.
- telo misikeke
2023
- That's a lot of YAML
There’s a lot of YAML haters out there
- That's a lot of YAML
2021
- On undoing, fixing, or removing commits in git
A choose-your-own-adventure-style resource to guide you out of many of Git‘s sticky situations.
- On undoing, fixing, or removing commits in git
Notes
It’s like a blog, remember those?
2025
- linkding bookmarking on NixOS and Hugo
This site’s hyperlinks section is now powered by linkding.
- linkding bookmarking on NixOS and Hugo
2024
- TIL: HTML Standard §13.1.2.4: Optional tags
Many end tags can simply be omitted in HTML5, making it read a bit like Markdown.
- TIL: The case against self-closing tags in HTML
Self-closing tags (e.g.
<br />) are not a thing in HTML. - Execute a Command when Files ChangeUsing watchexec for automatic re-execution
- TIL: HTML Standard §13.1.2.4: Optional tags
2023
- Using Apple Emoji in ZulipHow to use Apple emoji in the Zulip team chat app
- nimi pi toki pini
jan tu kama li lon poka la, ona li toki e «toki!».
taso ona li pini la, ona li toki e seme?
- Using Apple Emoji in Zulip
2022
- Citing Web Archive URLs in BibLaTeX-APAWith link rot, web archives are becoming more important. But how do we cite them?
- Citing Web Archive URLs in BibLaTeX-APA
2020
- Make Microsoft Planner Remember Your “Group By” SettingThis fixes a big annoyance of mine.
- Use Tab Titles in Google Ad ManagerBrowser extension to get your tab bar under control
- Attach Outlook Email to Planner Tasks via Power AutomateThere’s no way (yet) to turn an email into a task. In the meantime, you can use this automation.
- Make Microsoft Planner Remember Your “Group By” Setting