As a consequence of digital technological innovations alternative ways of dealing with literary objects have experienced an upswing. Full text search engines, quantitative text analysis techniques, digital annotation systems and visualisation tools affect, modify, or substitute commonplace working routines in literary studies. These developments are discussed controversly - often framed within opinionated crisis discourses. Against this backdrop, this study opts for a stronger empirical exploration of the concrete doing of literary scholars. It propounds a text-based praxeology, which boils down to a de-dramatisation of meta-narratives about the impact of digital technologies in the humanities leading either to a 'golden future' or an 'imminent downfall' of the discipline.