News

"Meet the NVS", Thursday 30 January 2025, 12 noon (CST) [online]

Join the New Variorum Shakespeare for an online introduction to our work on Thursday 30 January at 12 noon (CST). In this zoom webinar, we will (re)introduce the New Variorum Shakespeare -- its history, its current digital format, and its future plans. We wil also provide a how-to guide to using the digital NVS. Speakers will include Prof. Lena Orlin (Georgetown), the Chair of the NVS Board; Prof. Eric Rasmussen (Nevada), General Editor of the NVS; Prof. Paul Werstine (UWO), General Editor of the NVS; Dr. Robert Stagg (TAMU), Director of the NVS; Dr. Katayoun Torabi (TAMU), Project Manager of the NVS; and Dr. Dorothy Todd (TAMU) and Dr. Kris May (TAMU), Associate Digitial Editors of the NVS.

To register for this free event, please click the link here: https://tamu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlceqgrTkoGtC5o4edeXim2gsQwhLHK2mP

New Variorum Shakespeare announces event schedule for Spring Semester 2025

The New Variorum Shakespeare has announced its schedule of events for the forthcoming spring semester.

Our program begins with an online "Meet the NVS" event on Thursday 30 January at 12 noon CST, which will (re)introduce the New Variorum Shakespeare, its history, its future plans, and which will also include a how-to guide to using the digital NVS. Speakers will include Prof. Lena Orlin (Georgetown), Prof. Eric Rasmussen (Nevada), Prof. Paul Werstine (UWO), Dr. Robert Stagg (TAMU), Dr. Katayoun Torabi (TAMU), Dr. Dorothy Todd (TAMU) and Dr. Kris May (TAMU). You can register here to attend this Zoom event: https://tamu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlceqgrTkoGtC5o4edeXim2gsQwhLHK2mP

Later in the semester we will be inaugurating the New Variorum Shakespeare Seminar with talks by Prof. Liza Blake (Toronto) in February and Dr. Aaron T. Pratt (Harry Ransom Center, UT Austin) in April. Dates for the seminars will be announced shortly, and both seminars will take place on the Texas A&M campus but will be streamed live online via Zoom.

In March we will be hosting two major events at the combined Shakespeare Association of America - Renaissance Society of America conference/s in Boston. On Thursday 20 March, 8:00-9:30am, the NVS will be sponsoring a breakfast reception at the SAA. All conference attendees are welcome to attend this free reception and find out more about the NVS (while consuming a bounty of pro bono croissants); no further registration is required. On 22 March, 2:30-4:00pm, the NVS will be the subject of a roundtable discussion event at the RSA. Speakers will include Prof. Lena Orlin (Georgetown), Prof. Paul Werstine (UWO), Dr. Robert Stagg (TAMU), Dr. Katayoun Torabi (TAMU) and Dr. Dorothy Todd (TAMU).

We hope to see you at many events in our spring program.

The NVS Receives Funding for Two Undergraduate Professional and Research Experience Program (UPREP) for 2025

Each semester, the Department of English selects 5-7 faculty projects for the UPREP program, which pairs undergraduate English majors with faculty members on selected projects outside of the classroom. The Undergraduate Studies Committee voted on and approved funding for two NVS research proposals. One proposal is titled “XML Encoding and Correcting Ingestion Errors for the New Variorum Shakespeare,” and was submitted by Dr. Kris May. The other proposal is titled “Collation Tool Development and Transcription for the New Variorum Shakespeare,” and was submitted by Dr. Dorothy Todd. Grace Hoelscher and Allie Blue have been selected as NVS UPREP fellows and will begin working on the NVS project in the spring. 

Texas Digital Humanities Symposium, 5-6 September 2024

Bryan Tarpley presented a paper titled “Corpora: A Dataset Studio for the Digital Humanities” at this year’s Texas Digital Humanities Symposium at Baylor on September 6th. Corpora is a tool for creating, searching, exploring, and transforming digital humanities datasets at any scale and currently serves as the backend for several A&M digital projects, including the NVS. Bryan's paper discussed plans for further developing Corpora and how this tool might be situated in the larger DH ecosystem of technologies. For more information, please see the full  conference program.

NVS Team Update

The New Variorum Shakespeare project welcomes Andrew Hoyt (Applied Mathematics with a Computer Science emphasis, Undergraduate) and Grace Hoelescher (English, Undergraduate) back to the team, along with new team member Allie Blue (English, Undergraduate). All three students will serve as Strategic Transformative Research Program (STRP) Fellows this semester. The NVS applied for a Type-II $10,000 STRP grant for edition gathering, transcription, and collation work for the second phase of the project and were awarded full funding. Also joining the team is Kaitlin Carman as the NVS intern. She is an English major, currently working on her digital humanities certificate at Framingham State University, under the direction of Dr. Kristen Abbott Bennett, Assistant Professor of English at Framingham. 

Dr. Robert Stagg to Join A&M’s English Department and NVS Team Next Year

The New Variorum Shakespeare is happy to announce that Dr. Robert Stagg will be joining Texas A&M University’s Department of English as a tenure-track Assistant Professor and NVS Principal Investigator and Director in the fall of 2024. Dr. Stagg is currently a Leverhulme Early-Career Research Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute, Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series Fellow, and Associate Senior Member of St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford. At Texas A&M, Dr. Stagg will be joining Dr. Katayoun Torabi (Digital Editor of the NVS and Instructional Associate Professor of English), Dr. Kris L. May (Associate Digital Editor of the NVS), and Dr. Dorothy Todd (Associate Digital Editor of the NVS and Instructional Assistant Professor of English), Please read the full NVS announcement on SHAKSPER.

NVS Awarded a Prestigious Strategic Transformative Research Program (STRP) Grant

In an effort to support cutting-edge interdisciplinary research activities at A&M, the College of Arts and Sciences launched the Strategic Transformative Research Program. The NVS team applied for a Type-II $10,000 grant for edition gathering, transcription, and collation work for the second phase of the project and were awarded full funding!