News

NVS Book Launch: 'Collaboration, Technologies, and the History of Shakespearean Bibliography'

The next New Variorum Shakespeare Seminar will feature an online book launch for a new Cambridge University Press Element in the 'Shakespeare and Text' series titled Collaboration, Technologies, and the History of Shakespearean Bibliography co-authored by NVS Associate General Editor Heidi Craig and NVS Associate Digital Editors Kris May and Dorothy Todd alongside our former Texas A&M colleague Laura Estill. All four authors will be speaking as part of the event and we invite you to join us on Zoom to celebrate the publication on Friday 23 October at 12 noon (Central Time). The Zoom link is below:

Prof. Laura Mandell appointed Technical General Editor

We are happy to announce the appointment of Prof. Laura Mandell as Technical General Editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare.

Laura Mandell is Professor of English at Texas A&M University where she founded, and for twelve years directed, the Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR). She is the author of Breaking the Book: Print Economies in the Digital Age (2015), Misogynous Economies: The Business of Literature in Eighteenth-Century Britain (1999), and numerous articles and chapters. She is Director of the Poetess Archive and Technical Director for Romantic Circles, and has developed the Texas A&M Digital Cultural Heritage Project (whch includes resources like the Collected Letters of Robert Southey). She spearheaded the Early Modern OCR Project (eMOP), concerned with improving optical character recognition for early modern and eighteenth century texts via high performance and cluster computing, which was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Until recently she served as a member of the New Variorum Shakespeare Board of Governors, and was a critical part of bringing the project to Texas A&M.

We welcome Prof. Mandell back to the NVS in this new capacity.

NVS Board Appoints New Governors

The New Variorum Shakespeare's Board of Governors has recently made three new appointments to its number: Prof. Sarah Neville (OSU), Prof. Janelle Jenstad (UVic), and Prof. Stephen Wittek (CMU).

Sarah Neville is Associate Professor of English at the Ohio State University, USA. She is the author of Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade (2022) and has published articles on early modern English literature, bibliography, theories of textuality, and performance. She is an assistant editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016-17) for which she edited five plays, associate coordinating editor of the Digital Renaissance Editions, and the creative director of Lord Denney's Players. She is currently editing 2 Henry 6 for the Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series.

Janelle Jenstad is Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Canada. She is general editor and director of the Map of Early Modern London, a major digital project funded by SSHRC, and director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online (LEMDO). She is assistant coordinating editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions (for which she is editing The Merchant of Venice). She has also been a key member of the 'Endings Project: Building Sustainable Digital Humanities Projects'.

Stephen Wittek is Associate Professor of English and Director of Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. He is the author of Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of Conversion (2022) and The Media Players (2015). He directs the Shakespeare-VR Project, is co-editing one of the Internet Shakespeare Editions, and (with Christopher Warren) serves as co-director of CMU's Center for Early Modern Print, Networks, and Performance.

In welcoming Prof. Wittek, our most recent appointment to the NVS's Board of Governors, we also say a profound thank-you to Prof. Alan Galey (Toronto) who now steps down from the NVS Board but who has been instrumental to the Variorum's digital development. Our Chair Prof. Lena Orlin has issued the following tribute:

"Twenty years ago, Alan Galey recognized that the future of the New Variorum Shakespeare Editions would be digital, and he designed a prototype interface that made it possible for traditionally trained editors and literary scholars to understand how much information could be productively wrangled in an electronic medium. It was a revelation and an inspiration. In 2017, when the MLA decided to relocate the NVS, Alan was a natural for membership of the Working Group that was charged to find a new home. As the Working Group transitioned into a Board of Governors, Alan stayed on to see the NVS settle in at Texas A&M University. Across a near-decade of service, he offered counsel that was practical, philosophical, and purposeful, always with the aim that the NVS should advance Shakespeare scholarship."

NVS Announces Fall 2026 Events

The New Variorum Shakespeare is happy to announce its events schedule for the Fall Semester 2026. 

In September we begin our collaboration with Shakespeare's Globe in London with a public 'Editing in Action' event on their Sam Wanamaker Playhouse stage. This will bring together Shakespearean actors with New Variorum Shakespeare editors to explore how actorly performance and scholarly editing can inform one another. NVS scholars in attendance will include Prof. Eric Rasmussen (General Editor), Prof. Sonia Massai (General Editor), Dr. Robert Stagg (Director), Dr. Katayoun Torabi (Project Manager and Digital Editor), Dr. Kris May (Associate Digital Editor) and Dr. Dorothy Todd (Associate Digital Editor). We will also be joined by five Texas A&M English Department graduate students: Genevieve Bourjeaurd, Holly Castleton, Inhoo Kim, Shelby Lloyd, and Kelly McCafferty. More details of the event on 17 September can be found here: https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/ria-editing-in-action/

On 23 October we will hold a book launch for a new Cambridge University Press Element titled Collaboration, Technologies, and the History of Shakespearean Bibliography, co-authored by Heidi Craig, Laura Estill, Kris May and Dorothy Todd. More details, including a Zoom link, are coming soon.

On 17 and 18 November we will welcome Prof. Vanessa Corredera (Baylor) to Texas A&M to give a NVS Seminar about her research on Shakespeare, race, and contemporary adaptation theory. Since Prof. Corredera is also one of the new editors of Shakespeare Quarterly, we will also stage an articles and publication workshop for Texas A&M English Department graduate students. More details, including a Zoom link for the NVS Seminar, are coming soon.

Thanks are due to the Texas A&M English Department and the College of Arts and Sciences for funding this semester's events.

Please send any questions to our Director, Dr. Robert Stagg: rstagg@tamu.edu

NVS To Lead Event At Shakespeare's Globe

The New Variorum Shakespeare will be leading one of the 'Research in Action' events at Shakespeare's Globe, London, on 17 September 2026 from 6 - 8:15 pm. The event will take place on the Globe's Sam Wanamaker Playhouse stage, a reconstruction of a seventeenth century indoor candlelit theater and will be titled 'Editing in Action'. NVS personnel from within and without Texas A&M will work with Globe actors, script in hand, as they perform a number of episodes in the final act of A Midsummer Night's Dream, using the recently published NVS edition of that play. Together we'll ask: how can live performance illuminate and even influence editorial approaches to a play? What happens when actors, directors, and editors collaborate - and the text itself becomes a space of creative negotiation?

Tickets (£15) are available now.

More information and ticket sales can be found here: https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/ria-editing-in-action/

We look forward to this first event in our collaboration with Shakespeare's Globe and wish to thank the Texas A&M English Department and College of Arts and Sciences for providing start-up funding to enable our partnership to begin.

NVS General Editor Judges Parr Shakespeare Prize

One of the NVS's General Editors Prof. Eric Rasmussen recently served as a judge for the inaugural year of the Parr Shakespeare Teaching Prize, which he founded in conjunction with the education and arts philanthropist Gary Parr. The prize's mission is to create a lasting award that recognizes and celebrates exceptional teaching of Shakespeare in U.S. high schools. In its first year they received more than 150 nominations from 37 states. After careful review, three teachers were selected to receive the Parr Shakespeare Teaching Prize. Each was awarded $10,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to the Awards Weekend in Florida. The winners were:

- Margaret Moran of Falls Church High School, Virginia

- Morgan Tarleton of Bronx School of Law and Finance, New York

- Linda Wallenberg of Eden Prairie High School, Minnesota

The judges were deeply impressed by the passion, creativity, and dedication demonstrated by teachers across the country. The strength of this inaugural group of nominees confirmed that great Shakespeare teaching is thriving in American classrooms. 

Applications and nominations are open again for the 2026 prize. As in the inaugural year, three teachers will each receive a $10,000 prize. Anyone may nominate a teacher and previous applicants are warmly encouraged to apply again. Full details about the prize, the judges, and the application process can be found at www.ParrShakespeare.org

Texas A&M University Receives NVS Archive

The Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University has received the New Variorum Shakespeare's recent archive, thanks to a generous donation by Eric Rasmussen and Victoria Hines. The archive comprises many NVS records from the second half of the twentieth century, several of which were on display at our recent Marvin Hunt Exhibition of the History of the New Variorum Shakespeare (held at the Cushing Memorial Library). Photographs of some of the items in the collection can be found here (photo credit Katayoun Torabi): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1eV8kZv-IYIcRVv1ZL5SeJ1fPPhFSAe9t?usp=sharing

We look forward to building the Variorum's archive at Texas A&M and to collaborating with the Furness Shakespeare Library at the University of Pennsylvania (which holds the earliest collections from the NVS's history) in the years ahead.