News

NVS TEI to be preserved by Texas A&M University

Thanks to the efforts of our NVS Board Member and Texas A&M professor Laura Mandell, the TEI for the New Variorum Shakespeare will now be preserved by the Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences. This arrangement will enable 10TB of permanent, open-access data storage to be used for the NVS, alongside other digital humanities projects, preserving the work of our editors in a form that will be available to all users regardless of any software or databases that might become obsolete. We are grateful to Prof. Mandell and the College of Arts and Sciences for ensuring that the NVS will remain legible and usable for decades to come.

NVS welcomes three undergraduate student assistants for Fall Semester 2025

The New Variorum Shakespeare is very happy to have received support for three undergraduate assistants to join the project in Fall 2025. Thanks to the Texas A&M Undergraduate Professional and Research Experience Program and the Texas A&M English Department's Undergraduate Office, we will be welcoming Adrian Wolinski, Andrew Molina and Jennifer Jacobson to work on the NVS in the Fall Semester 2025. Our graduate student assistant Lindsey Jones continues to work with us over the coming months. As our new undergraduate students arrive, we thank our outgoing undergraduate assistants Alexandra Blue and Grace Hoelscher and our outgoing graduate assistant Inhoo Kim.

Dr. Kris May wins David C. Greetham Prize

NVS Associate Digital Editor Dr. Kris May is co-winner of the David C. Greetham Prize 2023-4, awarded by the Society for Textual Scholarship. Dr. May was awarded the prize alongside two former Texas A&M professors Laura Estill and Heidi Craig (the latter of whom serves on the NVS Board) for their article 'A Rationale of Trans-inclusive Bibliography' published in 'Textual Cultures' (16.2, 2023). The Greetham Prize honors the authors of the best article published in the Society for Textual Scholarship's journal during a two-year cycle. Everyone at the NVS congratulates Dr. May on this prestigious award.

NVS celebrates Prof. Paul Werstine at retirement conference

The New Variorum Shakespeare saluted our General Editor Prof. Paul Werstine at a conference to mark his retirement from King's University College and Western University (London, Canada) in early May 2025. We are happy (and relieved) to note that Prof. Werstine is not yet retiring from his position at the NVS, which he has held for nearly thirty years. The conference, titled 'Editing Shakespeare Now', was concerned with the most urgent questions of editorial practice facing Shakespearean scholars at present, and allowed leading scholars from around the world to thank Prof. Werstine for his contributions to the field. More details of the conference can be found here: https://www.uwo.ca/english/conferences/shakespeare_after_werstine_editing_shakespeare_now/index.html

Our Director Dr. Robert Stagg and Project Manager Dr. Katayoun Torabi attended the conference and gave a short demonstration of the NVS in which they were able to express their appreciation for all Prof. Werstine has done for the variorum over many decades. A recording of their demonstration can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pured6Ayu6E

The NVS team at Texas A&M wishes to convey our thanks to Prof. Werstine for three decades of outstanding and dedicated service to the variorum, and our pleasure at the prospect of continuing to work with him in the years to come.

NVS developer and technical editor Dr. Bryan Tarpley wins DH Award

Many congratulations to NVS developer and technical editor Dr. Bryan Tarpley, whose digital humanities tool Corpora (on which the NVS depends) has won the 2024 award for 'Best DH Tool' at the Digital Humanities Awards.

You can read more about the award here: http://dhawards.org/dhawards2024/results/

And you can read more about Corpora here: https://bptarpley.github.io/corpora/

Dr. Tarpley is Associate Research Scientist at Texas A&M's Center of Digital Humanities Research. His work in the digital humanities involves building data management tools that cater to humanities research. He holds a BA in Computer Science and a PhD in English, where his scholarship focuses on affect theory in contemporary literature. Everyone at the NVS is very grateful to Dr. Tarpley for his outstanding work on the project.

NVS Seminar: Dr. Aaron T. Pratt, 'Selling Your Play in Jacobean England', 16 April 2025

The New Variorum Shakespeare Seminar concluded its Spring Semester 2025 outings with a visit from Dr. Aaron T. Pratt, the Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center. Dr. Pratt spoke under the title 'Selling Your Play in Jacobean England'. A recording can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZjTvShPqCNwa2Ypqo-qicbon8zmb_oTn/view

Dr. Pratt's talk was preceded by a light buffet lunch, and followed the next day by an in-conversation-with breakfast event in which our Director Dr. Robert Stagg asked Dr. Pratt questions about his curatorial work, the Ransom Center, and his part in the identification of John Milton's copy of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles. Grateful thanks are due to the Texas A&M English Department, the Early Modern Studies Working Group, and the Glassock Center for Humanities Research for sponsoring the various elements of Dr. Pratt's visit, as well, of course, to Dr. Pratt himself.

New Variorum Shakespeare events @ SAA/RSA

The New Variorum Shakespeare will host two events at the Shakespeare Association of America and Renaissance Society of America conferences in Boston in March 2025.

At the SAA we will play host to 'Breakfast with the New Variorum Shakespeare' on Thursday 20 March from 8am to 9:30am in Liberty B (second floor), Sheraton Hotel. Please join us for food and drink and a chance to hear about the NVS from our Director Dr. Robert Stagg and one of our General Editors Prof. Eric Rasmussen. Free and open to all conference attendees; no further registration required. This event has been generously sponsored by the English Department at Texas A&M University.

At the RSA we will be the subject of a roundtable on Saturday 22 March from 2:30pm to 4:30pm in the Vermont Room (fifth floor), Marriott Copley Place. Speakers on the roundtable will include Prof. Lena Orlin (Georgetown), Prof. Paul Werstine (UWO), Dr. Katayoun Torabi (TAMU), Dr. Dorothy Todd (TAMU), and Dr. Kris May (TAMU). Come along to hear more about the NVS's history, future, and editorial and digital practices, as well as for a how-to guide to using the NVS in your research and teaching.

For more information about either of these events, please contact rstagg@tamu.edu