News

Folio Futures: Editing Early Modern Plays for Tomorrow’s Audiences, 26 April 2024

In celebration of Texas A&M University’s designation as the host institution for the New Variorum Shakespeare (NVS) and in continued commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio, the symposium convened on 26 April 2024 to assess the history of and future possibilities for editing Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Traditionally, the editing of Shakespeare’s works has established the “best practices” that have been applied to early modern drama in general and provides the standards for digital humanities editions today. This symposium brought together scholars of Shakespeare’s works, digital humanists, and representatives from the NVS to discuss the challenges and opportunities of editing in the twenty-first century for new global audiences who read, perform, and teach in a variety of media.

Invited participants (including TAMU faculty, staff, and graduate students) convened into round table sessions. They presented brief formal remarks on the symposium’s topic and discussed the future of editing early modern texts to meet the evolving needs of teachers, students, and scholars around the world and across media. In addition, there were two longer keynote lectures—one delivered by an early-career scholar (Kristen Abbott Bennett) and another by an advanced scholar (Eric Rasmussen). This symposium was free and open to TAMU students, faculty, and staff, as well as to the general public. Beyond those who attended in person, Texas A&M University’s central position in modern Shakespearean scholarship and digital humanities were showcased to an anticipated global audience through synchronous live streaming. Learn more about the Symposium Here.

Making Shakespeare: Dinner, Screening, and Presentation, 25 April 2024

The Early Modern Studies Working Group and the Medieval Studies Working Group hosted a dinner and screening of the PBS documentary “Great Performances - Making Shakespeare: The First Folio” in the newly renovated Humanities Visualization Space on April 25th. After the screening, Eric Rasmussen shared his experiences of contributing to the documentary in his talk “Behind the Scenes of ‘Making Shakespeare.’” Learn more Here.

Folio Futures Digital Showcase, 25 April 2024

Three digital projects were featured in the Folio Futures Digital Showcase in the Humanities Visualization Space on April 25th. The NVS project was presented by Katayoun Torabi. Graduate Student Alexandra E. LaGrand presented Points Like A Man, a digital project she created that curates records of individual Shakespearean breeches performances by actresses from 1660 to 1900. Hannah Bowling, PhD candidate, presented her Blackspeare project, which collates educational material for early-career scholars invested in teaching Shakespeare and his afterlives through a premodern critical race theoretical framework in the format of an open-access educational resource (OER). Presenting alongside Hannah Bowling were two Texas A&M Student Researchers, Charlie Gopaul and Sydney Middleton, who have made significant contributions to the Blackspeare project. Learn more about the Digital Showcase HERE.

"Much Ado About Shakespeare: Department Of English Inherits Project 150 Years In The Making"

TAMU College of Arts and Sciences featured the NVS and the Folio Futures Symposium in a news article, titled "Much Ado About Shakespeare: Department Of English Inherits Project 150 Years In The Making." You can read the article Here.  

NVS Editors and Board Members to Attend SAA 2024

The Fifty-Second Annual Meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America (SAA) is being held in Portland, Oregon from Wednesday, 10 April to Saturday, 13 April 2024. NVS contributors scheduled to present include Roberta Barker (volume editor for NVS A Midsummer Night’s Dream) will participate in the Measure for Measure and Its Cultural Currency Seminar on April 11th; Valerie Wayne (NVS Board) will participate in the Early Modern Book History: The State of the Field Seminar on April 11th; Michael Stapleton (volume editor for NVS Julius Caesar) will present his digital exhibit, shakedsetc.org: Historic Shakespeare Editions! on April 12th; Robert Stagg (NVS PI) will participate in the Shakespeare’s Poems in Context(s) Seminar on April 12th; Paul Werstine (NVS General Editor and volume editor for NVS Romeo and Juliet) will participate in the Whither Memorial Reconstruction? Seminar on April 13th; Lara Hansen-Morse (volume editor for NVS Richard III) will participate in the Shakespeare and Textual Failure Seminar on April 13th; and Dorothy Todd (NVS Associate Digital Editor) will participate in the Sensorium of Early Modern Science Seminar on April 13th. See the full conference shedule Here. 

Dr. Maura Ives Appointed Director of CoDHR

After having served a successful year as Interim Director of the Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR), Dr. Ives has been appointed by the College of Arts and Sciences as CoDHR Director, effective immediately. 

Dr. Ives has been an advocate for Digital Humanities (DH) at Texas A&M for nearly two decades and is a major supporter of the NVS. She was instrumental in transitioning the project into the English Department, and thanks to her generous support, CoDHR has funded student researchers for transcription and ingestion error correction for the NVS over the past year. Student researchers this academic year are Jade Gooden (Anthropology, Undergraduate), Andrew Hoyt (Applied Mathematics with a Computer Science emphasis, Undergraduate), and Fernando Gonzalez Torres (Industrial Engineering, Undergraduate). Former student researchers include Mounika Balivada (CS, Graduate) and Shyam Prasad Nagulavancha (CS, Graduate). CoDHR will continue support for three student workers for the NVS through Summer 2024.  

The NVS Moves into English Department at A&M and Welcomes Two New Editors

The New Variorum Shakespeare project has officially moved into the English Department! The NVS dates back to 1871, when Horace Howard Furness published the first New Variorum Edition of Romeo and Juliet. Furness and his son continued working on editions until the MLA acquired the project in 1933, printing editions through 2020. In 2019 the MLA began the process of moving the project to A&M, where the Center of Digital Humanities Research has been printing new editions digitally, beginning with two open access digital editions of The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With plans to expand the project by executing 19 contracts with editorial teams for forthcoming editions of 16 plays, the NVS project has moved into the English Department and added two new digital editors to the team. Dr. Dorothy Todd and Dr. Kris May joined digital editor Dr. Katayoun Torabi as associate digital editors. Thanks to the efforts of the English Department, CoDHR, the NVS General Editors and Board of Directors, and Dr. Maura Ives (CoDHR Director), the NVS will remain in the English Department and plans to add a new principal investigator, starting in the Fall 2024 semester. More to come!