January 2023
The New Variorum Shakespeare project welcomes a new student researcher to the team for this academic semester, Mounika Balivada (CS, Graduate), and welcomes back Jade Gooden (Anthropology, Undergraduate).
December 2022
Lena Cowen Orlin’s The Private Life of William Shakespeare wins the Roland Bainton Prize for Literature
The Private Life of William Shakespeare, by Lena Cowen Orlin, was awarded the Roland Bainton Prize for Literature by the Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference. The book, which “sets a new standard for literary biography,” presents a new understanding of Shakespeare underpinned by detailed archival research into Warwickshire life and offers a rich account of everyday life in early modern Stratford. The book is available Here in hardcover and ebook formats.
November 2022
Eminent Scholar Lecture: The Private Life of William Shakespeare
Dr. Lena Cowen Orlin, Professor of English at Georgetown University and NVS Board Chair, will give a talk on “The Private Life of William Shakespeare,” as part of the 2022 Eminent Scholar Lecture series hosted by The Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M. Dr. Orlin is one of ten Hagler Fellows selected from among top scholars who have distinguished themselves through outstanding professional accomplishments or significant recognition. Her lecture will take place at the MSC Bethancourt Ballroom on Monday, November 7th at 4:30 pm.
October 2022
The New Variorum Shakespeare project welcomes two new student researchers to the team for this academic semester: Shyam Prasad Nagulavancha (CS, Graduate) and Jade Gooden (Anthropology, Undergraduate).
October 2022
Speaking with Shakespeare interviews CoDHR’s Dr. Laura Mandell
Thomas Dabbs, host of “Speaking with Shakespeare,” interviews Dr. Laura Mandell, Director of Texas A&M University’s Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR) and PI for the New Variorum Shakespeare (NVS) project. Watch the full interview here.
September 2022
Turning the Page
The NVS team is now assisting volume editors build NVS editions digitally–start to finish–using the back-end tools that Dr. Bryan Tarpley developed for the project. One of the tools, featured above, is a transcription tool that will help editors create plain text transcriptions of all witnesses (all of the important editions of any given play) for each NVS volume. Editions now in production include Richard III, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Antony and Cleopatra (updates). With 12 additional editions in the production queue, the NVS team has a full agenda. More updates to come!
August 2022
The Digital NVS Featured in The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Interface
CoDHR is delighted to announce the publication of The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Interface, edited By Clifford Werier and Paul Budra, which includes a book chapter authored by Drs. Mandell, Burdick, Tarpley, and Torabi, titled “Using Data and Design to Bring the New Variorum Shakespeare Online.” The book is available Here beginning August 24, 2022.
July 2022
The Digital NVS at ISC
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Laura Mandell was invited to present the digital NVS at the prestigious International Shakespeare Conference this summer. This is an international gathering of leading Shakespeare scholars who meet every two years to present their research and to participate in seminars. Attendance is by invitation only.
April 2022
Presenting the NVS at RSA and SAA
The NVS team at CoDHR has had the opportunity to present the digital edition of the New Variorum Shakespeare at some of the top conferences around the world, including the Renaissance Society of America in Dublin and the Shakespeare Association of America in Jacksonville this spring. Additionally, Dr. Laura Mandell and Dr. Katayoun Torabi will host a workshop titled “Engaging Students and Empowering Research with the Digital NVS” at the Shakespeare Association of America Conference in 2023, which will feature teaching modules developed for a Shakespeare course that utilizes the NVS. These modules, which were created as part of the research needed by Dr. Anne Burdick (NVS Designer) and Dr. Bryan Tarpley (NVS Developer) to design and program the NVS, are also featured in a forthcoming book chapter that Drs. Mandell, Burdick, Tarpley, and Torabi authored, titled “Using Data and Design to Bring the New Variorum Shakespeare Online” in The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Interface .
November 2021
The Digital NVS: Looking Ahead
Now that we’ve launched the digital editions of The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the 11th World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore, we are looking forward to the next phase of the project, which involves making Corpora available to new NVS editors who wish to create NVS editions digitally–start to finish–using the web application’s many features. We are currently working on contracting with new volume editors in order to add sixteen additional NVS editions to the site!
September 2021
Presenting the NVS at the WSB Mini-Symposium
The NVS team has had the pleasure of presenting the newly-launched digital NVS at the World Shakespeare Bibliography Mini-Symposium on September 22, 2021, and has plans to publicize the site at various conferences in the coming year. Stay tuned!
July 2021
The Digital NVS Officially Launched
We are happy to announce that we’ve just successfully launched the digital NVS featuring digital versions of The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the 11th World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore. The conference runs from July 18 to July 24; however, our virtual exhibit which includes our logos, video, website, and a feedback webform will be on display at the virtual NVS booth through June 30, 2022 (feel free to look at the website, video, and web form at the above links).
Many thanks to the NVS Board, the General Editors, and the design team for making excellent progress on this project despite the many challenges we faced in 2020 and continue to face this year.
Also, special thanks to Kayley Hart and Lindsey Jones, graduate students in the English Department at Texas A&M, for working with the NVS design team to prepare the digital NVS for publication!
June 2021
Presenting the Digital NVS at DHSI and Day of DH
As the editorial and governance center of the New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare (NVS) series project, Texas A&M University’s Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR) has plans to publish the first two digital editions of the New Variorum Shakespeare by July 2021 at the 11th World Shakespeare Congress in Singapore. Each edition will contain the complete text of each play along with a full collation of textual notes from the earliest editions to the present, including extensive previous commentary.
Working ahead of the official July launch, the NVS team has presented its work on the project at the Day of DH conference in April and at DHSI in June. Please see the following video for more information about the digital NVS.
May 2021
Building the Digital NVS
The NVS design team at CoDHR has made significant progress on improving the digital NVS’s functionality and performance. The site is now in alpha and can be accessed Here. The design team is on schedule to launch the digital NVS in July 2021 at the 11th World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore.
Also, special thanks to Dr. Julia Flanders (Professor of the Practice in English, Director of the Digital Scholarship Group in the Northeastern University Library, and NVS Board Member) for all of the work she has done to XML-encode the NVS edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and to help prepare the volume for online publication. For a full list of contributors to this project, please visit the NVS Contributors page.
April 2021
2021-2022 Hagler Institute for Advanced Study Graduate Student Fellow
CoDHR welcomes doctoral student Lindsey Jones as the the new 2021-2022 Hagler Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS) Graduate Student Fellow. She will conduct research with Dr. Lena Cowen Orlin, a 2020-2021 HIAS Fellow (see announcement about the 2020-2021 Class of Hagler Fellows), by assisting Dr. Orlin with research projects on the authorial voice in historical documents such as witness depositions in law courts, wills, probate inventories, and other genres of “pragmatic” writing. Additionally, Lindsey will collaborate with the Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR) on its New Variorum Edition Shakespeare (NVS) project.
March 2021
Lena Cowen Orlin named 2020-21 Hagler Fellow at TAMU
The Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University announces Lena Cowen Orlin, Professor of English, Georgetown University, as one of its ten Hagler Fellows for its Class of 2020-21. Fellows are selected from among top scholars who have distinguished themselves through outstanding professional accomplishments or significant recognition.
Dr. Orlin is a highly cited expert on private domestic life during the Renaissance and specializes in the works of Shakespeare. Orlin serves on the editorial boards for the journals Shakespeare Studies and Shakespeare Survey and for the publication series Oxford Shakespeare Topics and Arden Shakespeare State of Play.
During the fellowship, Dr. Orlin will be conducting research with the help of two graduate students from the College of Liberal Arts. Additionally, she will collaborate with faculty and students from the College of Liberal Arts and University Libraries as well as the Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR) on its New Variorum Edition Shakespeare (NVS) project to whom the Modern Language Association (MLA) awarded publishing rights, see the MLA announcement. As chair of the NVS Board, Dr. Orlin will work with CoDHR on the transition from previously published in print editions to new digital editions in the NVS series.
The Hagler Institute for Advanced Study was established in December 2010 by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents to build on the growing academic reputation of Texas A&M and to provide a framework to attract top scholars from throughout the nation and abroad for appointments of up to a year. The selection of Hagler Fellows initiates with faculty nominations of National Academies and Nobel Prize-caliber scholars who align with existing strengths and ambitions of the University.
Go to Texas A&M Hagler Institute Announces 2020-21 Hagler Fellows, Distinguished Lecturer for the complete list of fellows and lecturer.
February 2021
Designing the Digital New Variorum Shakespeare
Since the Modern Language Association’s Executive Council awarded the Center of Digital Humanities Research at Texas A&M a generous grant to publish NVS editions online, the NVS design team has been hard at work to create the front- and back-ends of Corpora, the web application that will make publishing NVS volumes online and open access possible. The design team, which includes Dr. Laura Mandell (Director of CoDHR and NVS PI), Dr. Anne Burdick (Research Professor in the School of Design at the University of Technology Sydney and NVS front end designer), Dr. Bryan Tarpley (Lead Software Developer at CoDHR and inventor of Corpora), and Dr. Katayoun Torabi (NVS Project Manager) have been meeting twice monthly to build and improve the site’s performance in order to launch the digital NVS in July 2021 at the 11th World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore.
November 2019
Digital Future for New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare to be with CoDHR
The College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University (TAMU) announces that its Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR) is the new home of the New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare (NVS) series from the Modern Language Association (MLA). Texas A&M will make the NVS editions, works that collate notes by various editors and commentators of the texts, openly available to scholars on a richly resourced, fully networked digital platform and will become the editorial and governance center for the project, under the direction of Laura Mandell, Professor of English and CoDHR Director. MLA is providing funds for the project transition.
“Collaborating with Texas A&M’s internationally renowned World Shakespeare Bibliography, we can publish Shakespeare’s plays as part of a richly networked digital environment. We would like to be the Folger of the West,” said Dr. Mandell.
Started in 1860 and the only reference editions of their kind, editions in the NVS series offer not only complete text of Shakespeare’s plays but also centuries of scholarly opinion and interpretation, dating, sources, emendations to stage history, and influential interpretations of particular words. Through the resources of the Center of Digital Humanities Research at TAMU, new editions previously published in print will be freely available online and new digital editions in the series will continue to be produced, making them accessible to a wider audience of readers, scholars, directors, and performers across the globe. New visualization tools and interface design will enable new forms of digital scholarly interpretation to emerge, now and well into the future.
TAMU, which is already home to the editorial offices of the World Shakespeare Bibliography and owner of a copy of the second folio (the 1632 edition of the collected plays of William Shakespeare), is honored to have an opportunity to use its expertise to make the NVS editions widely accessible to researchers and students.
Read more about the NVS series from the MLA here.
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