The ESTS is happy to announce a new issue of Variants, the peer-reviewed journal of The European Society for Textual Scholarship, published in Open Access via the OpenEdition platform at https://journals.openedition.org/variants. The theme of this issue, edited by Wout Dillen, Elsa Pereira, and Stefano Rosignoli, is “Authors and their Drafts in Context”. Unlike previous themed issues in our series, this title does not repeat the theme of a specific past ESTS conference that set the issue in motion and determined its call for papers. Instead, we picked this title because different combinations of “authors”, “drafts”, and their “contexts” appear in each of the essays, and because the title combines elements of the themes of two conferences that are featured in the current issue: ESTS 2023 (Canterbury, UK) and GENESIS 2023 (Taipei, Taiwan). For more context regarding the composition and publication of this issue, please refer to the Editors’ Preface.
We hope that you enjoy the contributions carefully compiled here and look forward to the publication of Variants 20, which we are preparing for publication in 2026 as we speak.
Variants
Call for papers for Variants
Participants of the 20th Annual Conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship are warmly encouraged to submit a full-paper version of their talk to Variants, the Journal of the European Society for Textual Scholarship. As always, scholars who did not attend the ESTS 2025 conference are also welcome to contribute to our journal.
Variants is a diamond Open Access journal that publishes high-quality research in textual scholarship and is maintained by and for the ESTS community. The journal always welcomes spontaneous submissions, but also puts out targeted calls for papers after relevant conferences to invite presenters to develop their talks into full-length articles for publication. Submissions that fall within the scope of the journal will be considered for the next available issue and included in our external single-blind peer review process.
Papers submitted in response to this call will be considered for Variants 20, scheduled for publication in 2026. We expect to receive the full papers at the end of this summer. The suggested length of submissions for Variants is approximately 7000 words, excluding references and appendices, and should be written in English. For more details, please check out our page with Information for Authors.
If you are interested in submitting a paper for Variants, please send an Expression of Interest to <variants@textualscholarship.eu> by Friday 6 June. In your message, please include:
- The name(s) of the author(s);
- A preliminary title for the contribution;
- A preliminary abstract of approximately 200 words; and
- At least two suggestions for possible reviewers.
If you are basing your contribution on your conference paper, you are free to repurpose the title and abstract you submitted to the conference to the extent that it is still relevant.
For the reviewers, please include their name, affiliation, and work email address. The reviewers you suggest must be relevant to your field and unlikely to decline an invitation for purely conflict of interest reasons. Please be aware that these reviewers are suggestions and that the editors of the issue may or may not decide to contact one or more of your suggestions in the review process.
The preliminary timeline for the publication process for this issue looks as follows:
- 6 June 2025: Expression of Interest
- 1 September 2025: Full paper deadline
- December 2025: conclusion of reviewing process
- Spring 2026: revision and copyediting stages
- Fall 2026: Publication
If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to send a message to <variants@textualscholarship.eu>.
We very much look forward to receiving your Expression of Interest and reading your full submissions!
On behalf of the Editorial Board of Variants,
Wout Dillen (General Editor)
Elsa Pereira (Associate Editor)
Stefano Rosignoli (Review Editor)
Variants 17-18 is out!
The ESTS is happy to announce a new issue of Variants, the peer-reviewed journal of The European Society for Textual Scholarship, published in Open Access via the OpenEdition platform at https://journals.openedition.org/variants. This double issue was edited by Wout Dillen, Elli Bleeker, and Stefano Rosignoli.
Variants 17–18 contains essays from the consecutive GENESIS and ESTS 2022 conferences as well as essays and reviews that have been submitted outside this context but fit beautifully within the joint themes of creative revision (GENESIS) and the history and study of ancient and modern holographs (ESTS). For more context regarding the composition and publication of this issue, please refer to the Editors’ Preface.
We hope that you enjoy the research presented in this volume. If you do, you may be happy to learn that the work on our next volume is already well underway. We have a number of essays accepted and under review that are expanded full-paper versions of research presented at last year’s GENESIS conference in Taipei, the ESTS conference in Canterbury, as well as some conference independent submissions. As such, Variants 19, which is scheduled for publication in 2025, is already shaping up to be another sizeable volume of relevant research that, like our current issue, we hope will provide plenty food for thought and help inspire spirited discussions in the field.
Variants 15: Call for Submissions
Dear Colleagues,
As the editors of Variants, the Journal of the European Society for Textual Scholarship, we would like to invite you to submit an essay for the fifteenth edition of our journal. Variants is an Open Access journal, published by OpenEdition publishers. The journal will carry the title of our most recent ESTS conference in Málaga: “Textual Scholarship in the 21st Century”, and we especially welcome extended versions of papers that were presented at the conference. But essays outside of the conference are welcome too, on any aspect of textual scholarship such as the theories and practices of (digital) scholarly editing, tool development, genetic criticism, codicology and palaeography, philology, manuscript studies, etc.
Full papers are due by Friday March 13, 2020. If you are interested in submitting an essay, please send an expression of interest by Friday January 10th, that includes a brief description of the essay’s topic (approximately 50 to 100 words) to variants@textualscholarship.eu. If you’re interested in submitting a review, please send an email to rosignoli.stefano@gmail.com by December 31st, motivating the publication of a review on a given edition or monograph on textual scholarship.
For authors who are comfortable writing in LaTeX, we have prepared a template that is available on GitHub (https://github.com/WoutDLN/variantx-for-authors) and as an Overleaf template (https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/submission-template-to-variants-for-authors/znsqffgrvshv). But we accept submissions, in .docx and its open source equivalents as well.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to forward them to us!
We look forward to receiving your submissions,
The Editorial board of Variants,
General Editor, Wout Dillen
Associate Editor, Elli Bleeker
Guest Editor, Laura Esteban Segura
Review Editor, Stefano Rosignoli
Variants 14
As was already announced on the Society’s Twitter and Facebook pages, we are happy to present the research community with a new issue of Variants, the annual, peer-reviewed journal of The European Society for Textual Scholarship!
Variants 14 is the second issue in the series that is published in Open Access via the OpenEdition platform (previously revues.org) at https://journals.openedition.org/variants. The issues was edited by Wim Van Mierlo, Wout Dillen, and Elli Bleeker – with Stefano Rosignoli functioning as the issue’s Review Editor.
With the publication of this issue, Wim has now officially resigned from his position as the General Editor of Variants, passing his duties on to Wout (as General Editor) and Elli (as Associate Editor). The new editors wish to thank Wim for his long and much appreciated service on the issue’s editorial board, and for his efforts (together with Aurélien Berra) to make the journal more accessible to the general public by moving it to an Open Access publication venue.
We look forward to presenting the issue at the 2019 edition of our annual conference (28-29 November 2017) – where we will also invite our Members (and other textual scholars and scholarly editors) to submit a paper for Variants 15. We hope to see you there!
Elections: Variants
Dear Members of the ESTS,
Owing to the transition of Variants to Open Access, the Board exceptionally extended the normal three-year term for the current Editor and Associate Editor of the journal. We are now seeking nominations for their replacement.
Please find the full Call for Nominations attached.
We look forward to receiving your applications!
Variants 12/13 is out!
ESTS is happy to announce that the new issue of Variants, the annual, peer-reviewed journal of The European Society for Textual Scholarship, is out now!
Variants 12/13 is the first issue in the series that is published in Open Access via the Revues.org platform at https://variants.revues.org/. Individuals and institutions can subscribe to the journal by taking out membership in the Society which entitles them to a printed copy of the journal and immediate online access to the newest volume. A one-year moratorium applies to volumes in Open Access, that has been waived for the current issue because the move to our new Open Access publisher has considerably delayed the issue’s publication.
The official re-launch of Variants will take place in Alcalá de Henares, at the 2017 edition of our annual conference (23-24 November 2017). We hope to see you there!
Variants 11
via Wim Van Mierlo
Variants 11 (2014) has just (at long last) been published. Members will receive a copy in the post, but non-members can order via Brill. For more information, please visit the issue’s official webpage.
Call for Papers: Variants 2015
Submissions are still being accepted for the next issue of Variants to be published in 2015. Please contact the editor (Wim Van Mierlo) with your inquiries. Submission guidelines and a list of previous issues can be found on our Journal page.
ESTS 