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.
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ESTS 2025 Programme
For its twentieth annual conference, the European Society for Textual Scholarship is heading to Tours, the heart of the Loire Valley, from the 28th to the 30th of April 2025. The CESR – Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance at the University of Tours – welcomes the ESTS community to the birthplace of the French Renaissance to discuss Manuscripts in the Age of Print. The conference topic is inspired by the new ERC project PRIMA, which focuses on manuscript production, circulation, and consumption in Ancient Regime Europe.
The programme organised by the conference team includes various social activities, a workshop, a poster session, plenary lectures, and almost 50 oral presentations. It will also host the Board Meeting that welcomes the newly elected Board Members and Officers of the ESTS.
For more details, please visit the conference website here.
2025 Membership and Board Elections
The ESTS Board has received nominations from three strong candidates whose eligibility has been confirmed. Since the number of eligible candidates did not exceed the number of vacancies, we do not need to organise further elections. Instead, we are pleased to announce Beatrice Nava, Krista Stinne Greve Rasmussen, and Paulius V. Subačius as Board members and look forward to welcoming them to our next annual meeting.
In 2025, the ESTS conference is heading to Tours (France) from the 28th to the 30th of April. Registration will officially open by the end of January, but please note that all registered speakers must be paid-up members of the Society. The ESTS annual membership begins on the 1st of January (ending on the 31st of December). Please do not forget to renew your membership by transferring the 2025 fee to the Society’s bank account. For further information, please refer to the webpage https://textualscholarship.eu/membership/.
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.
2025 Board Elections
The call for nominations for the ESTS Board is open until Friday, 10 January 2025.
There are currently up to four vacancies on the Board, which we aim to fill before the start of our next annual conference (ESTS 2025 Tours, 28-30 April). More information about the election and the responsibilities of the Board can be found here: https://textualscholarship.eu/board/2025-board-elections/
Nominations should be sent to the Society’s Secretary, Elsa Pereira, by Friday, 10 January 2025, and include:
1) a brief Letter of Motivation confirming the willingness to stand for election and informing of the candidate’s background and intentions;
2) the name of another Member of the ESTS who supports the nomination;
3) proof of payment of the ESTS 2024 or the ESTS 2025 Membership fee.
All paid members of the ESTS are eligible to nominate themselves. Prospective candidates not currently counted as Members in Good Standing can still make themselves eligible by paying their membership fee before the deadline and attaching proof of payment to their nomination. For more information about general ESTS Membership, please refer to: https://textualscholarship.eu/membership/
To ensure the effective functioning of the Board, we particularly encourage applications from candidates who are committed to taking an active role on the Board.
ESTS 2025 CFP Deadline Extension
For those of you who were still hoping to submit an abstract for our upcoming ESTS 2025 conference (28-30 April in Tours, France), we have good news: the deadline has just been extended until 1 December 2024 AoE (Anywhere on Earth)!
This year’s theme is titled Manuscripts in the Age of Print, but as usual: abstracts on general textual scholarship and (digital) scholarly editing related themes are also welcome. You can find the CFP here at ESTS, or visit the conference’s official website for more information: https://cesr-ests2025.sciencesconf.org/?lang=en.
Please help us forward this information to anyone who may be interested, or who had thought they had run out of time to submit something.
We look forward to reading your submissions, and hope to see you in Tours!
Call for Papers: ESTS 2025
The twentieth annual conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship
For more details, including how to submit, visit the conference website here.
Venue: Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, University of Tours
Dates: 28-30 April 2025
Manuscripts in the Age of Print
For its twentieth annual conference, the ESTS invites everyone to the heart of the Val de Loire to discuss manuscripts, visit beautiful castles, and enjoy the quality of its wines.
The conference topic is inspired by the newly awarded ERC project PRIMA, which focuses on manuscript production, circulation, and consumption in Ancient Regime Europe.
Call for papers is out! Deadline for application on the 22nd of November 2024
Call for papers
The invention and relatively rapid dissemination of print in 15th- and 16th-century Western Europe did not replace manuscript culture. Whether in the form of draft manuscripts, letters and journals, note-taking, margin annotations, manuscript dissemination to escape control, or documentary records, the two media—print and manuscript—continued to coexist, intertwining and influencing each other in complex ways across the globe. In various regions, from Europe to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, manuscripts remained central to intellectual, cultural, and religious practices, often complementing or resisting the spread of print. Although recent scholarship has addressed this dynamic in specific contexts, manuscript production is still rarely considered as a distinct phenomenon in the early modern and modern periods across different cultures. This oversight neglects the profound impact manuscripts had on intellectual and cultural life worldwide, where they served as vessels for innovation, subversion, and the preservation of alternative voices. Moreover, it overlooks the materiality of manuscripts, which developed in specific local and regional contexts, conveying unique physical characteristics that shaped both the form and content of the works themselves.
The conference will explore these and other uses of manuscripts, welcoming contributions that address:
- Manuscript production and circulation during the early modern and modern periods
- Modern codicology and handwriting studies
- Print-to-manuscript and manuscript-to-print transitions and their coexistence
- Hybridization of the two media across different periods and regions
- Digital representation and analysis of such documents, including Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and quantitative codicology
- Study and assembling of public and private archives and libraries
- Scholarly editing of manuscripts and hybrid documents
- Textuality of texts transmitted through manuscripts
- Social networks and manuscript production (e.g., how social relationships, patronage, and collaboration among scribes, authors, and intellectuals influenced manuscript production and content)
- Cross-cultural manuscript traditions (e.g., interactions between different manuscript practices and production centers, including trade, diplomacy, and scholarly exchanges across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and other regions)
- Censorship and media circulation
We also welcome contributions that examine the global persistence of manuscript culture alongside print in the early modern and modern periods, taking into account the diversity of manuscript traditions worldwide. This includes exploring how manuscripts remained essential for knowledge transmission, record-keeping, and resisting dominant discourses, even as print technologies became increasingly prevalent.
Other topics such as the theory and practice of textual scholarship and digital textual scholarship will also be welcomed.
Contributions to the ESTS Conference may take the following forms:
Research Papers
Individual scholars are welcome to submit proposals for papers which may then be selected for panels. 20 minutes in length. Please supply an abstract of 250 words (max) + bio of 100 words (max).
Panel sessions
We also invite groups of scholars (3 speakers) to submit proposals for thematically linked research paper panels. 90 minutes in length (3 x 20 minute papers + Q&A). Please supply 3 abstracts of 150 words (max) each + bios of 100 words (max) for each speaker. The organisers will give preference to panels that reflect the diversity of our field.
Roundtable
We also invite groups of scholars (up to 6 speakers) to submit proposals for thematically linked roundtable sessions. 90 minutes in length (10 mins per speaker + Q&A). Please supply an overall abstract of 350 words (250 words) for the roundtable + bios of 100 words (max) for each speaker.
Poster sessions
We will run a poster session as part of the main conference program. Topics of interest include all topics listed above. The poster session is an opportunity for researchers to discuss their early/ongoing work with attendees. Please provide an abstract of a maximum 250 words.
Call for Papers Deadline Extension
The Call for Papers for the 2024 ESTS conference has been extended to the 1st June 2024. See below for details:
The nineteenth annual conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship will take place this year at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 2-4 October 2024. The Call for Papers can be read below.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Textual scholarship, artificial intelligence, corpora and intelligent editions
The nineteenth annual conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship (ESTS 2024)
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest 2-4 October 2024
CfP new deadline 1 June 2024
Although the deep learning-based AI revolution in human language processing began at least a decade ago, the emergence of generative AI through ChatGPT has far exceeded even experts’ expectations. Will AI make textual scholarship and our editing practices smarter? Will we be able to produce intelligent editions, in print or online, without the “help” of computers in the third decade of the 21st century?
In this context, it is worth considering the opportunities and threats of the computer as a cultural artefact in the production of scholarly editions, or in textual scholarship in general, from the Index Thomisticus (Roberto Busa) to Winchester Philology (Thorsten Ries) and the technology of the Semantic Web. The conference also addresses the role of corpora and corpus linguistic methods in the humanities, such as computer-based analysis and annotation of poetic texts.
Papers on the following or related topics are welcome:
- What is an Intelligent Edition?
- Who is the (digital) edition for?
- Can editions become more inclusive?
- What challenges is textual scholarship facing?
- Is there a future for print?
- Textual Scholarship and/as data
- Editorial Interfacing
- (Digital) Research Infrastructure and Future-proofing the Edition
- Editing and Deep Learning
- Corpus linguistics as Method and Tool
- Annotation and Commentary in the Age of Google
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:
- Scholarly editing, textual scholarship and/as research data – in the age of FAIR data management.
- Versioning, persistent identification, standardization, metadata schemes, data mining, search tools, search platforms. Named entity recognition, data enrichment, linked open data.
- Scholarly editions on display. Displaying scholarly editions.
- Arrangement of philological data on the printed surface of paper and on the computer displays, marking-up, sign systems in print and on the screen, relation of the visual arrangement of the source and the edition; lists, glossaries, annotations, marginalia and footnotes: what they disclose and what they hide. Digital interfaces, responsive design and visual stability/instability. Digitizing scholarly editions and printing digital ones.
- Rule based digital tools, automatic collation, data visualization; intertextuality detection, stylometry and authorship attribution: old and new methods. Deep learning (HTR, LLM), digital research infrastructures.
- Corpus linguistic methods and tools in poetic research: canonical and non-canonical poetic genres, characteristics of lyrical and narrative poetry (e.g. grammatical and semantic patterns, poetic styles and devices, literary periods), quantitative and qualitative methods.
- Electronic literature and the challenges of textual scholarship.
- Born-digital and digitized sources and the challenges of textual scholarship.
- The audiences of digital and printed editions.
Contributions to the ESTS Conference may take the following forms:
- Research Papers
Individual scholars are welcome to submit proposals for papers which may then be selected for
panels. 20 minutes in length. Please supply an abstract of 150 words (max) + bio of 100 words
(max). - Panel sessions
We also invite groups of scholars (3 speakers) to submit proposals for thematically linked research paper panels. 90 minutes in length (3 x 20 minute papers + q&a). Please supply 3 abstracts of 150 words (max) each + bios of 100 words (max) for each speaker. The organisers will give preference to panels that reflect the diversity of our field. - Roundtable
We also invite groups of scholars (up to 6 speakers) to submit proposals for thematically linked roundtable sessions. 90 minutes in length (10 mins per speaker + q&a). Please supply an overall abstract of 250 words (250 words) for the roundtable + bios of 100 words (max) for each speaker. - Poster sessions
We will run a poster session as part of the main conference program. Topics of interest include all topics listed above. The poster session is an opportunity for researchers to discuss their early/ongoing work with attendees. The posters presented are to be between sizes A3 and A2; Please provide an abstract of maximum 250 words.
Proposals are to be submitted on the registration link by 15 May 2024.
Proposals are to be reviewed by early June.
Further information
Should you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at the email address below:
dh-conference@btk.elte.hu
Organisers
The Organising Committee
ESTS – The European Society for Textual Scholarship
ELTE-DH – Department of Digital Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University
ELTE-MIKTI – Institute of Hungarian Literature and Cultural Studies, Eötvös Loránd University
ELTE-DiAGram – Research Group in Stylistics
New Publication on Genetic Criticism
Genetic Criticism in Motion. New Perspectives on Manuscript Studies
Edited by Sakari Katajamäki and Veijo Pulkkinen. Associate editor Tommi Dunderlin. SKS 2023.
Available as open access at: https://doi.org/10.21435/sflit.14
The book provides a cross-section of current international trends in genetic criticism, half a century after the birth of the discipline in Paris. The last two decades have witnessed an expansion of the field of study with new kinds of research objects and new forms of archival material, along with various kinds of interdisciplinary intersections and new theoretical perspectives.
The essays in this volume represent various European literary and scholarly traditions discussing creative processes from Polish poetry to French children’s literature, as well as topical issues such as born-digital literature and the application of forensic methodology to manuscript studies. The book is intended for scholars and students of literary criticism and textual scholarship, together with anyone interested in the working practices of writers, illustrators, and editors.
The book is divided into an introduction and four sections which explore different aspects of the discipline and various literary traditions in Europe:
Sakari Katajamäki and Veijo Pulkkinen: Introduction: The Widening Circles of Genetic Criticism
I Writing Technologies
Wim Van Mierlo: Genetic Criticism and Modern Palaeography: The Cultural Forms of Modern Literary Manuscripts
Veijo Pulkkinen: A Curious Thing: Typescripts and Genetic Criticism
II Digitality and Genetic Criticism
Dirk Van Hulle: The Logic of Versions in Born-Digital Literature
Paolo D’Iorio: The Genetic Edition of Nietzsche’s Work
III Draft Reading
Mateusz Antoniuk: Dying in Nine Ways: Genetic Criticism and the Proliferation of Variants
Julia Holter: The Translation Draft as Debt Negotiation Space: Underlying Forces of the Collaborative Translation of Vadim Kozovoï’s Hors de la colline (1984)
IV Multimodality
Claire Doquet and Solène Audebert-Poulet: Text and Illustrations as Producers of Meaning: A Genetic Study of a Children’s Illustrated Book
Hanna Karhu: Use of Folklore in a Writing Process of Poetry: Rewritings of Folk Songs and References to Oral Poetry in Otto Manninen’s Early Manuscripts
Printed review copies can be requested from the publisher.
ESTS 2024 Conference Announcement and CfP
The nineteenth annual conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship will take place this year at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 2-4 October 2024. The Call for Papers can be read below.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Textual scholarship, artificial intelligence, corpora and intelligent editions
The nineteenth annual conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship (ESTS 2024)
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest 2-4 October 2024
CfP deadline 1 June 2024
Although the deep learning-based AI revolution in human language processing began at least a decade ago, the emergence of generative AI through ChatGPT has far exceeded even experts’ expectations. Will AI make textual scholarship and our editing practices smarter? Will we be able to produce intelligent editions, in print or online, without the “help” of computers in the third decade of the 21st century?
In this context, it is worth considering the opportunities and threats of the computer as a cultural artefact in the production of scholarly editions, or in textual scholarship in general, from the Index Thomisticus (Roberto Busa) to Winchester Philology (Thorsten Ries) and the technology of the Semantic Web. The conference also addresses the role of corpora and corpus linguistic methods in the humanities, such as computer-based analysis and annotation of poetic texts.
Papers on the following or related topics are welcome:
- What is an Intelligent Edition?
- Who is the (digital) edition for?
- Can editions become more inclusive?
- What challenges is textual scholarship facing?
- Is there a future for print?
- Textual Scholarship and/as data
- Editorial Interfacing
- (Digital) Research Infrastructure and Future-proofing the Edition
- Editing and Deep Learning
- Corpus linguistics as Method and Tool
- Annotation and Commentary in the Age of Google
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:
- Scholarly editing, textual scholarship and/as research data – in the age of FAIR data management.
- Versioning, persistent identification, standardization, metadata schemes, data mining, search tools, search platforms. Named entity recognition, data enrichment, linked open data.
- Scholarly editions on display. Displaying scholarly editions.
- Arrangement of philological data on the printed surface of paper and on the computer displays, marking-up, sign systems in print and on the screen, relation of the visual arrangement of the source and the edition; lists, glossaries, annotations, marginalia and footnotes: what they disclose and what they hide. Digital interfaces, responsive design and visual stability/instability. Digitizing scholarly editions and printing digital ones.
- Rule based digital tools, automatic collation, data visualization; intertextuality detection, stylometry and authorship attribution: old and new methods. Deep learning (HTR, LLM), digital research infrastructures.
- Corpus linguistic methods and tools in poetic research: canonical and non-canonical poetic genres, characteristics of lyrical and narrative poetry (e.g. grammatical and semantic patterns, poetic styles and devices, literary periods), quantitative and qualitative methods.
- Electronic literature and the challenges of textual scholarship.
- Born-digital and digitized sources and the challenges of textual scholarship.
- The audiences of digital and printed editions.
Contributions to the ESTS Conference may take the following forms:
- Research Papers
Individual scholars are welcome to submit proposals for papers which may then be selected for
panels. 20 minutes in length. Please supply an abstract of 150 words (max) + bio of 100 words
(max). - Panel sessions
We also invite groups of scholars (3 speakers) to submit proposals for thematically linked research paper panels. 90 minutes in length (3 x 20 minute papers + q&a). Please supply 3 abstracts of 150 words (max) each + bios of 100 words (max) for each speaker. The organisers will give preference to panels that reflect the diversity of our field. - Roundtable
We also invite groups of scholars (up to 6 speakers) to submit proposals for thematically linked roundtable sessions. 90 minutes in length (10 mins per speaker + q&a). Please supply an overall abstract of 250 words (250 words) for the roundtable + bios of 100 words (max) for each speaker. - Poster sessions
We will run a poster session as part of the main conference program. Topics of interest include all topics listed above. The poster session is an opportunity for researchers to discuss their early/ongoing work with attendees. The posters presented are to be between sizes A3 and A2; Please provide an abstract of maximum 250 words.
Proposals are to be submitted on the registration link by 15 May 2024.
Proposals are to be reviewed by early June.
Further information
Should you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at the email address below:
dh-conference@btk.elte.hu
Organisers
The Organising Committee
ESTS – The European Society for Textual Scholarship
ELTE-DH – Department of Digital Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University
ELTE-MIKTI – Institute of Hungarian Literature and Cultural Studies, Eötvös Loránd University
ELTE-DiAGram – Research Group in Stylistics
ESTS 