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.
ESTS 