We’re very excited to write this particular update. That’s because after years of toil, we’ve finally completed the two volumes of Whitehead Essays and Articles (EA1 and EA2) and submitted them to Edinburgh University Press.

The two books together total about 430,000 words with about 2,800 footnotes or back-of-book notes. The 74 items contained in these two volumes include all of the essays and articles from The Organisation of Thought, The Aims of Education, and Essays in Science and Philosophy, as well as many papers that haven’t been republished in a century or more. About half a dozen papers have never been published at all. Moreover, editorial introductions provide helpful context for each essay. We think these two volumes are going to be a great resource and we’re really excited to get them into the hands of Whitehead scholars. We expect them to be published sometime in late 2025, but we will let everyone know as soon as we have a firmer date. The work is not done, as there remains a long typesetting and proofing process, but manuscript submission is a huge milestone.

With these two volumes out of the way, we are now able to focus exclusively on the work that is scoped in our three-year NEH grant, focusing first on the third volume of Harvard lectures (HL3). We are still in the stage of verifying the accuracy of transcribed student notes, which is scheduled to continue through the end of the year. The volume will then be edited and submitted to Edinburgh University Press by the end of 2025 for publication in 2026.

Meanwhile, our first volume of Whitehead’s monographs is also proceeding, containing Science and the Modern World, Religion in the Making, and Symbolism. We are still working on generating accurate electronic versions of all editions that appeared in Whitehead’s lifetime. The finished manuscript is not due to EUP until the end of 2026, so this process will likely take a backseat to work on HL3 through the end of the year.

Transcription of Whitehead’s correspondence is also moving ahead with the work of several Gonzaga grad students. They are generating the initial transcriptions that we will ultimately be checking and correcting whenever we begin to earnestly work on the correspondence volumes (likely not before 2027 at the earliest).

In other news, later this month we will also soon be submitting a volume of essays largely based on the 2022 HL2 conference, with a few new papers added in. It will be titled Whitehead at Harvard, 1925–1927, and like its predecessor, we think it ably demonstrates the depth and richness of the material to be found in the Harvard lectures.

Finally, Joe Petek, our Executive Editor, just recently participated in a conference at Harvard celebrating a hundred years since Whitehead’s first lecture there. It took place on September 27^th and included presentations by Petek and Editorial Advisory Board members Ronny Desmet and George R. Lucas, Jr., among others. More information on the conference can be found here (including an embedded archive of the livestream video for the entire conference).

The work of searching for, transcribing, and editing archival materials is time-consuming and costly. The NEH grant does require $50,000 in matching funds, so ongoing support of the community is welcome and needed. Even with this new grant, we still have decades of work ahead of us, and there is no guarantee that future NEH support will be forthcoming. If you are able to support our work with a donation, it would be much appreciated. Just follow this link.