Adrian S. Wisnicki

Adrian S. Wisnicki is a Faculty Fellow of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities and the Digital Humanities Program Coordinator in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He teaches courses in several areas including:

• Victorian literature and culture
• colonial and postcolonial studies
• contemporary African literature
• global literature
• digital humanities
• technology and contemporary culture
• literature of the ancient world

He currently leads One More Voice, a new digital humanities initiative, that seeks to recover non-European contributions from nineteenth-century British imperial and colonial archives. He is also the director of Livingstone Online, a major peer-reviewed digital humanities project, and of a related project, the Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project. The first phase of the latter project was featured in the documentary The Lost Diary of David Livingstone (2013–14) (currently available on Amazon or see trailer) and was selected by the NEH in 2015 as one of 50 projects that represent “the best of the work the NEH has funded over the last 50 years.”

Professor Wisnicki’s research applies interdisciplinary analysis, postcolonial theory, and digital humanities methodologies to explore the influence that non-western individuals and cultural contexts exerted on the production of Victorian imperial and colonial literary discourse. This approach moves critical focus away from biographies and narrative histories of iconic explorers and canonical writers, and instead delves into nineteenth-century regional histories and intercultural interactions around the globe.

Professor Wisnicki is also very invested in supporting Victorian studies at the national and international levels. He serves on the executive committees of the British Association of Victorian Studies (BAVS) and the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA). He is also an active member of the advisory board of COVE (Central Online Victorian Educator), a scholar-driven, open access, and open source publishing platform directed by Dino Felluga (Purdue University) that offers Victorianist teachers and students a robust, but low-barrier opportunity to incorporate digital humanities methodologies into their research.

Professor Wisnicki’s digital humanities courses explore the impact of the internet, AI, and other technologies on the modern day world; his students study topics such as surveillance, disinformation, the #MeToo movement, the rise of the big five tech companies (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft), and the impact of social media on the current political landscape. Other courses promote global awareness among Professor Wisnicki’s students. Such courses encourage students to reflect on intercultural dynamics around the nineteenth-century globe or introduce students to modern writers such as Jean Rhys, V.S. Naipaul, Chigozie Obioma, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Zoe Wicomb, Naguib Mahfouz, Hanan al-Shaykh, Arundhati Roy, and Han Kang.

Selected Publications and Grants

Monographs

Fieldwork of Empire, 1840–1900: Intercultural Dynamics in the Production of British Colonial Literature. New York; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2019. Author site.

Conspiracy, Revolution, and Terrorism from Victorian Fiction to the Modern Novel. New York; London: Routledge, 2008.

Major Peer-Reviewed Digital Humanities Publications

Director: Livingstone's Missionary Travels Manuscript (1857) – A Critical Edition. J. Livingstone, joint director. First edition. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2019. Peer reviewed by the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions, 2020.

Director: Livingstone's Final Manuscripts (1865–1873) – Diaries, Journals, Notebooks, and Maps – A Critical Edition. M. Ward, joint director. First edition. College Park, MD: University of Maryland Libraries, 2018. Peer reviewed by the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions, 2019.

Director: Livingstone’s Manuscripts in South Africa (1843–1872) – A Critical Edition. J. McDonald, joint director. First edition. College Park, MD: University of Maryland Libraries, 2018. Peer reviewed by the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions, 2019.

Director: Livingstone’s 1870 Field Diary and Select 1870–1871 Manuscripts – A Multispectral Critical Edition. M. Ward, co-director. First edition. College Park, MD: University of Maryland Libraries, 2017. Peer reviewed by the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions, 2019. Peer reviewed by NINES, 2018.

Director: Livingstone Online – Illuminating Imperial Exploration. M. Ward, co-director. New version, second edition. College Park, MD: University of Maryland Libraries, 2017. Second edition peer reviewed by the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions, 2019. First edition peer reviewed by NINES, 2016.

Director: Livingstone’s 1871 Field Diary – A Multispectral Critical Edition. First edition and corrections. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Digital Library, 2012–2013. Updated version. College Park: University of Maryland Libraries, 2017. Peer reviewed by NINES, 2012.

Peer-Reviewed National Grants

PI: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Grant ($275,000) – NEH, 2013–17

PI: Scholarly Translations and Editions Grant ($158,605) – NEH, 2013–17

PI: Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant ($50,000) – NEH, 2010–11