Adrian S. Wisnicki

Notable Publications

• One More Voice (2020-)
• Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom (2020-)
• Fieldwork of Empire (2019)
• Livingstone Online (2013-2020)
• Livingstone Online Critical Editions (2017-2020)
• Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project (2011-2019)

Research

Adrian Wisnicki's research encompasses several areas. These include Victorian literature, Anglophone literature, the history of empire and colonialism, and the digital humanities (DH). He uses his projects to promote social and racial justice and to support the work of underserved academic populations, including contingent faculty, faculty of color, and graduate students. His projects explore the representation of race and intercultural encounter in the context of empire, with a particular emphasis on archival materials. He is also deeply interested in examining the impact of artificial intelligence on the contemporary academy.

To develop his research, Wisnicki draws on a wide range of networks, with collaborations involving scholars in the Western Europe, East and Southern Africa, and the United States. To date, he has received nearly one million dollars in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Modern Humanities Research Association, and other organizations. He has also lectured widely on his work and held visiting or honorary affiliations with universities such as Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Glasgow, and the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour.

Teaching

Wisnicki's pedagogy fosters multicultural awareness by decentering Anglo-European perspectives and by promoting literature and scholarship from around the world. His courses also challenge students to engage critically with cutting-edge technologies, including generative AI. Over his twenty-year career as a teacher, he has worked with a diverse range of students across the US and in Britain. In the classroom, Wisnicki prioritizes community building, an ethos of care, and student-centered education.

As one of the co-founders of Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom (UVC), Wisnicki is also interested in shaping disciplinary conversations about the role of race in literature and in promoting structural change in higher education. Along with the other founding developers (Pearl Chaozon Bauer, Ryan Fong, Sophia Hsu), Wisnicki has lectured and presented widely on the project. Recent UVC distinctions include an invitation from Victorian Studies to edit a special forum on the project (2022), a keynote lecture for the Victorian Popular Fiction Association (2023), and an upcoming two-day symposium on UVC at the University of Florida (2024).

Service

Wisnicki's service roles reflect his commitment to academic community building. He sits on the advisory boards of the British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) and the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA), thereby bringing a transatlantic approach to disciplinary development. He is also currently lead organizer for Britain on behalf of BAVS for EVENT 2024, a “flightless” international conference that will bring together Victorianists around the world.

As UNL's DH Program Coordinator, Wisnicki has played an significant role in developing the university’s digital humanities (DH) curriculum, advising DH students, and fostering inclusiveness in the DH community. Thie work includes his “Uncommon DH Critic” lecture series, which has brought to campus leading DH scholars such as Roopika Risam, Miriam Posner, Kim Gallon, Lauren Klein, and Natalie Houston. Wisnicki’s local service also includes contributions to governance, policy review, and project evaluation for the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH).

Alongside such service, Wisnicki assists Dino Felluga (Purdue University) in the development of COVE, a non-profit teaching and publishing platform that seeks to offer a low-cost, self-sustaining, scholar-led alternative to comparable ventures by Gale, Adam Matthew, and other commercial publishers.