Assistant Professor, English
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities Faculty Fellow
Adrian S. Wisnicki's principal research questions center on three areas:
- Digital Humanities Technology: How can state-of-the-art imaging technology, particularly multispectral imaging and processing technology, be applied to the study of literary manuscripts in order to expand what we understand about the composition history of those texts and the environmental conditions in which those text were produced and have been preserved?
- Digital Humanties Design: How do we design and develop DH projects in a manner that a) promotes robust and sustained use rather than just access, b) is transparent and replicable, and c) fosters the long-term preservation of underlying digital data?
- British Literary Studies/Non-Western History: How can study of the archive of exploration (e.g., diaries, letters, notes, hand-drawn maps and sketches) transform our understanding of the history and representation of intercultural encounter across the nineteenth-century globe?
A drive to answer these questions has led to work on two collaborative, international projects funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA)—the Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project and Livingstone Online—and a series of articles in Victorian Studies, Scottish Geographical Journal, History in Africa, and elsewhere on the major British explorers linked to the search for the source of the Nile.
This current work extends Dr. Wisnicki's prior research on global conspiracy in Victorian literature (monograph, Routledge) and an archival quest (successful) to find Thomas Pynchon's lost writings for Boeing Aircraft, and grows out of Dr. Wisnicki's experiences living abroad in Africa and the UK and collaborating with an array of specialists from around the world.
Dr. Wisnicki takes special pride in designing courses based on his research that are accessible to both undergraduate and graduate students, and in building DH projects that can be used and enjoyed by scholars and the public alike. His research has been the subject of full-length articles in The Washington Post, the New York Times, most UK nationals, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and has featured in a documentary broadcast by National Geographic (UK and Europe) and PBS (USA), The Lost Diary of Dr. Livingstone.
When away from the academy, Dr. Wisnicki likes spending time with his wife and daughters, walking, international travel, and listening to vintage 78 records.