Dr. Albert Pionke, a world-renowned expert on Victorian literature, is the recipient of the 2024 Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award.
Pionke is the William and Margaret Going Endowed Professor of English as well as associate dean of general education and academic affairs with the College of Arts and Sciences.
“To say that I am both gratified and humbled to receive the 2024 Blackmon-Moody Award would be an understatement,” said Pionke. “Wondrously gobsmacked is much closer to how I would describe my reaction ever since being notified.”
A Victorian specialist with interests in cultural, imperial, intellectual, literary, and social history, as well as bibliography, pedagogy and the digital humanities, Pionke has authored four books and numerous articles and essays, as well as edited four additional books. He is also the sole editor of the Victorians Institute Journal, which invites submissions from both established and emerging scholars of Victorian and Edwardian literature and culture, and co-editor of Digital Studies in Language and Literature, an open-access peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary publication dedicated to advancing research on the intersection of digital technology, language and literature.
Working collaboratively with the Alabama Digital Humanities Center, Pionke is currently engaged in a project to digitize and make fully searchable all marginalia in Somerville College’s John Stuart Mill Library. The Mill Marginalia Online allows visitors to search through the marks and annotations with which James Mill, John Stuart Mill and others recorded their own experiences as readers.
“As universities increase their footprint in the digital humanities and as computing processes become a vital part of the humanities, Prof. Pionke has created a project that enables UA to take the lead in international digital humanities scholarship,” said Dr. David Deutsch, chair of the department of English in his nomination letter. “Prof. Pionke’s work has become a model reference for new digital archives.”
The digital collection currently includes 954 volumes, 92 marginalia types and 270 authors.
“The ‘specific achievement,’ Mill Marginalia Online, for which I am being recognized has grown over the last decade from a serendipitous side project into an intentional international collaboration with academics and technical professionals on three continents,” said Pionke. “But it was never an undertaking that I expected would receive any attention, much less attention in the form of a singular university award.
“That it has means that all I can say — to my collaborators, to my nominators, to The University of Alabama, and to the Blackmon family — is, thank you!”
The Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award, established by Frederick Moody Blackmon Sr. to honor the memory of his grandmother Sarah McCorckle Moody, acknowledges distinctive, extraordinary or timely contributions in the areas of research, product development, program implementation or published material. The accolade highlights the merit of the individual professor, the respective field of study, the enhancement of students’ education and the University as a whole.