Marshall Scholar examines the intersection of books, literature and politics

December 18, 2025
Jack Wallace standing in the front porch of a row of Lawn rooms

Jack Wallace says artificial intelligence can help librarians process historical handwriting and digital scans to make manuscripts searchable and accessible online. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

Jack Wallace explores books as both literature and artifacts. Now he’ll take his interests to the United Kingdom.

Wallace, of Winchester, was selected Dec. 9 as the University of Virginia’s 18th Marshall Scholar.  He will pursue a master’s degree in book history at the Institute for English Studies in London and a master’s in English at the University of Warwick in Coventry.  

The British Parliament established the Marshall Scholarship in 1953 as a gesture of gratitude for American support during Europe’s postwar recovery. It honors former U.S. Secretary of State General George C. Marshall. This year, 43 scholarships were awarded from among 1,023 applications.

Wallace’s research pursuits encompass literature, printing and politics.

“I am studying the intersections of material culture and literary culture and how those will affect our future alongside rapid technological developments,” said Wallace, who is majoring in English at UVA. “Increasingly, archival institutions have come under political scrutiny or have been the subject of cyberattacks. Understanding how publishing and literacy have interacted with political and legal systems in the U.K. will help me understand the counterpart in the United States.”

Wallace also looks at artificial intelligence. 

“Artificial intelligence will be an incredible tool for librarians and researchers, because it can process historical handwriting and digital scans to make manuscripts searchable and accessible online,” Wallace said. “The automation of digitization efforts is the next frontier of librarianship, and in the near future, it may be possible for a university library to have all of its manuscript holdings digitized and available online with a fraction of the manual effort.”

Wallace predicts a “reckoning will have to happen regarding the purpose of a liberal education in a society inundated with AI” and argued that humans need to be part of the process.

“At some point, people will grow tired of a world that is artificial, untrustworthy or shallow,” Wallace said. “There is certainly a place for technological development and modernization, but everything must exist in balance, so critical thinking and literacy are antidotes for mistrust that technology can harbor.”

Discovery and Innovation: Daily research. Life-changing results.
Discovery and Innovation: Daily research. Life-changing results.

Wallace, a first-generation college student, is graduating in three years. He has worked at the Special Collections Library, as part of the Jefferson’s University: Early Life Project, 1819-1870; as a program assistant at the Rare Book School; and as a Rotunda Ambassador.

English professor Elizabeth Fowler taught Wallace medieval literature.

“He’s ‘Mr. Curious,’ an intrepid explorer of archives, willing to go out on a limb and unafraid to let others see his limits so he can have help breaching them,” Fowler wrote. “His good old American humility and orientation toward literary study that illuminates the lives of those who suffer will bring the best qualities of our University and our commonwealth to connect with our allies across the Atlantic.”

“Jack is the most understated student who has applied for the Marshall – or any other competitive fellowship – in at least the last decade,” Andrus G. Ashoo, director of the Office of Citizen Scholar Development, said. “In addition to being hard-working, he is genuinely curious about almost anything – especially with regard to literature – and extremely humble. It is a joy to work with a student who exudes almost no entitlement and boundless gratitude. I am very proud to know him, and I am delighted imagining how the Marshall cohort will greatly benefit from his presence.”

Michael F. Suarez, director of the Rare Book School, describes Wallace as an “academic risk-taker.”

“Jack is intellectually adventurous, taking classes outside of his comfort zone and embracing difficulty,” Suarez said. “He is the only undergraduate who ever asked to take my graduate seminar. He takes challenging classes outside his major because he is driven to know, because he understands what a liberal arts education is for.”

Wallace, a fourth-degree black belt in  taekwondo, has sung in the University Singers and Chamber Singers and recently toured with them in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He’s been a member of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, and was a first-year support officer for the Honor Committee, and a representative of the College of Arts & Sciences in his second year. He is co-chair of the Echols Ambassadors.

Wallace said studying in England is important to his research.

“The ability to get an international perspective and learn from English scholars before coming back to the States is going to increase the depth and breadth of the scholarly work I hope to do,” he said. “I believe that books and libraries will be integral to institutional trust and the future of education worldwide, and I hope to teach, so the Marshall will be a critical step toward that.”

Media Contacts

Matt Kelly

University News Associate Office of University Communications

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