Gentleman Jack: The life and legacy of Anne Lister

Anne Lister - often described as the first modern lesbian - was a prolific diarist whose life story was told in the recent TV series, Gentleman Jack. Join a panel of experts to celebrate the opening of the University of York’s newest college, Anne Lister College. Find out about Anne Lister’s life and legacy, and explore the making of Gentleman Jack, with Laurie Shannon (Professor of English Literature at Northwestern and coordinator of the Anne Lister Society), Sally Wainwright (BAFTA award-winning television writer, producer, and director and creator of the TV series Gentleman Jack), and Gary Brannan (Keeper of Archives at the Borthwick, where a copy of Anne Lister's will is housed). The discussion will be chaired by Emma Barnett (main presenter of Woman's Hour and regular presenter on Newsnight).
About the speakers
Sally Wainwright is an English television writer, producer and director from Yorkshire who wrote and executive produced the 8-part drama, Gentleman Jack, about the extraordinary Yorkshire landowner diarist and traveller Anne Lister. Sally also directed 4 of the episodes. Gentleman Jack won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Drama Series in 2020, and Sally has written and executive produced the second series, which has just finished filming.
Sally is known for her creation of the drama series Scott & Bailey, followed by Last Tango in Halifax (which won BAFTA Best Drama Series 2013) and Happy Valley (BAFTA Best Drama Series/Broadcast Awards/Crime Thriller Awards/TV Choice Awards/ WGGB Awards/Edinburgh TV Awards 2015, and BAFTA Best Drama Series /RTS Judges Award 2017). Sally has won numerous awards for her writing, including the Best Drama Writer Award by BAFTA in 2013 for Last Tango in Halifax, and in 2015 and 2017 for Happy Valley. She also received the Best Drama Writer Award at the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards in 2015, and the RTS Best Drama Writer Award in 2017, again for Happy Valley. She was appointed an OBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to writing and television. She is currently writing and will Executive Produce the third series of Happy Valley and is showrunning and Executive Producing an original 8-part drama called The Ballad of Renegade Nell for Lookout Point/Disney+.
Sally is an alumna of the University of York and was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2016.
Laurie Shannon is the Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English Literature at Northwestern University (Chicago), where she teaches English literature and the history of ideas in the sixteenth century and beyond. She also serves as coordinator of The Anne Lister Society, an association dedicated to fostering research on Anne Lister’s life and writings. Shannon has begun research for a project on natural history in Anne Lister’s writings and is a contributor to the Anne Lister Diary Transcription Project (an initiative of the West Yorkshire Archive Service, Halifax).
Across her career, Shannon earned university awards for distinguished undergraduate teaching and for distinguished mentoring of PhD students; her last book (The Accommodated Animal, on Shakespeare and the species concept) was honoured as the year’s best contribution to English Renaissance literary studies. She has held major US fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; most recently she was a visiting Fellow at The Warburg Institute / School of Advanced Study in London. She has served as a Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America, as well as two terms as chair of the English Department at Northwestern (2012-19).
Gary Brannan is Keeper of Archives at the Borthwick Institute for Archives. He has strategic oversight and leadership over operations, including archives, rare books and the strategic partnership with York Minster Library and the University's Art Collection. He’s involved in lots of projects - digitisation, social media, web development, research services and lots more. Gary qualified as an Archivist in 2006 and went on to be Archivist at West Yorkshire Archive Service until 2012, when he became their E Services and Offsite Services Co-ordinator. He is also an alumnus of the University of York, where he studied History between 2001-2004 and was Archives Trainee 2004-2005.