ALS Third Meeting, 2024
PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE THIRD ANNE LISTER SOCIETY MEETING in spring 2024!
Following on our inaugural sessions in April 2022 and our second meeting in 2023, the Anne Lister Society will reconvene for its third conference, on 5-6 April, 2024, in Halifax, U.K. For details about registration, please email Prof. Laurie Shannon.
Launched in the summer of 2020, the Society aims to foster knowledge of Lister’s extraordinary life and writings and to interpret her legacy. It seeks to nourish conversation among scholars and to build conversations between scholars and Lister’s wider readership and expanding network of invested enthusiasts. By encouraging research and greater understanding of her way of inhabiting the world, the Society aims to establish and sustain Anne Lister’s place — both in the cultural tradition and for the future.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM, 2024
Our meeting is planned to take place in person in Halifax -- “Providence willing.” We recognize uncertainties remain about travel and other circumstances, but we adopt Anne Lister’s advice to “bel[ieve] all th[in]gs n[o]t unreasonab[le] + hope all th[in]gs n[o]t imposs[ible]” (2 August 1833). PLEASE NOTE that some details of the schedule could change.
FRIDAY, 5 APRIL
Welcome (10:15-10:20)
Laurie Shannon, co-founder and convener of The Anne Lister Society
Keynote One (10:20-11:20)
Session chair, Laurie Shannon
The Theology of Anne Lister and Human Sexuality”
Rev. Jane Finn, The Church in Wales, UK
Panel One (11:35-12:55) - Anne Lister, the Ladies of Llangollen, and the Brontës
Panel chair, Anna Clark, University of Minnesota, US
“Anne Lister and the Ladies of Llangollen: Sharing Women’s Stories in Heritage Settings”
Angela Clare, Shibden Hall, UK
“Narrating the Power of the Queer Mentor: A Reading of Anne Lister & Eliza Raine and Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (1853)”
Kyriana Lynch, University of Notre Dame, US
“Rights and Restrictions in Marriage: Anne Lister, Ann Walker, and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”
Jill Liddington, University of Leeds, UK
ALS / WYAS Workshop (2:10-3:30) - Reusing Anne: The Ins and Outs of Publication Requests
Ruth Cummins, West Yorkshire Archive Service, UK
Stefanie Davidson, West Yorkshire Archive Service, UK
Keynote Roundtable (3:45-5:00): Shepherding Anne Lister's Journal into Circulation: Manuscript, Transcription, Print
Moderator, Joan Burda, attorney and WYAS transcriber, US
Helena Whitbread MBE, Independent Researcher, UK
Daniel Sudron, North Yorkshire County Record Office, UK
Jenny Wood, West Yorkshire Archive Service, UK
Laurie Shannon, Northwestern University, US
The Anne Lister Society RECEPTION (5:30-7:00pm at the Calderdale Industrial Museum; ticketed)
SATURDAY, 6 APRIL
Panel Two (10:10-11:35) - Eliza, Maria, Ann: Diverse Relations
Panel chair, Alison Deadman, East Tennessee State University, US
“Anne Lister’s Music Books: A Soundtrack to First Love”
Lisa Timbs, Independent Researcher, UK
“The Niece, the Daughter, the Lover, the Step-Parent? Familial Queerness in Anne Lister’s Worldmaking”
Jann Kraus, University of Fribourg, CH
“‘Getting into her old low way’: Ann Walker’s Recurring Struggles with Mental Health”
Leila Straub, Independent Researcher, CH
Panel Three (11:45-1:15) - Anne Lister and the Arts of Passage
Panel chair, Trish Bredar, Northwestern University, US
“‘A vagabond on the face of the earth’ – Anne Lister and the Sense of Belonging in Paris”
Susanne Piotrowski, Independent Researcher, DE
“Queer Wanderings: The Mountaineering of Anne Lister, 1822-1834”
Molly Regan, University of York, UK
“Infectious Itineraries: The Impact of the Cholera and Covid-19 Pandemics on Anne Lister and Lister Enthusiasts’ Travel Behaviours in Britain”
Sarah Wingrove, University of Surrey, UK
“The Art of the Passage: In Which Several Raines Make Divers Sea Crossings, Facing Mutiny, Captivity, Boredom, and Death”
Carol Adlam, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Panel Four (2:30-3:50) - Lister’s Textual Husbandry: Reader, Indexer, and Encoder
Panel chair, Sophie Coulombeau, University of York, UK
“‘I was always fond of books. My library is one of my very greatest pleasures’ (1803): Lister’s Book Borrowing and Book Collecting, 1803-1840”
Amy Solomons, University of Liverpool and the National Trust, UK
“‘All the world might see it and be nothing the wiser’: Revealing the Private Purposes of Lister’s Crypthand Alphabets 1806-1823”
Constance Halstead, University of York, UK
“‘Dispensary of the soul’: Anne Lister’s Commonplace Books and Information Management Practices”
Charley Matthews, University of Edinburgh, UK