This article discusses the installation of commemorative plaques for Anne Lister at Shibden Hall and at the church in York where she and Ann Walker solemnized their marriage. The focus of the article is on the discussions and controversies around how to describe Lister – whether using the word “lesbian” was anachronistic, or whether omitting it was erasure; whether to describe her with language that implied transmasculinity or gender nonconformity.
sexual/romantic desire
This tag is used broadly when there is discussion of erotic or romantic desire between women, whether or not specific activities are mentioned.
LHMP entry
This article is a detailed account of Lister’s (and Walker’s) last journey in the Caucasus. The author makes regular comparisons to the experiences she and her wife had in retracing the trip. There are a great many interesting ethnographic details, but the content is outside the scope of the Project, except in its central character.
This article analyzes Lister’s records in the context of travel writing. Although the desire to travel and its accomplishment were a significant part of Lister’s identity, my summary is going to be confined largely to discussions of her trip to Wales and the visit to Plas Newydd, the home of the Ladies of Llangollen.
This article, written by the Collections Manager for Shibden Hall, describes the history of the building, the changes that Lister made to it, and the site’s explosion of visitor interest in the wake of the TV series Gentleman Jack, which created some interesting curatorial dilemmas. Once again, I won’t be summarizing in detail, but will touch on a few topics of particular interest.
This interesting article traces the history of the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society, other similar civic organizations, Lister’s participation in those organizations, and gender issues around membership and activity.
As this article focuses on Lister’s political context and activity, it doesn’t have direct connections to her sexuality (though it does to her gender). Lister’s lifetime spanned a very busy political era for the UK, including the later consequences of the French Revolution, the rise of the industrial era, the abolition of the slave trade and then of slavery itself, and other significant events and changes. Through all this, Lister approached issues as a staunch Tory, supporting the Crown, the rights and privileges of landowners, and the special place of the Anglican church.
I’m going to skim over this article because it falls in the category of “scholarship about modern philosophical theories” and doesn’t really say much about Lister’s historic context. In this case, the modern theory has to do with the concept of the closet. So it analyzes Listers’ practices around concealment and management of her personal life, but does so in a framework based on 20th century ideas about being closeted. Many of the historic texts and frameworks that are discussed are not examined in terms of how Lister engaged with them, but rather uses them as metaphors.
[Note: check out Turton’s other articles on queer lexicography, especially Turton 2024. I’ll be skipping briefly over some topics he covers in those.]
This article explores Lister’s sources of anatomical knowledge and how they affected her embodied understanding of erotic response. The question begins with an odd fact: although Lister first recorded the word “clytoris” in 1814, at age 22, it wasn’t until 17 years later that she describes clearly identifying her own clitoris. What can make sense of this for a woman who was deeply and clinically interested in her own sexuality?
This article traces one aspect of how Lister understood her gender and sexuality, that is, as a “natural” variation that was to some extent unique to her. Rather than projecting modern identity concepts back in time onto Lister, Shannon locates this understanding within the past and present philosophies of Lister’s own time with respect to the concept of “nature.”
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