*CANCELLED* LGBT Art History: Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Her Era

Class #2 Monday, April 27th, 2020 (in honor of Lesbian Visibility Day)
Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Her Era, with a special presentation by “Lister Sister” Michelle Mecham, on decoding Anne’s fascinating diaries

While it’s sometimes hard to provide solid evidence that a person in the 1800s was actually Gay, that is not the case with this fascinating woman. Diarist Anne Lister, has been called the “First Lesbian”, because her (literally) 5 million words of eye opening journal entries (circa 1835) describe not only her well-adjusted understanding of her Lesbian identity, but graphic descriptions, written in code, of making love to many women, including Ann Walker, whom she wooed and “wedded”. Lister’s and Walker’s in-church commitment has been recognized as the first same-sex marriage in Britain. And Anne Lister’s life is the subject of the show “Gentleman Jack”, a BBC series viewable on Hulu.