UOY ANNOUNCES GENTLEMAN JACK PHD SCHOLARSHIP

BY MARTI STELLING (SHE/HER)

THE NEW SCHOLARSHIP offers PhD candidates the opportunity to study the life and works of Anne Lister.

Lister was a 19th century Yorkshire landowner whose diaries inspired the BBC series Gentleman Jack

The scholarship is funded by York alumni, Sally Wainwright.

Wainwright was the brains behind Gentleman Jack, as well as writing, producing, and creating many other hit titles, including Scott & Bailey, Last Tango in Halifax, and Happy Valley.

Professor Helen Smith, head of the Department of English and Related Literature, spoke of the scholarship:

“Anne Lister is a fascinating, but little-studied literary figure, and this scholarship, generously funded by Dr Sally Wainwright, will shed new light on her life, historical significance, and writings.

“We hope that the successful PhD candidate will help us understand more about Anne Lister as a writer and bring her incredible writings to new audiences.”

According to the University, the scholarship is intended to “foster further research on Lister’s life and writing, to establish her place in the canon of English Literature, as well as the historical record, and to better interpret her work”.

“The successful student will have full access to the Lister diaries and other writings, currently held in the West Yorkshire archives in Lister’s native Halifax.”

Sally Wainwright commented on her hopes for the scholarship:

“Anne Lister’s diaries and other writings are a unique, fascinating, vast resource, lending themselves to study across a number of aca- demic disciplines. Anne Lister was a profoundly clever and unusual woman whose writings need much greater analysis than they have yet received.

“Above and beyond all her other talents, Lister was a prolific diarist, and it is my greatest hope that the scholarship will go some way towards helping establish her extraordinary output firmly within the canon of English Literature.”

The scholarship offers full tuition fees at the UK home rate along with an annual sum of £20,000 for three years, and a small allowance for research expenses.

The scholarship welcomes both home and international students, with the University of York providing a waiver fee to cover the additional tuition costs if an international student proves to be the best candidate.