Ryan Hanley

Hanley earned his doctorate in history from Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull. After obtaining his degree, he worked at the University of Oxford, UCL, and the University of Bristol before taking up a full-time lecturing position at the University of Exeter. He has also had visiting fellowships at Queen Mary University, London and at the Huntington Library in California. He serves as a member of the executive committee for the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.[4]

Hanley has published two books and more than twenty chapters and journal articles. His most notable work is that which focuses on the perspectives of those of African descent in Britain, for which he has been awarded both the Whitfield Book Prize and Alexander Prize from the Royal Historical Society. Alongside A. G. Rosser, he is one of only two historians to have received both awards.

He received the Alexander Prize in 2015 for his article Calvinism, Proslavery and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw.[3] In it, Hanley re-examines Gronniosaw's autobiography within the context of Calvinist and Dutch Reformed confessional networks to better understand how the text could advocate for slavery despite being written by a formerly enslaved author. It portrays Gronniosaw as a Black intellectual, and not simply as an ex-slave.[5] The article was deemed significant enough to feature in the Economic History Review's List of publications on the economic and social history of Great Britain and Ireland published in 2016.[6]

Hanley continued this approach by conducting the first full-length historical study of pre-abolition Black British writing in his 2019 Whitfield Prize-winning book Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, c.1770-1830.[2][7] In each of the eight chapters, Hanley provides a case study on a different Black British writer, and categorises them into three sections. Firstly, 'Black Celebrities', containing Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano/Gustavus Vassa, and Mary Prince. Next, the 'Black Evangelicals', Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Boston King, and John Jea. Ending with the 'Black Radicals', Ottobah Cugoano and Robert Wedderburn.[8] In his review of the work, Matthew Wyman-McCarthy emphasises the significance of Hanley's choice to frame Black British writers within their authorial 'networks'. He says the book makes strides for scholars who can now holistically approach these individuals as intellectuals, rather than simply abolitionists. He also says that the individual case studies conducted by Hanley deserve their place on undergraduate syllabi.[7]