Jarett Henderson earned his Ph.D. from York University in Toronto, and an MA and BA in History from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg (Canada). Jarett is a specialist in the history of gender and sexuality, the history of colonial North America (Canada), and the comparative histories of British settler-colonialism. Prior to arriving at UCSB, he was an Associate Professor at an undergraduate teaching university in Calgary, Alberta (Mount Royal University), where he ran the Honours program, organized an annual undergraduate conference (The Foothills Colloquium), and taught a series of courses on Canada, the British Empire, and Queer History. He is especially interested in how debates about colonial rule in the nineteenth-century British Empire were wrapped up with larger empire-wide discussions about gender, sexuality, and un/freedom that were sparked by campaigns to abolish slavery, protect Indigenous peoples, and end convict transportation. His current book project Unnatural Sex and Uncivil Subjects: A Queer History of Straight Settler State Making in Early Canada, examines the debates over the implementation of white settler self-government in the Canadian colonies alongside efforts to re-criminalize sex between men in the first half of the nineteenth century. 

  • “On the Historical Ordinariness of Pederasty,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association / Revue de la Société historique du Canada, 32: 2 (2022): 3-11.
  • “Rex v. J. B. Smith (Calgary, 1902): Queer Carnal Acts and Heterosexual Settler Colonialism in Canada’s Prairie Empire,” Prairie History: The Journal of the West (Summer 2021): 82-86. Reprinted by: Calgary Gay History Project: Our Past Matters Blog, 31 October 2022.
  • “‘The Most Infamous Degradation of the Honour of Civil Government’: The Turton Job and the Sexual Politics of Colonial Rule in 1830s Britain and British North America,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 21:1 (Spring 2020). 
  • “‘A difference of race’? Racializing, Difference, and Governance in British Debates about the Colony of Lower Canada, 1828-1837,” with Bettina Bradbury. In Engaging with Diversity: Multidisciplinary Reflections on Plurality from Quebec, edited by Stéphan Gervais, Raffaele Iacovino and Mary-Anne Poutanen, (Bruxelles: Peter Lang Publishing, 2018), 305-26.
  • “‘From One Part of the Empire to Another’: Promoting a Settler-Colonial Future in Canadian Immigration Handbooks in the Late-Nineteenth Century,” in van der Meulen, E. (ed.) From Suffragette to Homesteader: Exploring One Woman’s Memoir on Life in England and Canada, (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2018), 110-125.
  • “Sex, Scandal, and Punishment in Early Toronto,” with Ed Jackson. In Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer, edited by Lornic, J., McCaskell, T., Fitzgerald, M., Farrow, J., and Chambers, S. (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2016), 86-90. (Shortlisted for the 2017 City of Toronto Book Prize).
  • “Banishment to Bermuda: Gender, Race, Empire, Independence, and the Abolition of Irresponsible Government in Lower Canada,” Histoire sociale/Social History 46:92 (2013): 321-48. (republished in, Sean Kheraj and Tom Peace, Eds., Open History Seminar: Canadian History, Pressbooks: 2018).
  • “‘No Money, But Muscle and Pluck’: Cultivating Trans-Imperial Manliness for the Fields of Empire, 1870-1901,” Making It Like A Man: Canadian Masculinities in Practice, edited by Christine Ramsay, (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011), 17-37.
  •  “‘I Am Pleased With My Lambton Loot’: Arthur George Doughty and the Making of the Durham Papers”. Archivaria 70 (2010): pp. 153-176.

2022-23

  • HIST 9 – Historical Methods: Making Historical Sense of Unnatural Sex (Fall 2022)
  • HIST 101 – Contested Sexualities: Queer North America (Fall 2022)
  • HIST 196 JA – Scholarly Publishing (Fall 2022)
  • HIST 124C – Sex, Gender, and Settler Colonialism (Winter 2023)
  • HIST 196 JB – Scholarly Publishing (Winter 2023)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Winter 2023)
  • HIST 101 SR – Undergraduate Research Seminar in the History of Sexuality (Spring 2023)
  • HIST 196 JC – Scholarly Publishing (Spring 2023)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Spring 2023)

2021-2022

  • HIST 2C – World History (Fall 2021)
  • HIST 196 JC – Scholarly Publishing (Fall 2021)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Fall 2021
  • HIST 200G – Comparative Histories of Sex, Gender, and Colonialism (Winter 2022)
  • HIST 196 JB – Scholarly Publishing (Winter 2022)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Winter 2022)
  • HIST 101G – Contested Sexualities (Spring 2022)
  • HIST 196 JA – Scholarly Publishing (Spring 2022)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Spring 2022)

2020-2021

  • HIST 2C – World History (Spring 2021)
  • HIST 196 JC – Scholarly Publishing (Spring 2021)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Spring 2021)
  • HIST 141R – Undergraduate Research Seminar in Modern British History (Winter 2021)
  • HIST 196 JB – Scholarly Publishing (Winter 2021)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Winter 2021)
  • HIST 141C – The British Empire (Fall 2020)
  • HIST 196 JA – Scholarly Publishing (Fall 2020)
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop (Fall 2020)

2019-2020

  • HIST 2C – World History (Fall 2019)
  • HIST 101G – Contested Sexualities (Winter 2020)
  • HIST 141A – Nineteenth-Century Britain (Winter 2020)
  • HIST 200G – Comparative Histories of Sex, Gender, and Colonialism (Winter 2020)
  • HIST 141R – Undergraduate Research Seminar in Modern British History (Spring 2020)
  • HIST 101WR – Undergraduate Research Seminar in World History (Spring 2020)

2018-2019

  • HIST 124A – Women, Gender and Sexuality in Europe, 1750-1914 (Fall 2018)
  • HIST 141A – Nineteenth-Century Britain (Winter 2019)
  • INT 187AE – Cheers: The History and Science of Beer, Ale, and Brewers (Transfer Discovery Seminar), with Dr Mike Wilton, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (Winter 2019)
  • HIST 141R – Undergraduate Research Seminar in Modern British History (Spring 2019)
  • HIST 101G – Contested Sexualities (Spring 2019)

Honours Thesis Supervised (Undergraduate)

  • Gracelyn Barmore-Pooley, “Complicating Trans-Atlantic Queer Irishness: Parades, Inclusion, and Community-Produced Responses.” (In Progress)
  • Marisol Cruz, “En La Vida: A Glimpse into the Life of Queer Latine Folks in Chicago during the 1990s,” (March 2023), UC Santa Barbara.
  • John Young, “New Men” Rising and the British Country House,” (March 2022), UC Santa Barbara.
    • Winner of 2022 Marion Ramstad Scholarship, History, UC Santa Barbara. 
  • Mackenzie Butler, “Crafting Sexual Respectability in American Youth Organization,” Co-Mentor with Dr. Sarah Case, (April 2021), UC Santa Barbara.
    • Winner of 2021 Margaret J. Straight Scholarship, History, UC Santa Barbara. 
  • Jane Wahlig, “American and British Narratives of Enslavement in the 19th Century,” (April 2021), UC Santa Barbara. 
    • Winner of 2021 History of Public Policy Senior Thesis Prize, History, UC Santa Barbara. 
  • Tomas Tuszynski, “The Fifth Partition: The Post- War Polish- American Experience in Southern California, 1945-1985 (April 2020), UC Santa Barbara.
  • Best Graduate Paper Prize Committee, Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies (2022 – )
  • Program Committee, Queer History Conference 2 (SFSU, 2020 – 2022)
  • Canadian Historical Association, Annual Meeting Program Committee (U Alberta, 2021).
  • Best Article Prize Committee, Canadian Committee History of Sexuality (2018 –)
  • Coordinator, Gender and Sexualities Research Cluster, Department of History, UC Santa Barbara (2018-)
  • Histoire sociale/Social History, English Language Book Review Editor (2011 – 2017).
  • Canadian Historical Association, Annual Meeting Program Committee (U Calgary, 2016).
  • Canadian Historical Association, Annual Meeting Program Committee (U Victoria, 2013).
  • Canadian Historical Association, Annual Meeting Program Committee (York U, 2006).
  • Canadian Historical Association, Annual Meeting Program Committee (U Manitoba, 2004).

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