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. 

Undergraduate Level

  • HIST 9 – Historical Methods: Making Historical Sense of Unnatural Sex 
  • HIST 99 – Introduction to Research
  • HIST 101G – Comparative Contested Sexualities 
  • HIST 101QA – Queer North America 
  • HIST 101SR – Undergraduate Research Seminar in the History of Sexuality
  • HIST 101WR – Undergraduate Research Seminar in World History
  • HIST 124C – Sex, Gender, and Settler Colonialism
  • HIST 141A – Nineteenth-Century Britain
  • HIST 141C – The British Empire
  • HIST 141R – Undergraduate Research Seminar in Modern British History
  • HIST 194 AH/AB – History Honors Thesis Seminar
  • HIST 196JABC – Internship in Scholarly Publishing
  • HIST 199RA – Independent Research Assistant

Graduate Level

  • HIST 200G – Comparative Histories of Sex, Gender, and Colonialism
  • HIST 295GS – Gender and Sexuality Workshop 

Undergraduate Honours Thesis Supervision

  • Hanna Kawamoto, “Spiritually Unsexed: Believers, Critics, and Early Histories of the Publick Universal Friend, 1776-1840,” (March 2024), UC Santa Barbara.
    • Winner of 2024 A. Russell Buchanan Alumni Award, History, UC Santa Barbara. 
    • Winner of 2024 Library Award for Undergraduate Research, UC Santa Barbara.
    • Winner of 2024 William R. Reardon Undergraduate Award, Division of Undergraduate Education.
  • Gracelyn Barmore-Pooley, “We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re Irish”: Excavating Transatlantic Queer Identity through the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization,” (June 2023), UC Santa Barbara. 
    • Winner of 2023 A. Russell Buchanan Alumni Award, History, UC Santa Barbara. 
  • Marisol Cruz, “En La Vida: A Glimpse into the Life of Queer Latine Folks in Chicago during the 1990s,” (March 2023), UC Santa Barbara.
    • Winner of 2023 History Associates Board Prize, History, 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.

Public Facing Histories: