As we wrap up Pride Month, Canadian Studies is pleased to announce a new external academic affiliate whose research grapples with the complex intersection of sexuality and colonialism in 19th-century Canada.
Henderson earned his Ph. Before arriving in California, he was an associate professor of history at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Henderson's research seeks to rethink 19th-century Canadian settler colonial histories within a transnational and trans-imperial framework.
He is interested in how the trans-colonial project of settler self-government across the British colonies that became Canada was enmeshed with larger empire-wide debates about whiteness, masculinity, sexuality, and political independence. His current book project, A Queer History of Straight State Making in Early Canada , explores the history of sex between men and settler self-government in the British North American colonies between and It asks whether a queered man could do the political and masculine work of reproducing empire.
In examining the colonial and metropolitan debates over the implementation of white settler self-government alongside efforts to re-criminalize sex between men, Dr. Henderson's work promises to recalibrate the history of responsible government in Canada as one that conceived of queerness as a threat to the new definitions of settler and public manhood that were taking hold in the mid-decades of the nineteenth century as settler-colonial structures were consolidated and systematically excluded most Indigenous peoples, marginalized the working classes, and confirmed the exclusion of women as voters.
In addition to his research, Dr. Henderson teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on sex, gender and sexuality, and the comparative histories of British settler colonialism. Skip to main content. June 26, Canadian Studies Program.
