Rate My Professor John Stenhouse

Professor John Stenhouse is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Otago. He holds a PhD in History from Massey University (1986) and a BA (Hons) from the same institution (1980). Stenhouse teaches courses in European and New Zealand history as well as the history of science. His research investigates the interconnections between science, religion, race, politics, and gender in the modern world, primarily using nineteenth-century New Zealand and the British empire as sites of study. Current projects include studies on humanitarian and Māori Christians and their critics in colonial New Zealand, Christian missions and knowledge-making from the early church to the twenty-first century, and religion, politics, race, and gender in southern Dunedin 1880–1940s. He is a member of the New Zealand Historical Association, the Religious History Association, the History of Science Society, and the Pacific Circle Commission of the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science. Stenhouse serves on the board of the Otago Theological Foundation.

In 2022, he was elected a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion. Key publications include the co-edited volume Eugenics at the Edges of Empire: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); “Reading Darwin during the New Zealand Wars: science, religion, politics and race, 1835-1900” in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (2022); “The Two Faces of Robert FitzRoy, Captain of HMS Beagle and Governor of New Zealand” (2013); and “Empire, Environment and Religion: God and the Natural World in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand” (2007). His PhD thesis, titled “The 'battle' between science and religion over evolution in nineteenth century New Zealand” (1985), contributed foundational insights to the field. Stenhouse has delivered public lectures, such as on Reverend Rutherford Waddell to the Otago Scottish Heritage Council (2025) and the Rotary Club of Dunedin (2024), and is invited to present the keynote public lecture at the 2026 Cain Conference on the Global History of Modern Science, 1400-1914, at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia.