Inaugural Professorial Lecture - Professor John Stenhouse

Join us for Professor John Stenhouse's Inaugural Professorial Lecture titled "Science, religion and history: some reflections"

About Professor John Stenhouse's research

John Stenhouse teaches courses in European and New Zealand history and the history of science at the University of Otago. His research explores interconnections between science, religion, politics, race and gender in the modern world, using New Zealand and the British empire as the main sites of investigation. Recent publications include the coedited collection Eugenics at the Edges of Empire: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2018) and ‘Reading Darwin during the New Zealand Wars: science, religion, politics and race, 1835-1900,’ Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science (2022) 96: 87-99. He is currently writing a book on Christian missionaries and the sciences from antiquity to the present. This research has led to an invitation to deliver 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.

John is a member of the New Zealand Historical Association, the Religious History Association, the History of Science Society, and in 2022 was elected as a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.

This lecture will be followed with light refreshments, tea, coffee and juice.