Teaching Gender: Disha Karnad Jani Interviews Samuel Rutherford

Samuel Rutherford—a Lecturer in LGBTQ+ History and the History of Sexuality at the University of Glasgow and a founding editor of the JHI Blog—returns to the Blog to speak with Disha Karnad Jani about his book Teaching Gender: The British University and the Rise of Heterosexuality, 1860–1939 (2025). In this conversation, Rutherford discusses how English and Scottish colleges and universities from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century contributed to the construction of gender and sexual identities in modern Britain. And, in discussing this history, Rutherford also addresses attendant questions about the “theoretical imperatives” that undergird this work, the disciplinary flexibility required for such a study, and more.