Sean Carleton

• History of Indian Residential Schools
• Residential School Literature 
• Histories of Education
• Inventing Canada
• Indigenous Peoples in Canada, Part 2.
• Getting Graphic with the Past: Comics, Graphic Novels, and History

I am a settler scholar and an Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation. I use He/Him pronouns.

My research examines the history and political economy of colonialism, capitalism and education in Canada.

I hold BA and MA degrees in History from Simon Fraser University and a PhD from the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies at Trent University. I have been a Visiting Research Scholar in the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics, and I held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Departments of History and Native Studies at the University of Alberta.

I frequently comment on issues related to history, Indigenous-settler relations and education for CBC, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, Toronto Star, CTV, APTN, Global et. al. I am also a Contributing Editor with Active History, an Associate with the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History and a founding member of the Graphic History Collective.

• PhD (Canadian Studies), Trent University, 2016
• MA (History), Simon Fraser University, 2008
• BA (History), Simon Fraser University, 2006

Research Interests

• Residential schools
• Day schools
• Public schooling
• Settler colonialism
• Capitalism

Research Summary

I study the history and political economy of settler colonialism, capitalism and education in what is currently Canada. I am also interested in comics, critical pedagogy and history education. 

Books

• Lessons in Legitimacy: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2022). Buy the book.

Peer-reviewed articles

• “‘I don’t need any more education’: Senator Lynn Beyak, Residential School Denialism, and Attacks on Truth and Reconciliation.” Settler Colonial Studies 11, no. 4 (2021): 466 –486.
• “‘The children show unmistakable signs of Indian blood’: Indigenous Students Attending Public Schools in British Columbia, 1871-1930.” History of Education 50, no. 3 (2021): 313-337. 
• “Settler Anxiety and State Support for Missionary Schooling in Colonial British Columbia, 1849–1871.” Historical Studies in Education 29, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 57–76.

• 2022 - Best Article Prize (2020-2022), Canadian History of Education Association. 
• 2020 - 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike awarded the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies Book Prize 
• 2018 - Top 40 Under 40, Avenue magazine, Calgary, Alberta
• 2017 - Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle awarded the Wilson Book Prize by the Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster 
• University
• 2017 - Canadian Historical Association Public History Prize for Graphic History Collective, with Paul Buhle, eds., Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle