Course descriptions 2024-2025

HIST*6000

Historiography 1

From Calendar: This course will introduce students to some of the essential components of the historical process. It will also assess history as a cognitive discipline in contemporary society. While the scope of the course may extend from ancient times to the present, emphasis on the historiography of particular periods may vary according to instructor expertise and student research needs.

Summary course outline posted when available

HIST*6190

Topics in Scottish History

From Calendar: This course will introduce students to selected aspects of medieval and early modern Scottish history and historiography, including the use of source materials, and practical training involving manuscripts in the University Archives.

Summary course outline posted when available.

HIST*6290

Topics in North American History

From Calendar: Depending on the expertise of the instructor, this course may concentrate on either the United States or Canada, or it may concentra on an historical theme or themes common to the larger continent.

From Instructor: Theme: Television

In the first half of the course, we will examine the history of television in the United States, supported by scholarly literature on the comparative case in Canada. We will also explore video and the moving image as a type of historical primary source. In the second half of the semester, using the tools and insights developed earlier in the course, you will research and write about the histories of television, the moving image, or other media in a context crucial to your own thesis or Major Research Paper (MRP) research.

Summary course outline posted when available.

HIST 604

Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: Historical and Contemporary Issues

From Calendar: This seminar offers a comparative analysis of insurgency and counterinsurgency from the 19th century to the present. It examines resistance to foreign invaders in Europe, the century of rebellion in Mexico in 1810-1917, anti-colonial wars of national liberation, Marxist revolutionary movements in South-East Asia and Latin America, the upsurge of Islamic fundamentalism and urban guerrilla warfare. The course will focus on the sources of insurgencies, their nature and the support they drew from various social groups. In each case, the government's response will also be investigated. We will analyse theories of guerrilla thinkers and pacification models and pay particular attention to the gap between intended and actual policies, and the plight of civilians caught in crossfire.

HIST 605

Global Governance in Historical Perspective 

From Calendar: This course examines the history of global governance, focusing on the institutions, issues, and debates that have shaped global governance throughout history. Students will consider how and why state and non-state actors have turned to global governance to tackle pressing challenges and create common frameworks. They will also examine the power dynamics involved in these processes, analyzing the politics of inclusion and exclusion within global governance arenas across different historical periods.

HIST 620

Early Modern History 1

HIST 627

Modern European History II

HI615A

War and Genocide in Europe, 1939-1945

From Calendar: This course explores the connection between war and genocide as it occurred in Europe during World War II. It will focus on the contextual and instrumental significance of the war with the aim of gaining better understanding of the evolution and implementation of the Holocaust and other genocidal policies.

Prerequisite for Winter's HI615B War and Genocide in Europe, 1939-1945: Research Seminar

From Instructor: This course focuses on the ghettos that the Nazis established in occupied Europe. We will study the reasons behind Nazi ghettoization policies and where ghettos fit into broader Nazi plans for the Jews. Topics covered include: the geographies of ghettoization; ghetto labour; living conditions; food policies and hunger in the ghettos; resistance; smuggling; ghetto police; and ghetto leadership. The first part of the class takes a historiographical approach to this topic whereas in the second term students work on their own research projects based on a wide variety of available primary source material (e.g., ghetto diaries and memoirs, survivor testimonies and interviews, photographs, etc.).

HI650A

Early Modern Europe

From Calendar: Topics discussed focus on social, institutional and intellectual structures and their transformations. Units of reading include: the structure of everyday life; structures of popular culture; mental structures and their transformations; the print revolution and its impact.

Prerequisite for Winter's HI650B Early Modern Europe: Research Seminar

HI656L

Special Topic: American Pop Culture in the 20th Century

Prerequisite for Winter's HI657H American Pop Culture in the 20th Century: Research Seminar

From Instructor: This course focuses on major forms of popular entertainment: movies, television and music. In discussing examples and genres, it will introduce students to how scholars approach cultural texts. Some of the works discussed will focus on developments within the entertainment industry itself, others will look at how cultural products reflect and challenge conventional ideas about race, ethnicity, age, gender, region and class. In addition to weekly discussions and book reviews, students will prepare a critical evaluation of the literature surrounding a theme or particular media.

HIST*6230

Canada: Culture and Society

From Calendar: A course that examines the current historiography of selected aspects of Canadian history. Topics will vary with the expertise of individual instructors.

Summary course outline posted when available.

HIST*6360

History of Sexuality and Gender

From calendar: This course will examine the history of gender and/or sexuality in different cultures, paying close attention to various theoretical approaches to understanding the history of gender and/or sexuality. The chronological and geographic focus of the course may vary according to the interests and expertise of the instructor.

From instructor: Theme: Asia

Summary course outline posted when available.

HIST*6380

Topics in Early Modern European History

From calendar: This seminar course examines current issues in early modern European history as selected by the instructor(s). Participants review current research and historiography, discuss the principal debates, and develop their own perspectives through encounters with primary source materials.

Summary course outline posted when available.

HIST 601

Canadian History 1

HIST 612

Global Indigenous Rights

From calendar: This course examines the historical and political contexts of Indigenous rights movements from around the world. It considers the histories of Indigenous-state relations and Indigenous assertions of rights and sovereignty through cultural, political, and legal means. We will discuss grassroots and global Indigenous rights movements and international efforts to address Indigenous aspirations and decolonization especially following WWII. Attention will be also paid to the formation of Indigenous organizations and the engagement of international forums (i.e., through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).

HIST 614

Space, Identity, and Culture: Reading in Canadian Social History

From calendar: In this course you will master both classic and cutting-edge historical scholarship in Canadian Social History. You will read works that interrogate and historicize the traditional foci of social historians - class gender and race. You will read works informed by cultural theory, especially concerning the occupation of social space and the expression of experience of particularized social identities. Each week, we will meet together in seminar to discuss the substance, theoretical orientation, methodology, and historiographical significance of the assigned material. As such, active reading and constructive participation in seminar are key. In addition, you will be required to lead seminar discussions and write an historiographical paper.

HIST 660

Transnational and Global History: Old Problems and New Directions

From Calendar: This course examines transnational and global historical processes, focusing on temporal and geographic scales of analysis outside of traditional national histories, and promotes linking the local and the global. It looks at global forces influencing particular societies and encourages students to place themselves outside conventional local, regional, and national boundaries, and will critically consider a number of the metanarratives that have informed and continue to inform historiography, particularly idea such as modernity, progress, and the ongoing preoccupation with the 'rise of the west'. Given these questions, and the almost endless scope of a course that purports to take the world as its focal point, weekly seminars will begin with a discussion of the possibilities offered by as well as the limits to transnational/global/world history, the various interpretative frameworks in use and their proponents as well as the challenges that transnational/global/world history poses. We will then focus on particular case studies or themes so as to promote discussion that is as much historiographical as it is historical. Such themes/case studies may include: feminism and imperialism, famine and climate change, disease and ecology, military technology and governmentally, global trade and the rise of consumer society(s), colonial knowledge and shifting ideas of race.

War and Genocide in Europe, 1939-1945: Research Seminar

Prerequisite: HI615A

From Instructor: This course focuses on the ghettos that the Nazis established in occupied Europe. We will study the reasons behind Nazi ghettoization policies and where ghettos fit into broader Nazi plans for the Jews. Topics covered include: the geographies of ghettoization; ghetto labour; living conditions; food policies and hunger in the ghettos; resistance; smuggling; ghetto police; and ghetto leadership. The first part of the class takes a historiographical approach to this topic whereas in the second term students work on their own research projects based on a wide variety of available primary source material (e.g., ghetto diaries and memoirs, survivor testimonies and interviews, photographs, etc.).

Early Modern Europe: Research Seminar

Prerequisite: HI650A

American Pop Culture in the 20th Century: Research Seminar

Prerequisite: HI656L

From Instructor: Continuation of same description from Fall. This course focuses on major forms of popular entertainment: movies, television and music. In discussing examples and genres, it will introduce students to how scholars approach cultural texts. Some of the works discussed will focus on developments within the entertainment industry itself, others will look at how cultural products reflect and challenge conventional ideas about race, ethnicity, age, gender, region and class. In addition to weekly discussions and book reviews, students will prepare a critical evaluation of the literature surrounding a theme or particular media.