Course Descriptions

Sections of this course examine how history has shaped – and been shaped by – human thought and culture. They might examine how the ideas of intellectuals, philosophers, writers, artists, or religious thinkers related to historical developments such as the spread of Christianity or Islam; the rise of modern secularism; or the various revolutionary movements of the modern world, whether political, economic, social, or artistic. They might examine elite, middle-brow, or popular culture for clues about how past societies responded to the realities of being human – birth, illness, death, the need to work, prepare food, raise children, establish communities, or make sense of one’s place in the universe. Examples of courses include: “An Introduction to Modern European Thought and Culture,” “Religious Reformations of the 16th Century,” “A Global History of Food and Eating.” All sections of this course emphasize how historians have understood the relationship between ideas, culture, and historical change.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention: A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Sections of this course examine the peoples and processes shaping indigenous societies, their imperial rulers, and the postcolonial experience. Topics will range from local case studies of First Nations to broader histories of European imperial expansion and national independence movements. The problems of identity, power and policy are at the forefront of these investigations, emphasizing the ways that communities accepted, resisted or transformed colonial agendas. Courses will also foreground variations among colonizing projects, and responses to them, in different eras. Examples of course foci include Britain and British Empires since Caesar, the Arab Spring, the scramble for Africa, aboriginal activism in Canada, USA, and Australia, a global history of slavery, perspectives on community and sovereignty in North America, and colonial Latin America. All sections of this course will emphasize how historians have understood different practices of colonization and their relationship to political, economic and social change.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Sections of this course examine how histories of gender, sex and society have interacted and evolved throughout time. We will explore how, in various societies, social, cultural, political, legal, and medical views of gender and sexualities have both regulated gender and sexual norms and acted as levers of change. Topics include national and transnational histories of sexualities, gender and social change (in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia). Possible areas of exploration include: media and cultural depictions of masculinity and femininity; medical, legal, cultural, and theoretical discourses on gender and sexuality; race, class, ethnicity, and indigeneity; gendered performance and geographies of sexual possibilities; demographic continuities and change; artistic representations of sexuality and gender; and, finally, histories of the family, of labour, of migration, as well as of activism, resistance, and repression as they intersect with the history of gender and sexuality.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Sections of this course examine the history of war and violence, cutting across periods and historical specializations. Areas of exploration may include: the factors that have shaped human conflict (social, cultural, political, and religious); specific cases, campaigns or systems of conflict (including interpersonal, intergroup, and international violence); wars hot and cold; historic forms of oppression and injustice, and their relationship to conflict; and the history of resistance to interpersonal, intergroup and systemic violence including the history of peace and reconciliation and non-violent movements.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Sections of this course examine the history and conceptualization of science, the cosmos, or the environment and their relationships to society and culture. The term science is understood broadly to include not only modern science but pre-modern and non-western approaches to understanding and manipulating the natural world. Historians focus on the human history of the environment, with a particular attention to the ever-changing relationship between societies and their ecosystems. Possible areas of exploration might include: the scientific revolution; North-American environmental history; global commodities, imperialism and the environment; and science, magic, and rationality. With reference to historical examples, these courses will seek to nuance concepts such as scientific rationality, and ‘nature’ and also to examine broad conventional historical narratives such as ‘disenchantment’, ‘enlightenment’, ‘industrialization’ or ‘globalization’.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Sections of this course examine how historians have understood the complex relationship between health, society, and historical change. Health is used as a vehicle for understanding political, social and cultural change throughout history. Topics range from antiquity and the birth of Galenic healing through western and non-western traditions that have guided our understandings of bodies, pain, gender, and power and into the modern era of health and medicine with the rise of professional medicine, ethics, experimentation and institutionalized healing. Health is widely defined to capture experiences that fall outside the traditional doctor-patient relationship, and to explore issues including: mental health; the politics of healthcare; health economies; the health professions; disease’s power to shape human history. These courses rely on a variety of sources: food and nutrition, to medical treatises, patient narratives, activist and anti-medical establishment texts, artwork, and institutional reports, and a rich historical tradition of examining health and medicine and its influence on human history. Possible areas of exploration include: madness; the body; pain; health and disease.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Sections of this course examine the complexity of identity and the ever-changing and complicated nature of community through an exploration of history. Identities are never ‘fixed’ or constructed in isolation; they are always both ‘invented’ and the result of historical change. Communities are similarly complex: never autonomous, always shaped by history and the interplay between internal dynamics and relationships with forces outside of the community. All sections of this course are linked through their exploration of the history of identities and communities but they explore that history in different places and times. Some courses will take a micro-level view, exploring the history of identity in one particular location or community over time and relating those changes to broader perspectives; others will look at the way broad historical forces shaped identities. Possible areas of exploration may include: historical roots and myths surrounding so called "tribalism" in Africa and the contemporary impacts of this discourse; the spread nationalism in the 18th and 19th centuries and the rise of the modern nation-state; how such groups as Kurds have been able to maintain a distinct identity over time; Quebec’s status as a separate ‘nation’ in Canada.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Sections of this course examine the complex relationship between conflict, law, politics, and state power, from medieval times to the Cold War. Possible areas of exploration may include: war, political systems, feuds, violence, crime, injustice, vengeance, weapons, arms races, environmental degradation, treaties, law, and security.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Courses offered under this heading examine focused topics in Canadian History. These courses explore historical issues, events, or trends of importance in Canadian history. The courses are designed to provide a basic understanding of the historical narrative from multiple perspectives, to explore how and why such narratives have been constructed the way they have been, and—through such explorations—to introduce students to ‘thinking historically’. Lectures will explore historical narratives, their genesis, and the sources used to produce such narratives. Seminars will dig deeper into the tools and methodologies used by historians, provide instruction and practice in critical thinking and clear expression.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

Courses offered under this heading examine focused topics in European History. These courses explore historical issues, events, or trends of importance in European history. The courses are designed to provide a basic understanding of the historical narrative from multiple perspectives, to explore how and why such narratives have been constructed the way they have been, and—through such explorations—to introduce students to ‘thinking historically’. Lectures will explore historical narratives, their genesis, and the sources used to produce such narratives. Seminars will dig deeper into the tools and methodologies used by historians, provide instruction and practice in critical thinking and clear expression.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Attention:A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students may not take this course more than once for credit, even if the specific focus is different.
Note: Multiple sections of this course may be offered in the same term, each with a different focus. Consult the CRN for each section of the class in the Class Search to find its specific focus. The History Department’s annual handbook (on the department homepage) also contains this information.

This course addresses and challenges settler-colonialism from Indigenous perspectives. It examines Indigenous societies, with specific focus on Plains communities in what became Canada. We focus on a broad historical span from the distant past to the early twentieth century. Drawing on Indigenous voices and perspectives, the course focuses on how historic and ongoing events and structures have displaced Indigenous peoples from their lands, forced change and re-enforced continuity for Indigenous peoples, while simultaneously highlighting the way Indigenous peoples have shaped those events and structures.

Attention: A maximum of nine credit units of 100-level HIST may be taken for credit.
Note: Students who take one version of this course may not take a second version of it. To see which specific topic(s) will be offered each term, click on the CRN for each lecture in the Class Search to see the specific description for that class.