Course Descriptions

This course surveys the political, cultural and social history of ancient Greece from the Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BCE) to the beginnings of Roman influence in the Greek world in the late Hellenistic period (ca 200 BCE).

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 30 credit units of University courses.
Note: Students with credit for HIST 200.6 may not take this course for credit.

This course introduces students to the wide variety of ways that animals shaped the lives and thoughts of the ancient Greeks and Romans. We’ll examine a diverse range of primary sources to explore the full spectrum of human-animal encounters. Special attention will be given to the social dimensions of how people interacted with animals in numerous areas of life, including at home, in social settings and at war. We'll also examine how animals were cared for, from animal husbandry to the beginnings of veterinary medicine. We'll analyze the myriad roles that animals played in classical literature to shed light on expectations and ideals for human life. We’ll see that some viewed them as mere tools for human use, while others viewed them as rational, moral beings deserving of just treatment. Ultimately, we'll see that it is only by examining society’s relationship with animals that we can understand the human experience in the Greco-Roman world.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University courses.

Focusing on the lived experience of women and men during one of the most dynamic periods in pre-modern Western history, including the transition from feudalism to royal government; the Crusades and interaction among Christian, Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe and the Middle East; monasticism; the conflict between Church and State; popular and high culture and the development of the Romanesque and Gothic visual arts, architecture, and material culture; the growth of cities; mysticism, new religious movements, and popular religion; the crisis of the fourteenth century brought on by famine and plague; popular revolts and the Hundred Years’ War.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University.

This course introduces Chinese civilization within an historical perspective, from prehistory to the beginning of the 20th century. Using written records, archaeological relics and works of art to cover over three thousand years and a vast geographical area, we will focus on several key topics including important issues and historical moments in time. These include, but are not limited to: technology (e.g., paper, printing), governance (so-called Confucians and the Classics), religion (Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, etc.), systems of thought, food, language, daily life, social forms, identity, gender, the state, art, literature, architecture, and historiography. Some of the questions we will ask include: Where can we find connections or discontinuities? How can – and cannot – textual and archaeological sources help us understand people and their daily lives? How have Chinese thinkers, leaders, religious professionals, and ordinary people understood the past and used it to address pressing concerns even today? Part of your task as a student is to pay attention to recurring themes and topics presented, draw comparisons, and ask your own questions.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University level courses.

This course examines the early history of ancient Rome and its domination of the ancient Mediterranean world, chronologically spanning the foundation of Rome in 753 BCE to the end of the Republic at the Battle of Actium in 30BCE. Two overarching questions will shape our investigation: what internal and external factors allowed Rome to extend its empire first over Italy and then over the Mediterranean basin? Why did the government of Rome by the SPQR - the senate and people of Rome - the system called the Republic- ultimately fail and fall to civil war and a monarchy established by Julius Caesar and his successors? Seeking answers to these questions will entail the exploration not only of events and actors in Roman history but also the underlying political and social factors that shaped Rome: Rome’s political system; its ideas about family; aristocratic competition; economy, agriculture and slavery; the roman army and society; the city of Rome and urban violence; the nature of Roman imperialism.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 201.6 may not take this course for credit.

This course examines Rome under the rule of emperors, its chronological frame extending from circa 27 BCE to the time of Constantine in the 4th century CE. The first part of the course focuses on the establishment of monarchy - the rule of emperors - in Rome during the age of Augustus and the Julio-Claudians, since many features of imperial rule were fixed in this time, such as the emperor’s relations with the senate, the role of the members of the imperial household in the management of power, the nature of imperial patronage, and the diffusion of the imperial image. We will then turn to examine the effects of empire on the ruled, both in Rome and in the provinces, focusing on issues such Roman military and administrative presence in the provinces, economic exploitation, and the diffusion of Roman style spectacles and religious cult.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 201.6 may not take this course for credit.

In the world of late antiquity, the veneration of saints became a focus of the religious and cultural life of Christian communities. But what is it to be a saint? Many were martyrs and miracle workers, but we also find holy madmen, transvestites, prostitutes. In this class we explore the diverse representations of sanctity in the hagiographical tradition of the Middle Ages, addressing both the literary and the historical questions raised therein. We ask how Christian communities in the later Roman Empire conceived of sanctity. We address questions of gender and empire, ritual and the body, memory and the use of the past. We explore the array of evidence for the cult of the saints—both literary and material—first in an attempt to understand the complex of practices and beliefs that accompany its emergence, but also to recognize more broadly what this institution can tell us about the Mediterranean world of late antiquity and Medieval Europe.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level; or 30 credit units of university level courses.

A survey of various film portrayals of historical individuals and culture. Popular ideas about the past are largely a creation of fiction writers' and film directors' depictions of the past. This course focuses on historical figures and their representation in primary sources, literature, and film. In this context, students consider several broad themes, including historicity and authenticity, contemporary appropriations of past ideals or ideologies. Through the study of primary source texts and related films, the student will explore the many interpretations of past culture and the ways in which historical ideas, figures and events have been used as commentaries on modern issues.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University level courses.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

In this course meet the Late Roman Empire as it transitions from the Classical Era into “Late Antiquity.” We begin with the Reforms of Diocletian in response to the near fatal “crisis of the third century.” We study the Roman Empire shifting its center of balance from Italy and the West to the urbanized and Greek speaking East. With the conversion of Constantine and the coming of Imperial Christianity the basic structures of Byzantine civilization arise. The reign of Justinian and Theodora represent the acme of early Byzantium with the codification of the Roman Law, the building of Hagia Sophia and Justinian’s gamble on the re-conquest of the lost provinces of the former western Roman Empire.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of university.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 215.6 may not take this course for credit.

Western Christendom, once unified under a single church, was fractured permanently in the sixteenth century giving rise to religious wars and the widespread action against heresy. In the same period, the earth centred model of the universe was demonstrated to be false and new scientific epistemologies emerged. Seemingly in contradiction to these scientific developments, this was also the main period of witch trials. While Europe remained profoundly misogynist and hetero-normative, we also find startling cases of feminist ideas, radical gender expression, and queer sexualities. Focussing on original texts, this course explores the relationship of tradition and dissent, rebellion and authority in this tumultuous period.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 100-level HIST; or 30 credit units of university level courses; or by permission of the instructor.

This course examines the period from the departure of the Romans through to the coming of the Normans. It was an epoch that saw the gradual conversion of the peoples of the British Isles to Christianity and (with the exception of Ireland) the redrawing of the ethnic and political map of the islands. The following three centuries from 800 to 1100 A.D., from the Vikings incursions of the ninth century through to the Norman Conquest of England were a highly formative period in the history of the Isles, witnessing the emergence of England and Scotland as identifiable political entities.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 213.6 may not take this course for credit.

Beginning in the long twelfth century with the Norman Conquest of England, through to the early fifteenth century, this course provides a social and cultural history of England in the medieval period. Although a temporal overview will be provided in the first lectures of each section, the course will focus on themes rather than an events-based narrative. Examining in detail the issues of community and social binds, economic change, population change, disease, political structures, ecclesiastical structure and political upheaval, students will gain a foundational understanding of the process of conquest, the expansion of art and of a written culture, the impact of warfare; also the relationships between lords and labourers; development of trade and urbanization, the spread of written culture, the development of the common law and parliament.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s):3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 213.6 may not take this course for credit.

This course introduces the student to world of Western Europe in the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. It covers the major developments in the period: the Renaissance and Reformation, the development of centralized monarchies, and the start of the Scientific Revolution. In addition, it examines topics such as magic and witchcraft and their relationship to these larger events or movements.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University
Note:Students with credit for HIST 225 may not take this course for credit.

This course introduces students to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lectures, readings, and in-class conversations will explore the distinct, yet interconnected, histories of Palestine and Israel at various times since the dawn of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. Particular attention will be given to inter-cultural relations, religion, and the idea of coexistence; violence, identity (re)formations, and respective national myth-making; settler colonialism, imperial culture, and decolonization; gender and sexuality; globalization, capitalism, and world affairs; racial difference, exclusion, and segregation; the so-called peace process; social justice and the tensions within human rights imaginations; as well as the politics of history and memory.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.
Note: Students with credit for HIST 389 cannot receive credit for this course.

The practice of warfare has consistently demanded the skills, resources and labour of healers. This course aims to explore some of the key aspects of the relationship between medicine and warfare in Europe and North America since 1500. Particular attention is paid to the role of medicine in the rise of modern forms of warfare, especially the contribution that medicine played in both disciplining bodies and maintaining the morale of armed forces personnel. The course’s key themes situate military-medical developments within historical debates about the processes of modernization, state formation, and the global pre-eminence of European empires to 1945. The course also explores the connections between war and medical innovation, as well as between warfare and welfare, in the early modern and modern eras. As we go about addressing these and other questions, students will work through a series of assignments designed not only to help them master the course material, but to develop and enhance their academic and lifetime skills of writing, research, analysis, and discussion.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level; or 30 credit units of university level courses.

This course surveys major developments in European history between 1870 and the outbreak of the Second World War. Topics covered include the geopolitical, intellectual, cultural, and other legacies of the late nineteenth century; the origins and outcomes of the First World War; the Russian Revolution and the rise of communism; artistic and cultural movements of the interwar years; the emergence and spread of fascism; the Great Depression; Nazi Germany; the Spanish Civil War; and the diplomatic crises of the late 1930s.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of university level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 229.6 may not take this course for credit.

This course surveys major developments in European history since 1939. Topics covered include the Second World War and the Holocaust; postwar reconstruction; the Cold War; Europe and the colonial world; stages in the formation of the European Union; the social movements of the 1960s (the student and women’s movements, environmentalism; the sexual revolution); the economic challenges of the 1970s and 80s; the fall of communism in Eastern Europe; and the issues and challenges facing contemporary European society.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of university level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 229.6 may not take this course for credit.

This course introduces students to the history of infectious disease and the various attempts to manage disease outbreaks over time. It uses interdisciplinary perspectives to engage students in a research-intensive course about disease management, science communication, ethical considerations, and above all, historical thinking about health and public policy. The course is jointly taught by faculty in History and in Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology. Grounding this course in historical approaches, History instructors lead students through a history of infectious disease in Canada and in the Global South to illustrate the different kinds of ethical and resource-based concerns that have shaped disease narratives over time. Faculty from BMI provide scientific information about infectious diseases and vaccines, and we jointly provide material about science communication and how public information about diseases has changed over time.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University level courses.

This course focuses on the formation of the modern Ukrainian nation with special emphasis on its historical relations with Russia and its recent prominence in international politics. Beginning with the medieval state of Kyivan Rus′, the Cossack past and the Ukrainian movement within the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, the course will focus on the events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It will examine such major themes as the origins of modern Ukrainian nationalism, the Great Famine of 1932–33, WWII in Ukraine, and Ukrainian independence. We will pay special attention to two recent popular revolutions in Ukraine and the ensuing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which will be examined in the wider historical context of imperial disintegration.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University level courses.

This course examines three of the Atlantic World’s influential revolutions – the American, French, and Haitian Revolution. Students will examine both intellectual traditions and on the ground realities, from the emergence of Lockean liberalism, the rights of man, and republicanism to the violence and the horrors war, slavery, and revolutionary terror. In doing so we will begin to unpack deeply entrenched national myths and develop a deeper understanding of the lasting legacies of the Age of Revolutions in the Atlantic World.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University level courses.

This course is an introduction to the history of Britain and Ireland, the British Empire and the early modern period. The course will largely attend to the major political, religious and economic transformations that were the hallmarks of early modernity and the first British Empire. Along the way, we will consider important aspects of everyday life for ordinary people, some of which endured throughout the period. Suitable for students interested in violence, sex, religious conflict, and outrageous clothes.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of university level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 242 or HIST 246 will not receive credit for this course.

The story of how Britain gained the world’s biggest ever empire over the course of two and half centuries (Anglobalization) and then lost almost all of it over two generations is a remarkable episode in human history, raising many complex and vital questions. This course will introduce students to the ways historians have tried to answer these questions, and the controversies they sparked then and now. Suitable for students curious about how a traditional society underwent major economic and social transformations while avoiding a political revolution and without losing its sense of humour.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of university level courses.
Note: Students with credit for HIST 246 will not receive credit for this course.

Was there an Industrial Revolution? This seems like an odd question given the importance of industrialization in the modern world, but when historians searched the evidence many concluded the Industrial Revolution was “neither very industrial nor very revolutionary”. We’ll work to understand why industrialization started in Britain and debate whether it needs to be renamed. We will then explore the economic, social, political and environmental consequences of industrialization in England, Scotland and Wales; including how urbanization and industrialization changed social and gender relations, creating new demands for democratic reform, unionization and women's rights. We will look at the global history of industrialization, from the cotton plantations, wheat fields, sheep stations, palm groves and copper mines that supplied raw materials to British factories, to the spread of industrial economies to Germany, North America, Japan and China. While exploring these interconnected histories, we will learn about different methods and approaches to history such as economic, social, political and environmental history. The history of the first modern industrial society; urbanization, democratization and class conflict; the rise of the labour movement, the triumph of middle-class values, the decline of the aristocracy; the changing religious and moral climate; the domestic consequences of world power; the social and economic impact of two world wars, the loss of world power.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University level courses.

This course examines the history of the Russian Empire from its origins to the fall of the monarchy in 1917. Understanding Imperial Russia is particularly important today, as Russia and the other former Soviet republics are searching for new political and social forms in the wake of communism’s collapse and are looking to the pre-revolutionary past as a source of political inspiration and national identity. The Russian tradition, from Peter I to Nicholas II, has become a hotly debated field of current political discourse both in Russia and in the West. A central question is whether the Russian tradition was a historical dead end, or a promise cut short by revolutionary violence? In considering this question, topics involving politics, social history, culture, gender, religion, and ethnicity will be discussed.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University courses.

This course will explore the rise, evolution and demise of the Soviet Union. Topics such as the revolutionary upheaval of 1917, socialist renewal under NEP, Stalinism, the Soviet Union’s participation in WWII, the Cold War, Khrushchev's Thaw, ‘Stagnation’ and detente, Gorbachev’s reforms, and Soviet collapse will be examined through a variety of sources and methodologies. As a broad survey, the course will not dwell on particular eras or personalities, but rather place these within context. The course will conclude with an assessment of the Soviet legacy.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University courses.

This class is focused on the extensive analysis of the World Wars. We will learn about life in the trenches during WW1, the role of women in the “home front,” and the encounters between Europeans and colonial troops during the Great War. Moreover, we will read about Western and Eastern Fronts during WW2, and the war in the Pacific. Finally, we will focus our attention on race and gender dynamics during the Second World War, and on the Holocaust. This course will give you the opportunity of studying the World Wars, their premises, and their consequences from different historiographical perspectives and methodological angles.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University courses.

This course is an introduction to the history of Canada up until Confederation in 1867. The lectures will examine major events, issues, and themes in pre-Confederation history, with a specific focus on key historical debates and our understandings of Canada's colonial past. A few of the topics for this course include native-newcomer relations, European empires and conquest, colonial cultures, and rebellion and nationhood.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of university level courses.
Note:Students who have received credit for HIST 151.3 may not take HIST 255.3 for credit.

This course is an introductory Canadian history lecture course that covers Canadian history from 1867, the year of Confederation, to the present day. It combines political, social, cultural and gender history approaches to the study of Canada' past. This course surveys the development of the Canadian nation-state and its people. Topics include: First Nations people; federal politics; society and gender; war; activism; regional politics and economy and Canadian culture.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of University courses
Note:Students with credit in HIST 152.3 may not take this class for credit.

A study of Rupert's Land and the North-West to the early 20th century, including early contact between European and Aboriginal societies, the development, expansion, and decline of the fur trade, early western communities, environmental changes, Canadian expansionism and national development policies, regional responses, and developments leading to province-hood.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of university level courses.

An examination of the three prairie provinces, including the impact of the two World Wars and the Depression, protest movements and parties, urban growth and the modernization of rural life, environmental disasters and new resource developments, Aboriginal renewal, and western alienation.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of university level courses.

Examines Canadian women’s and gender history from the pre-contact period until the end of World War I, emphasizing the complexities of women's and men’s experiences and the interplay of such factors as gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Employs chronological and thematic approaches while also referring to historical debates and historiographical developments.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of university level courses.

Examines Canadian women’s and gender history from the end of World War I to the present, emphasizing the complexities of women and men’s experiences and the interplay of such factors as gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Employs chronological and thematic approaches while also referring to historical debates and historiographical developments.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of university level courses.

This course considers how relations between Indigenous peoples and Settlers have been shaped by divergent and sometimes contentious interpretations of pivotal historical events, processes, and contexts. By examining how Indigenous peoples and Settlers have addressed topics such as Indigenous identity, political rights, spirituality, education, fisheries, self-government, casinos, research ethics, and oral history, this course will shed light on crucial issues that have conditioned the shifting relationship between these groups in the past and present.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of university level courses.

Using a field trip to Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg as their point of departure, students in this experiential learning course examine human rights as a product of history, the result of the changing moral frameworks that shape how people define and grapple with injustice in the world. Where did the concept of human rights come from? Why have demands for justice in the modern world so often been articulated as matters of human rights? How has the meaning of human rights changed over time? Finally, how does the CMHR present the history of human rights (or their violation), and in what ways do the museum’s choices influence the public’s understanding of that history? By engaging our senses as well as our critical faculties, the encounter with the museum will heighten our interest in the subject and facilitate transformative learning.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 30 credit units of university-level courses or 3 cu of HIST at the 100-level
Note: The requirements of this course include a 3-day trip to Winnipeg. The cost of this travel, less any funding the instructor is able to arrange, is in addition to the tuition fees for the course. Students with credit for HIST 298.3: Human Rights in History may not take this course for credit. Students with credit for HIST 298.3 (Human Rights in History) may not take this class for credit.

This course will introduce students to the full spectrum of Greco-Roman medical practices, from the healing rituals of the cult of Asclepius to the rational medicine of Hippocrates and Galen. Special attention will be given to the social dimension of ancient medicine, including medical ethics, the social status of doctors and their patients, and the role of women, both as patients, whose anatomical differences from men were thought to necessitate an entirely separate branch of medicine (i.e. gynecology), and as midwives, an important but often overlooked group of medical practitioners. After tracing the development of ancient medicine from the earliest evidence for Greek concepts of health and disease through to the flourishing of Greek medicine at the height of the Roman Empire, this course will conclude by examining the continuing influence of Greco-Roman medicine throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level; or 30 credit units of university level courses.

This lecture course examines many of the significant social, economic, environmental, political, diplomatic and military developments in American history, from the pre-colonial period to 1865. It focusses on several important historical topics including: Native American cultures; the European background of American settlement; the establishment of colonies and development of an American nationality; the American Revolution; the formation of the Union; and the struggle to maintain it leading up to the Civil War.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of university level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 270.6 may not take this course for credit.

This lecture course examines many of the significant social, economic, environmental, political, diplomatic and military developments in American history, from 1865 to the present. It focusses on several important historical topics including: Reconstruction; westward expansion; industrialization and urbanization; imperialism and the rise to global power; World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II; the Civil Rights Movement and the counterculture; the Cold War and its aftermath.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level or 30 credit units of university level courses.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 270.6 may not take this course for credit.

This course surveys the history of the Middle East during the long 20th century. Topics covered include the so-called demise of the Ottoman empire; republicanism and constitutional reform; modernization and westernization; the nation-state system and the many shades of nationalisms; women, gender, sexuality; imperial culture, decolonization, and post colonialism; Zionism and the creation of Israel; oil and the environment; political Islam and the Iranian revolution of 1979; 9/11 and the Global War on Terror; and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-Level or 30 credit units of University

We consider how the different expansions and decline of the Qing Empire affected the movement of people, as well as the Qing’s dramatic clash with European Imperialism. We explore the socio-political structures and conception of imperial power during the Qing and patterns of semi-colonialism. Simultaneously we pay attention to the formation of influential social movements in China such as nationalist, Marxist and feminist movements. Students familiarize themselves with Chinese intellectuals at the turn of the century and during the New Culture Movement, and in particular with the woman problem. We examine Maoist China, both in its particularities but also embedded in a global context, by considering the global relationship between revolution and modernization in China. We take into account global forces such as Japanese, European Imperialism, Soviet Socialism that have shaped Chinese history, but also the meaning of culture during the Cultural Revolution and post-Mao politics and social life.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units of HIST at 100 level or 30 credit units of University level courses.

This course explores the process of, reasons for, and arguments about European colonialism from the 16th to the mid-20th centuries. It links European colonialism to changes in Europe itself, most especially ideas of progress linked to the Enlightenment and capitalist relations of production. The dispossession of marginalized populations in Europe, and the rationales used for such dispossession, are compared to rationales for colonialism and colonial dispossession. The violence of colonial dispossession in various locales in Latin America, Africa and Asia, and heightened racism are explored as is the trend towards a focus on colonial 'development' in the 20th century.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of University level courses.
Note: Students with credit for HIST 289.6 may not take this course for credit. This course is typically offered every other year.

This course examines the promise and ultimate failure of development. Stemming from the dismantling of colonial empires and the creation of an infrastructure to manage the international economy near the end of Second World War, 'development' promised to end or dramatically reduce poverty around the world. Development policies ultimately failed to meet those goals and were replaced by neo- liberalism and arguments about good governance by the end of the 20th century. This course explores the idea of development and suggests the difficulties encountered in living up to its promises lie in its basic premises; reliant as they are on the continued desire to impose specific types of economic and social relations around the world---the continuation of what might be called the Menace of Progress. The course explores this history through an examination of post-independent economic policy in Africa, Asia and Latin America and an exploration of the history behind various ideas important to the concept of development: poverty, population and the expanded role of the market.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100-level or 30 credit units of University level courses.
Note: Students with credit for HIST 289.6 may not take this course for credit. This course is typically offered every other year.

This course introduces students to the history of 20th century international relations, broadly defined. It focuses on the ways in which disparate individuals, communities, ideas, goods, nation-states, environments, and economies interacted with transnational networks, international organizations, global processes, and universal human inequalities in a changing, interconnecting world. Key themes covered include: cross-cultural encounters and coexistence; conflict and cooperation; trade; and development. Particular attention will be given to marginalized peoples, perspectives, places, and situations.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s):3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; 30 credit units of University level courses; or permission of the department.

This course introduces students to the history of Japanese civilization from prehistory to the beginning of the 17th century. Using written records, archaeological relics or objects of material culture and works of art from the Paleolithic period to the beginning of the Edo era in 1603, we will investigate several key topics, issues, and moments in time that significantly affected the lives of the people who lived on the Japanese archipelago. These topics include, technology (metallurgy, wet rice cultivation, paper making), governance (indigenous versus continental East Asian models), religion (Buddhism, Shintō, Christianity), systems of thought, food, language, daily life, social forms, identity, gender, the state, art, literature, architecture, and historiography. Some of the questions include: Where can we find connections or discontinuities? How can—and cannot—textual and archaeological sources help us understand people and their lives? How did Japanese thinkers, leaders, religious professionals, and ordinary people understand the past?

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University level courses.

This course explores the history of Japanese civilization during the early modern and modern periods. Using written records, archaeological relics, objects of material culture and art from roughly 1603 to the present, we will investigate topics including: technology (from swords and guns to cameras, microchips and robots), governance (generals, restoration of the emperor, constitutional monarchy), religion (Buddhism, Shintō, Christianity, and New Religions), systems of thought, food (sushi and western food like tenpura), language, daily life, social forms, identity, gender, the state, art, literature, architecture, and historiography. Some questions include: Where can we find connections or discontinuities? How can—and cannot—textual and archaeological sources help us understand people’s lives? How have Japanese thinkers, leaders, religious professionals, political leaders, and ordinary people understood the past?

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 100 level; or 30 credit units of University level courses.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours