Course Descriptions

History began with the Greeks. Or at least, the Western tradition of the writing of history began with them; after all, it was the Greeks who gave us the term “history.” Literally meaning “inquiries” in the original Greek, it served as the title of an account of the Persian Wars written by Herodotus, the so-called “Father of History”. But not everyone agreed with Herodotus’ approach. Most strikingly, his immediate successor, Thucydides, emphatically rejected his methodology and proposed an alternative. And subsequent writers regularly proposed alternative viewpoints regarding best approach to writing history. This course will trace the development of historical writing in the ancient world and explore the different approaches that Greek and Roman historians brought to the discipline by analyzing a variety of primary sources (in translation). In the process, we’ll explore questions about the purpose and methodology of history more broadly, including about how we practice it today.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST; or 60 credit units of university studies; or by permission of the instructor.

Recent scholarship on sex, gender and sexuality in Africa has focused on the relationship between a constructed African sexual deviance and the rising rates of HIV/AIDS on the continent. This course seeks to understand how the stereotypes of African sexuality, same-sex relationships and gender oppression were formed. Through a wide range of scholarly literature, primary sources, biographies and visual texts we will then move beyond this narrow focus and use historical studies to destabilize dominant assumptions about gender and sexuality in Africa. To do this we will use predominantly African texts and develop analytical tools appropriate to African contexts. In this way the course will provide rich accounts of African lives and how they shape and are shaped by issues of gender and sexuality.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level or permission of the instructor.

By fusing humour with social criticism, satire allows authors to skewer societal customs and traditional practices while providing entertainment. Satire was popular among Greco-Roman authors, who found a ready audience for their biting critiques of prominent figures and contemporary social practices. Nothing was off limits for these writers, from destructive warmongering to illogical religious beliefs to the self-serving customs of the elite. And because these satires cover such a wide array of subjects, they provide the perfect lens through which to study the society and culture of the ancient world. In this course, we will analyze the satirical works of a number of Greek and Roman authors (e.g. Aristophanes, Lucian, Juvenal, etc.) in order to examine how they utilized this genre for social criticism and comedic effect, as well as what these works can tell us about the Greco-Roman world.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units of 200-level HIST; or 60 credit units of university-level courses; or permission of the instructor.

History viewed through documents related to a single individual. Students will work from various perspectives, including social, institutional, cultural, intellectual, and gender history. Possible individuals to be studied include Peter Abelard, Elizabeth I, Erasmus, and Joan of Arc.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.
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.

This 3-week intensive, lecture-seminar summer study abroad class takes place in Italy every two years and focuses on the study of the ancient city of Rome (8th century BCE to 4th century CE). Urban planning and development, architectural history, monuments and authority, aspects of life in the largest ancient metropolis, Christianity in urban space, are some of the subjects that we cover; first in the classroom, and then during site visits in the city of Rome. This course will benefit especially students who have taken classics, archaeology, CMRS, history or art and art history at the 100 and 200 levels, and who would like the opportunity to expand their knowledge of Rome, its urban culture and architectural history.

Weekly hours: 4 Lecture hours and 9 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST, CLAS, ARCH or ARTH, or 45 credit units of university level courses and permission of the Instructor.
Note: Costs in addition to tuition will apply to this course. Please contact the department for details.

Examines the socio-economic pressures and spiritual goals basic to the Crusades, military encounters, the organization of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291), and ensuing contacts between Christians and Muslims to the eighteenth century.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.

This course focuses on the methods, approaches, and research of scholars who merge a historian’s interest in time with geographer’s interest in place and space. It will provide students with an overview of the potential and challenges this kind of research poses and provide them with the technical expertise necessary to conduct research of their own in this field of study. The course is organized in a series of thematic topics aimed at demonstrating the applicability of Historical GIS and other spatial history approaches at the local, regional, national, and transnational scales.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST courses, or 60 credit units of university studies, or at the permission of the instructor.

The course will take shape around intensive workshops organized into modules representing distinct aspects of community-engaged historical research. Students will attend discussions, engage in workshop related events and do assigned readings. Some days classes will be broken up by visits to specific sites in Saskatoon and elsewhere. Students will be expected to read for each class, engage in discussions, work effectively in methods workshops, and prepare a proposal for a community-engaged research project. A sub-set of the students taking HIST 314.3 each year will be subsequently employed through the History Department’s “Collaboratorium” to conduct historical community-engaged research. For these students, research project proposals will necessarily be explored with the project partners in mind. For other students, the project proposals will be developed in close consultation with the course supervisor and instructors of modules.

Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST; or 60 credit units of university studies; or by permission of the instructor.

In this course, we will focus primarily on the multiple physical, mental, and spiritual health risks that First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples have faced as a direct result of European exploration, missionization, trade, and colonization from 1492 to present day. We will consider Indigenous teachings and practices related to health and wellness both before and after European contact. We will also consider how new disease epidemics, poverty, food insecurity, the delivery (or withholding) of Western style medical care, and institutionalization in schools and hospitals affected Indigenous peoples’ health status over time.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level; or 60 credit units of university studies; or by permission of the instructor

This lecture/seminar course provides a comparative analysis of the diversity of Métis communities across the Canadian Prairies in the Twentieth Century. It is organized around historical social, cultural, and economic themes. It includes examination of concepts of resistance, resilience, mobility, dispossession, displacement and relocation as they relate to Métis experience. A significant focus of this course is a critical review of Indigenous narratives of life on the “road allowance” as presented through Métis stories and personal reminiscences as they complement existing historical scholarship.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST; or 60 credit units of university studies; or by permission of the instructor

Warfare was a force for incredible creative destruction on the German lands between 1500 and 1800. It accompanied and catalysed confessional division, political fragmentation, demographic catastrophe, state formation, and national revitalization. The German peoples’ particular entry into and exit from early modernity are inseparable from their experiences of war. This course introduces students to key themes in the military, social, economic, political, and intellectual history of the German lands between the careers of the theologian Martin Luther and the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. It highlights the complex ways early modern warfare shaped and was shaped by structural and contingent factors, often with profound consequences for broader German societies and subsequent generations.

Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST courses, or 60 credit units of university studies, or by permission of the instructor.

This course addresses the interaction of diverse cultural and religious identities in the Roman world, especially from the rise of Christianity in the early Empire through late antiquity. This encounter between Christianity and traditional Roman culture is one often defined in terms of conflict and triumph, but it is also one of toleration and exchange: by the time Christianity became an official religion, it was also deeply Roman. In the process of tracing these historical developments, this course will likewise consider how cultural and religious differences are constructed, resisted and adopted. Readings include a combination of modern scholarship and ancient literary and documentary texts.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST or CLAS at the 200-level.

No present-day term adequately captures the dynamic marketplace for curing what ailed you in pre-modern England. "Helping-Care" services were provided by a wide variety of healers and helpers: cunning folk, diviners, empirics, midwives, apothecaries, barber surgeons, and physicians all provided treatments focused on client physical, mental, and sometimes spiritual well-being. Practitioners, both formally and informally educated, often served clients from every rank of society, and were frequently well known in their communities for specialized treatments and cures. This course examines the wide range of standard magical and medical helping and healing practices that were in everyday use in pre-modern England. It also studies the charlatans who hoped to take advantage of people in such a dynamic setting.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST courses, or 60 credit units of university studies, or by permission of the instructor.

Ridley Scott’s film Gladiator (2000) brought the bloodlust of the Roman arena to a 21st century audience. The film appears to confirm that the Romans, especially emperors and the plebeian masses, were a cruel and bloodthirsty lot. Trained killers- gladiators- slaughtered innocent victims, or savage lions mauled and devoured them, all for the pleasure of the Roman people. This course takes a critical look at the varied deadly activities (munera, venationes, damnatio ad bestias), held in the Roman arena by examining ancient textual and visual sources, and modern scholarship. We will examine these spectacles in the broader context of Roman performance culture, religion and politics. Were these spectacles merely the product of a debased and declining culture? How has modern scholarship understood the apparent madness of the Roman arena?

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST or CLAS

This hybrid lecture-seminar class provides students with an historical examination of the peoples, practices, doctrines, and institutions of the Buddhist religion through history, emphasizing socio-cultural dimensions. Topics include: early Buddhism and its evolution in India; cultural contacts and the spread of Buddhism to southeast Asia, central Asia, China, Japan, Korea, Tibet and Mongolia. We will also consider Buddhism in modern Asia and in the west. Class meetings will combine lectures that provide historical and cultural context with discussions—and films—to clarify and interpret the assigned readings. Readings center on primary materials in English translation rather than on secondary scholarship so that students will define Buddhism on their own terms. Several questions guide this class: How has the world been imagined and experienced by Buddhists over time and over different geographies and cultures? What aspects of Buddhism are Westerners eager to see and what are they not interested in?

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200 level; or 60 credit units of University level courses; or permission of the instructor.

This hybrid lecture-seminar class offers an introduction to the history of world views characteristic of the popular religious traditions of China and of popular religious concepts and practices including mythology, divination, magic, and communal worship. We will also investigate Chinese institutional religions including Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism in terms of how their practitioners have incorporated these and other popular religious concepts and practices into their methods, regulations, and teachings. Features of sacred sites, including foundational and enduring myths, architecture, art and socio-cultural dynamics, and historiography will receive careful consideration in this course. We will explore religion as it has been and continues to be practiced in everyday life for individuals, families, communities, and the state in China and within Chinese communities. Our historical analysis will consider religion and culture not as abstract, monolithic and ahistorical phenomena, but as expressions of the social realm.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200 level; or 60 credit units of University level courses; or permission of the instructor.

The British conquest of 1759-1763 assessed primarily in terms of its effect upon French Canadian society. Historical interpretations of this central event in Canadian history will form the core of this course.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.

Canadians emerged from World War II confident, optimistic and well positioned to play a leading role in world events. What happened? Seminar topics devoted to political, social, cultural and economic developments allow students to study the central dichotomy of modern Canadian life: angst in an era of affluence.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.

This course offers students the opportunity to engage with a newly emerging field of historical scholarship: food history. Food, its production, marketing, preparation and consumption is the product of particular societies and cultural practices and, ultimately, food has a history. Drawing upon the recent international and national literature this class offers a social and cultural history of Canada through food. Employing the traditional analytical categories of social history (race, gender, class and nation/region) provides us with the tools to understand the expansion of food products and commercialization; the growth of fast food empires; immigration and "ethnic" cuisine, the gendered dynamics of the kitchen, the farmyard and the grocery store; food safety and social justice; and now, most recently, our fascination with sustainability, organic foods and so-called '100 mile diets.'

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Permission of the Department.
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST
Note:Students who took the earlier iteration of this class as a HIST 398.3 (2011 and 2012) may not take this course for credit.

A focus on life stories can shed “light far beyond the individual” and allows the historian to make connections to broader historical change (Salvatore, 2004). As one of the oldest forms of historical practice, biography serves many purposes in society such as to construct and validate ethical and social practices as well as commemorate key players. More recently, biography has been recognized as an important decolonizing methodology, with scholars attempting to highlight marginalized actors who have been obscured and/or erased from colonial narratives. This course reflects this trend and will study the life (her)stories of Indigenous women who have shaped Early North America. Critical analysis will include research based in both primary and secondary sources. The course consists of one three-hour class per week, divided into two parts. The first half the class will consist of a lecture, while the second half will be a seminar discussion based on weekly readings.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST; or 60 credit units at the university level; or permission of the instructor.

This course looks at early North American history (1600-1900) through the prism of diasporas. Many groups of Indigenous North Americans have experienced both voluntary and forced dispersal from their homeland. This process of migration and settlement has resulted in the creation of new localized communities who simultaneously align themselves culturally, politically and economically within a continental diaspora network. Beyond an introduction to migration and diaspora history, this course will highlight several case studies such as: the Wendat, the Shawnee, the Cherokee, the Odawa, and the Métis. Seminar discussions will draw on themes of colonialism, transnationalism, historic trauma, spirituality, identity and women’s experiences. The course consists of one three-hour class per week, divided into two parts. The first half the class will consist of a lecture, while the second half will be a seminar discussion based on weekly readings.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST; or 60 credit units at the university level; or permission of the instructor.

This course introduces students to the history of borderlands by analyzing what borderlands are, how they form, why they matter, and how they change our conceptions of history. We will study the historic formation of the borderlands of North America paying close attention to the efforts that Canada, Britain, the United States, and Mexico expended to demarcate their national boundaries and the slippages that occurred when nations have tried to force binary categories, such as nationalities, onto historically mobile and interconnected populations. In doing so, we will study inter-tribal borderlands, borderlands between Natives and newcomers, and the creation of borders between European powers. We will assess the impact and contributions that communities such as the Cree, Sioux, Nez Perce, Métis, Comanche, Iroquois and Coast Salish made to the demarcation, enforcement, and placement of European boundaries. Finally, we will compare the borderlands of North America to borderlands across the world, utilizing case studies from Europe, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and Morocco. Throughout this process, we will focus on contentious issues such as violence, warfare, smuggling, prostitution, nation building, abductions, and racial exclusion.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.

This course explores the ways that humans have exploited various sources of energy and fuels in the past, and the implications of the dramatic increase in the total amount of energy used by society. It considers the consequences of the transition from organic forms of energy, such as muscles and wood, to mineral forms of energy, such as coal, oil, and uranium. The course addresses how new technologies, higher standards of living, changing modes of production, and environmental transformations made this pattern of energy use possible, and contextualizes the growth in energy consumption within narratives of colonization, state formation, urbanization, industrialization, rapid population growth, and wealth accumulation.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST or permission of the department.

In the post 9/11 period, interest in the study of American foreign relations has continued to increase. This hybrid lecture/seminar course examines the history and historiography of U.S. foreign relations from 1945 to the present. While the emphasis is on diplomatic history, the course also considers the political, economic, cultural, and social implications of American foreign policies in the United States and the wider world.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level

Examines selected themes in the history of Central America, concentrating on the 19th and 20th centuries.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.
Note: Post-1815; Other Regions. 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.

This course traces the merging of eugenics with birth control in Republican China and globally, such as in the arguments of birth control activist Margaret Sanger, and the intersection between eugenics, hygiene and nation building. By examining the reaction of Chinese intellectuals to such scientific racial ideas, we will enrich our understanding of the utopic potency of eugenics as a solution to social ills such as poverty and disease. Reproduction is connected with ideologies of racial improvement such as eugenics, which also underpinned the One Child Policy in the 1980s. Chinese and international activists, writers and ideologues linked the population question, theories of degeneration and race suicide, birth control, and venereal disease to eugenics. Eugenics is intertwined with mental and physical health. Eugenics functions as an international ideology that also reinforces nationalism. The scientific argument has an explanatory value and legitimates the implementation of birth control and sterilization.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s):3 credit units 200-Level HIST courses.

An examination of major mass killings in the twentieth century. The course analyzes the definitions and theories of mass killings, including genocide and ethnic cleansing. It also discusses how the international community can best detect and prevent a mass killing using such tools as international law and humanitarian intervention.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level or permission of the instructor.

Digital history, the application of new and emerging technologies to the study of history, is an exciting new historical methodology. In this course, we explore the literature on digital history, and then put theory into practice by digitally collecting, evaluating, and producing historical knowledge. Along with discussing what digital history is and how it is evolving, this course will introduce students to text mining, geographic information systems (GIS) and developing historical websites. How digital archives are changing how we preserve and research history. Students will get hands-on experience with a wide range of digital skills and use these new methods to develop a final digital history project.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level HIST courses

How should (and how do) historians approach their scholarship, and how has this changed in recent generations? This course engages a range of methodological, philosophical, and historiographical readings drawn from a comprehensive survey of topical, thematic, and theoretical fields, collectively aimed at encouraging students to think about the process and methods of doing history.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST at the 200-level.
Note: Students with credit for HIST 398 Special Topics Approaches to History may not take this course for credit. HIST 397 is required for the Honours and Double Honours programs.

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: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion 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: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours