Course Descriptions

This course explores the construction, expressions, and politics of queer sexual desire in modern Europe. The course examines the ways in which gender and sexuality have become central to questions of identity in modern European societies. The readings for the course will be drawn from sexological texts, political writings, and recent scholarship produced by both historians and theorists of gender and sexuality. We will also watch some movies central to the themes of this class. This course will not only offer a chronological history of modern ‘queer Europe’, but it will also interrogate the meanings of the term ‘queer’ and explore what queer historical practices look like, or should look like. We will not only trace the history of those individuals who would claim to occupy various categories of identity, but we will also explore how those identity categories have been brought into existence.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST courses at the 200-level or above; and 3 credit units of HIST courses at the 300-level or above; or permission of the department.

In this seminar course, we will consider how social, political, economic, and environmental conditions particular to northwestern North America (territory now known as British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) have affected the perception and construction of gender roles and intimate relations in indigenous and settler communities, from the 18th to the 20th century. We will use primary sources in an effort to uncover and understand how Plains and Pacific peoples defined male, female, and genderqueer identities, as well as how they viewed short- and long-term sexual relations. We will also consider recent historiography on this subject in an effort to understand how exploration, trade, colonization, immigration, labour, and social activism have influenced Western Canadian expressions of gender identity and sexuality over time.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level; or permission of the professor or the department.
Note: Students with credit for HIST 498.3 Gender and Sexuality in Western Canada may not take this course for credit.

Modern ethnohistory features research that reflects the protocols and philosophical outlooks of Indigenous communities. It includes a commitment to involve Indigenous communities as full participants in the process of research and knowledge creation. This course explores both the historical context in which ethnohistory emerged, as well as the ways in which it has changed over time from 1900 to the present. As we look at this history, we’ll look at a variety of regional case studies from across the continent. The course consists of one three-hour seminar a week. Class discussion is based on class readings and assignments, as well as guest speakers when appropriate.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units HIST courses at the 200-level or above; and 3 credit units of HIST courses at the 300-level or above; or permission of the department.

The city of Rome evokes visions of conquest and empire, and of emperors and dictators. Augustus, establishing himself as Rome’s first emperor after decades of civil war, transformed Rome from ‘a city of brick to one of marble,’ imprinting the ideology of his rule, and of the eternity of empire in architecture. Two millennia later, in the 20th century, Benito Mussolini became il Duce, the founder of fascism, and Italy’s leader. Like Augustus, Mussolini stressed the need for the rebirth of the Italian nation after a long period of disunity and warfare. This entailed the creation of “new Italians” and the foundation of a “new Italy” of which Rome once again would be the symbolic centre, an embodiment of the glorious Roman imperial past, and of the glorious fascist present and future. Thus, the Rome of the emperors and the Rome of fascism are intimately linked. In this course we examine how Augustus and his successors, through architecture and other urban interventions, made Rome into the “Imperial city” par excellence, one that reflected their absolutist rule. At the same time we explore how Mussolini often appropriated (and sometimes destroyed) this ancient architectural heritage to create a city that reflected the socio-political ideals of Fascism. In this course, students will experience ancient and Fascist Rome in person, and will come to see how these two political systems used architecture, monuments and urban space as socio-political tools aimed at shaping their societies.

Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level; or permission of the department.
Note: Costs in addition to tuition apply to this course and some are non-refundable. Students must apply and be accepted to register in this course. Please contact the Department of History for information on how to apply.

Explores how assumptions about gender and sexuality shaped fascist movements in Germany, Italy, and France. How did fascists define masculinity and femininity? How did those definitions shape fascist ideals and policies? How did sexuality and race intersect with the delineation of gender roles for men and women?

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level or permission of the department.

Medieval magic was founded upon conventional scientific and religious presuppositions. It was also unconventional and illicit. This course examines magical literature and traditions from third- to sixteenth-century Europe, the place of magic in early European history, and reflects on the theoretical issues surrounding the classification of magic.

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 331.3 may not take this course for credit.

In this course students will develop an expertise in a focused historical topic through seminar readings, discussions, and an independent research project. They will then work together with the instructor to create a game that models some aspect of that historical circumstance.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level or permission of the department.

This course explores the key constitutive developments of social and cultural life in Britain from 1500 to 1800. We will examine the medieval social-spiritual background, the advent of the market, political and religious transformations, and some of the causes and consequences of the British civil wars. Suitable for those keen to understand how past people made sense of their lives in the midst of tremendous material and intellectual change.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level, or permission of the department.
Note:Students who have taken HIST 498.3 Special Topics: Social and Cultural History of Early Modern Britain may not take this course for credit.

This seminar examines how myriad peoples and communities across the globe, including Canadians, have experienced the global process of decolonization in the aftermath of the formation of a so-called post-imperial international system. After 1945, empires were in the process of being eliminated, but tragically, the discriminatory imperial ways of seeing that long justified imperial rule remained alive and well. Human dignity, decolonizing intellectuals realized, did not come with national independence and/or national citizenship. This seminar, in light of the increasing flow of such postcolonial ideas, uses historical and historiographical examinations of the global process of decolonization after 1945 as a means to understand and promote the ongoing decolonization of hearts and minds in the 21st century world.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level or permission of the department.

Movements promoting occult, magical, and esoteric ideas have been typically excluded from narratives of Western history as irrelevant remnants of a disappearing “enchanted” past. This course considers movements, organizations, and practices such as Freemasonry, Spiritualism, Neopaganism, Alternative Health or Wellbeing, and the New Age which have attracted, and continue to attract, significant numbers of adherents and have had major impacts upon western cultural, intellectual, artistic, and literary traditions. It uses these to explore the social theories of secularization and disenchantment as well as the ways in which Western colonial identities and conceptions of modernity have been constructed upon them.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level; or permission of the department.
Note(s): Students with credit for HIST 493.3 Magic and Occultism in the Modern West may not take this course for credit.

Indigenous people remain conspicuously absent from many North American urban genesis stories. In such accounts, the city is seen as inherently modern and the pinnacle of settler achievement. If Indigenous peoples are included it is as recent arrivals moving to cities in increasing numbers since the 1960s. This course challenges the idea that cities are not Indigenous spaces, and critically examines Indigenous peoples' experiences, encounters and interactions in these spaces. The course focuses on Indigenous experiences in Canadian cities to better understand Indigenous experiences in prairie cities, specifically Saskatoon. Course themes include: the manifestation of “urban” or “municipal colonialism” as a key element of the colonial project; the erasure of Indigenous peoples from urban spaces; gendered and racialized colonial violence in urban spaces; the development of urban Indigenous social and political organizations; and, cities as Indigenous gathering spaces and places of resilience and resistance where Indigenous peoples continue to make space for themselves and their relations.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level, or permission of the department.

Why do humans make war? Why are humans religious? Does religion make people more prone to violence? This course brings an historical perspective to these important questions. Its focus is the early modern period of European history (1500-1800). Political philosophers and historians long associated this era with religious wars and religious violence, to which modern secular nation-states were the solution. This course examines important scholarly approaches to the origins of war and religion, and their interrelation. Seminar participants tackle the knotty problems of how historians make sense of events whose interpretation underlies many contemporary debates about religion as a source for, and threat to, human flourishing.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level; or permission of the instructor or the department.

Alexander the Great was one of the most successful generals of all time. Throughout the Classical era, he was the prototype of a successful conqueror, with generals everywhere striving to imitate his success (and sometimes even his appearance). And his legend continued to grow through the centuries, with new actions and accomplishments being ascribed to him as his legend was reimagined in order to fit the cultures of the societies where it was being retold. In this course we’ll examine Alexander’s actions while he was alive and the way that his legend grew after his death. We’ll analyze his military conquests and his cultural impact (including the role that women played in facilitating his rise to power and his attempts to merge Macedonian and Persian culture), as well as how fictionalized versions of Alexander’s life shaped views about him across Europe and the Middle East for over a thousand years.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Note(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level, or permission of the department.

This seminar course studies the development of U.S. Cold War policies, with special attention paid to the decisions regarding nuclear weapons and the arms race. From a variety of scholarly perspectives, the course examines key diplomatic, strategic, political, social, and environmental implications of these policies from the 1930s to the present. Using a wide range of sources, we analyze several topics including: the international race for an atomic bomb, the creation of the Manhattan Project during World War Two, the decision to drop nuclear weapons on Japan, the bomb and the origins of the Cold War, anti-nuclear activism and arms control, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the impact of the arms race on American society and the environment.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level; or permission of the department.
Note Students with credit for HIST 471.6 may not take this course for credit.

Examines key political, military, social, and cultural themes related to the American experience in Vietnam from World War Two to the fall of Saigon.

Weekly hours: 1.5 Lecture hours and 1.5 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level or permission of the department.
Note:Students with credit for HIST 398 The United States and the Vietnam Wars or HIST 378 may not take this course for credit.

Will examine the history of Aboriginal peoples within the United States and will concentrate on the formation of indigenous cultures and how they reacted and adapted to Euro-American conquest, colonization, and dispossession to become one of the fastest growing "minority" populations in the United States.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level or permission of the department.

This seminar examines historical issues in mental health and psychiatry from medical, sociological, cultural, legal and political perspectives, principally in the English-speaking world. Charting a path from the rise of the asylum, to the dark chapter of the lobotomy, through Big Pharma and into Scientology, the History of Madness considers how we have historically found reason through insanity.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level or permission of the department.

Research seminar on development requiring work with primary sources, in-depth discussion of themes and topics, and the preparation of major research papers.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of senior-level HIST of which 3 credit units must be 300-level or permission of the department.
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.

Oral presentation of a historical paper at a conference of Honours students. The presentation is normally based on a paper already prepared, or in preparation, for a third- or fourth-year seminar course.

Restriction(s): Admission to an honours program in history.
Note: HIST 494 is required for all 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: 3 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: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours