Graduate Courses

This course will explore the ways in which gender—largely, the social construction of masculinity and femininity—has played a role in Canadian history, and will examine some of the major historiographical debates that have surrounded this complex topic. These debates often also address the related issues of race, class, and sexuality. This course will challenge students to employ gender as an integral tool of historical analysis, and to reconsider conventional narratives in Canadian history.

From the end of the Second World War until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States’ conflict with the U.S.S.R. dominated American military and foreign policy, but it also permeated and shaped political, economic, social, and cultural life in the United States.  In this course, we will examine the role of the United States in the creation and waging of the Cold War, American responses to the Cold War, and the effects on American society of this nearly half century-long standoff between the two emerging superpowers.  Rather than attempting a chronological study, we will select and focus on several key events and “battlegrounds” of this war—both actual and symbolic—and examine them through four different lenses: military, diplomatic, ideological, and cultural.  We will also consider how the Cold War continues to shape American government and society today.

The lifting of the iron curtain in Europe in 1989-1991 began a new era in the historical enquiry into Russian and European modern history. New interpretations and approaches appeared to old questions such as, What is Europe? Where are its boundaries? What is the historical relationship between its Western, Central and Eastern areas? How do we study Russian and Soviet history? This course looks at both the traditional and recent historiography on the changing views on imperialism, nationalism, socialism, and globalization, and explores how they shaped the history of the European continent. Particular attention will be focused on the Eastern regions. Students will be encouraged to explore both theoretical and empirical dimensions of the changing historiography, the new themes and approaches.

This seminar examines the theories, methods, and practices of global history. It is an introduction to one of the most vibrant fields of historical inquiry characterized by new journals, publication series, conferences, research projects, research funding, and advanced training at many universities. But global history is also a field in flux without overarching consensus on issues, approaches, and potential outcomes. More than most other fields of historical inquiry, global history is engaged in fundamental questions over interpretative hegemony, such as debates over Euro-centrism or Western developmental conceptions of modernity, civilization and development. Finally, historians of the global have also utilized those debates to re-examine the conceptual foundations of historical studies. Consequently the field of global history provides ideal opportunities to engage with a range of theoretical paradigms such as time and space and methodological approaches from entangled history to cultural transfers.

This course introduces the field of public history: history as it is interpreted for and understood by the public. Topics include: authenticity, commemoration, “imagined communities,” the invention of tradition, “usable pasts,” contested places, colonialism and culture, historical designation and preservation, heritage tourism, public policy, cultural (mis)representation, oral history, ethics, gender and class, the natural and built environment, education vs. entertainment, and social memory. Through readings, guest speakers, site visits, workshops, and projects, students explore the theoretical concerns underlying the field and learn the methods and skills practiced by public historians today. Required for Public History students; not open to other graduate students.

This course provides an analysis of the field of modern Canadian history by focusing on thirteen established topics and examining the most relevant works. The course offers an in depth study of post-Confederation Canadian history and historiography. The aims and outcomes focus on reading, discussing, and writing. The course provides excellent preparation for doctoral candidates preparing for comprehensive examinations in the field of Canadian history, but is by no means limited to PhD students; MA students make up the majority of the class.

This is a graduate course about the writing of history—the actual art and craft of writing historical nonfiction. It is not a seminar on research methods, historiography, or any particular subfield of history. It is a weekly writing workshop, in which we will all give and get criticism, working together to improve our writing skills. The work of the course consists of weekly writing assignments that we will share and critique in class, paying attention not only to questions of evidence and argument but also to issues like voice, pace, storytelling, and style. We will also read advice on academic and other writing, along with samples of effective prose. The purpose of the readings is to suggest strategies and techniques that we can apply to our own work, and to help us each think about how and maybe even why we want to write about the past.

This course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of professional archival work. Class sessions will primarily be lecture driven, but combine discussion, practical exercises, and demonstrations. Students will gain a solid grounding in the history of the profession, an understanding of basic archival terminology, principles, theory, as well as an appreciation of current practices and how digital technologies have impacted both archival management and public programming. This course is designed for Public History students; open to other graduate students with the instructor’s permission.

Digital history is the use of computers, digital media, and other tools for historical practice, presentation, analysis, and research. This course emphasizes both the presentation of history on the web, and the use of computational techniques to work with digital resources. Required for Public History students, not open to other graduate students.

Digital history students may also be interested in the companion studio course, History 9832b: Interactive Exhibit Design, offered in the Winter Term.

This is a course about things ̶ rotten and ruined things. More importantly, it is about how history has been shaped by loss and decay, and how we understand the past in terms of what it leaves behind as fragments and remnants of objects and collections, decomposing matter and ruined spaces and places. Finally, we will question how we structure the past by managing what it leaves behind.

Historical research now crucially involves the acquisition and use of digital sources.  In History 9877A, students will learn to find, harvest, manage, excerpt, cluster and analyze digital materials throughout the research process, from initial exploratory forays through the production of an electronic article or monograph which is ready to submit for publication. Crossed listed with HIS 4816A

In this course we will explore African American and African Canadian history from the eighteenth century to today. We will trace the diverse experiences of African-heritage people in North America through slavery and the struggle to end it, segregation, and the mass incarceration that is the backdrop for “hip-hop culture” and the supposedly “post-racial” settler states of the present. Throughout we will track the long history of black protest and the long movement that historians’ call the Black Freedom Struggle.

The ‘Great Divergence’ is a phrase applied to the gap that opened between the West and the rest of the world, in terms of economic development and standards of living. Where is the place of the Middle East in it and how does it affect the destiny of its people? It is the role of the social, political and economic history to explain it.

This seminar course examines history as it is interpreted for and understood by the public including: public history theory (topics and issues such as authenticity, commemoration, "imagined communities", invention of tradition, "usable pasts", contested places, colonialism and culture, historical designation and preservation, living history, heritage tourism, cultural legislation, public policy, cultural (mis)representation, oral history, ethics, gender and class, the natural and built environment, intangible heritage, education vs. entertainment, and social memory); the history of public history (examination of the establishment of Canadian museums, archives, government agencies and the individuals key to their development); and, the practice of public history (through readings, guest speakers, site visits, workshops and projects, students learn the methods and skills practiced by public historians today). Required for Public History students; not open to other graduate students.

This course will focus on some key moments in women’s and gender history primarily in the history of Europe, but also in other parts of the world. Key themes will be the evolution of women’s/gender history over time, how history changes when we look outside of the political history of male elites, debates about historical periodization and interpretation, whether women’s status has progressed or regressed over time, how women have been viewed historically in colonized states and debates over sexuality. Students will be given the opportunity to write an essay which will explore a topic in women’s/gender history of their choice.

This course is intended for students considering a career in the museum field, or, for those students interested in the history of museums and their associated roles as collector, steward and interpreter of public history. Museums are explored through both theoretical and applied contexts, with students acquiring an understanding of the objectives of effective museum management and the ability to directly apply these principles to the administration and operation of museums and cultural institutions. Topics explored include: the social history and development of museums; professional, legal and ethical standards; contemporary organizational & management structure, issues and strategies; and practical museum functions such as collections management, preservation, exhibition, and public education. This course is designed for Public History students; open to other graduate students with the instructor’s permission.

A fundamental part of doing history is engaging with historical practice itself. This pass/fail course is designed to help History graduate students develop their understanding of our discipline’s professional expectations; think reflectively about their research, writing, and teaching; and develop skills that they can use to land and excel in a job in our profession. The course will involve group discussion, presentations, group work, workshops, and guest speakers. Required for 2nd year PhD students; may be audited by other graduate students with the instructor’s permission.

This course will examine the intersectional history of sexuality through histories of those who have violated or changed sexual norms, and accounts of those who obeyed or reinforced them, in the modern world. In doing so, we will seek to better understand how we arrived at the diverse sex (and gender and racial and ableist) arrangements under which we live, resist, and organize in the present. While much of the literature available in English on this subject concerns Europe and North America, the syllabus will include readings about sexuality in other parts of the world. Just as sexual norms were not the same in the past, neither are they the same in different cultures across the world. Putting our own norms and “truths” in comparison with those of other cultures will allow us to think critically about the ways that social and historical contexts shape sexuality and sexual identity, and how those contexts are also reshaped by changing sexual practices, norms, and identities.     

Environmental history explores the history of human beings and the natural environment: how people have thought about, and interacted with, nature. While introducing the main concepts and debates of the international field, this seminar course will trace an environmental history of Canada, particularly through the past two centuries.

Because historians are both teachers and public intellectuals, there is a strong pedagogical component to their work. Yet academic history offers little commentary on the nature of teaching history or even arguments for how we select what histories should be taught, when, and to whom. This course aims to address these issues through both practical instruction on how to teach history and critical exploration of the history education literature. Key topics include: the cognitive dimensions of learning history; curriculum theory; ethnic and community identities; history as citizenship education and nation-building.

The cognate essay should be a high-quality research paper, comparable to an article published in a scholarly journal, which develops and sustains a significant historical argument. It must be:

• approximately 12,500 words (about 50 typed, double-spaced pages) in length
• characterized by polished presentation (well organized, clearly, concisely and elegantly expressed, free of grammar and syntax errors etc.)
• based on primary source material, and
• set in the context of the critical published work.