Undergraduate
Course Designators
Below are descriptions of courses with the following ‘designators’ (the 3 letter code in front of the course number):
| HIS | History |
| JHP | Joint History and Political Science (administered by Political Science Department, Room 3018, Sidney Smith Hall) |
| NMC | Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (administered by the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Avenue) |
NOTE: All courses shown on this page are accepted towards a History
program. However, as shown above, they are not all administered by the Department of History.
Course Nomenclature
- Y1-Y is a full course, both terms.
- Y1-F is a full course, first term (fall session)
- Y1-S is a full course, second term (winter session)
- H1-F is a half course, first term (fall session)
- H1-S is a half course, second term (winter session)
400 Level Courses (2016-2017)
400-level HIS courses are two-hour seminars that deal with very specialized subjects and are often closely connected to a professor’s research. Most have specific course pre-requisites and require extensive reading, research, writing, and seminar discussion, and in most you will have the opportunity to do a major research paper. All 400-level HIS courses have enrolment restrictions during the FIRST ROUND (must have completed 14 or more full courses, be enrolled in a HIS Major, Specialist or Joint Specialist program and have the appropriate Prerequisite). During the SECOND ROUND of enrolment, access to 400-level seminars is open to all 3rd and 4th year students with the appropriate Prerequisite.
IMPORTANT: Due to significant enrolment pressure on 4th year seminars, during the first round of enrolment, the Department of History reserves the right to REMOVE STUDENTS who enrol in more than the required number for program completion (Specialists – 2; Majors, Joint Specialists – 1) without consultation.
Students in 400-level seminars MUST ATTEND THE FIRST CLASS, or contact the professor to explain their absence. Failure to do so may result in the Department withdrawing the student from the seminar in order to “free up” space for other interested students. Additional 400-level seminars for the 2016-2017 Fall/Winter Session may be added at a later date. To fulfill History program requirements, students may also use 400- level courses offered by other Departments at the U of T that are designated as ‘Related Courses’.
The Department also offers a few joint undergraduate-graduate seminars. These are indicated in the course description. Undergraduate enrolment in joint seminars is restricted, and the expected level of performance is high.
HIS 401H1-S History of the Cold War
This seminar focuses on one of the defining events of twentieth century international relations. Lasting from the end of the Second World War to c.1990, the Cold War is often viewed as a power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, but in pitting two different political, social, and economic systems together in competition with each other, the Cold War also drew in much of the rest of the world, sometimes willingly and sometimes involuntarily. Specific topics to be discussed include: the origins of the Cold War; flashpoints such as the arms race, Berlin and Cuba; various third-world & regional conflicts, especially the war in Vietnam; alliance relations within both the Communist and non-communist blocs; détente; and Cold War’s end. Students will be expected to produce a significant research paper (20-25 pages) that is based on extensive primary research.
Prerequisite: HIS311Y1/HIS344Y1/HIS377Y1
Exclusion: HIS401Y1
Instructor: T. Sayle
Seminar: T 3-5
Division: III
HIS 404H1-F, L0101 Topics in U.S. History: Choosing War: U.S. Experiences, 1812-2003
The United States has gone to war regularly over the past two centuries and this course will consider how decisions to do so have changed — or not changed — over time. Key case studies will include the War of 1812, the Mexican War (1846-48), the Spanish-American-Cuban War (1898), World War I (1917-18), World War II (1941-45), the Korean War (1950-53), Vietnam (1954-73), and Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 21st century.”
Prerequisite: HIS271Y1-Y
Instructor: R. Pruessen
Seminar: T 10-12
Division: II
HIS 404H1-S Topics in U.S. History: From the Melting Pot to Multiculturalism: A History of American Diversity
(Joint undergraduate course – HIS404H1/USA401H1)
This course will examine racial, religious, and ethnic diversity in the United States from the American Revolution to the present day. Though beginning in the 18th century, the course will focus on period following the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Students will explore different ideas about the integration of former slaves, assimilation of immigrants, and religious accommodation to modern society. The course will pay close attention to how demographic changes affected politics, gender norms, educational priorities, and economic activity. Racism and nativism will be contrasted with theories of melting pot, cultural pluralism, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism. The American case will also be contrasted with comparably diverse nations like Canada, Australia, the UK, and France.
Prerequisite: HIS271Y1-Y
Instructor: A. Jones
Lecture: W 2-4
Division: II
HIS 405Y1-Y Canadian Foreign Relations
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course – HIS405Y1/HIS1142Y)
The course this year will concentrate on the period since 1980. In the first term the course takes an in-depth look at Canadian-American relations under Trudeau and Mulroney, including the free trade agreement of 1988; the fall of the Soviet Union; the rise of China; peacekeeping and peacemaking in the 1990s; the Afghan war; the Iraq war; Stephen Harper’s conduct of foreign policy, among others.
In the second term the topics will depend on the subjects students choose to write about for their major research essays. It is however expected that these topics too will deal with the period since 1980.
Tentative Course Requirements: two seminar presentations, one preliminary research essay, one take-home test, and one major research paper. Participation is worth 30% of the grade; the remaining 70% is based on your written work.
Prerequisite: HIS311Y1/POL312Y1
Instructor: R. Bothwell
Seminar: W 10-12
Division: II
HIS 410H1-F Spectacles, Crowds and Parades in Canada
This seminar explores the social and cultural history in Canada of several loosely related public phenomena: spectacles, crowds, and parades. Following the lead of the “new cultural history,” it considers meanings associated with visual displays of various kinds: state ceremonies such as royal visits and Canada Day; Aboriginal dances and ceremonies; parades of various sorts, such as Labour Day, St Patrick’s Day, Orangemen’s Day, and Santa Claus parades; Canadian landscape paintings; popular tourist sites; bodies on display, etc. And following the lead of social historians, the course examines crowds: their behaviour, social violence, and issues of crowd control. Thus, the course considers both the public performances of those on display and the spectator/participants who viewed and responded to them. Class, race/ethnicity, and gender are significant categories of analysis throughout the course.
No textbook is required.
Tentative Course Requirements: Short commentaries on required readings; a research essay; an oral presentation; class participation.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/HIS264H1/HIS367H1
Instructor: I. Radforth
Seminar: M 3-5
Division: II
HIS 412Y1-Y Crusades, Conversion and Colonization in the Medieval Baltic
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course – HIS412Y1/HIS1283HF)
This year-long seminar will explore the impact of crusades, religious conversion and colonization on medieval Baltic history. The focus of the course will be on close reading and analysis of two medieval chronicles in English translation. Our readings and discussions will include topics such as ‘culture clash’, medieval colonialism,
Europeanization as well as German expansion eastwards, the role of the Teutonic Knights and the strategies of survival of the native Baltic people after conquest and Christianization.
Textbook(s): The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, 2003; The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, 1977; Alan v. Murray (ed.), Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150-1500. Ashgate, 2001; Marek Tamm, Linda Kaljundi & Carsten Selch Jensen (eds.), Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the Medieval Baltic Frontier. Ashgate, 2011, and a packet of readings complied by the instructor.
Tentative Course Requirements: seminar presentations (30%), one major research paper in the spring term (50%), participation & attendance (20%).
Exclusion: HIS412H1
Recommended Preparation: HIS250H1/HIS250Y1/353Y1/permission of instructor.
Instructor: J. Kivimäe
Seminar: R 5-7
Division: III
Pre-Modern: 1 credit
HIS 414H1-F Down and Out in Medieval Europe
Explores the life conditions of individuals on the lower echelons of medieval society (the poor, servants and apprentices, the exiled, prisoners, slaves, foreigners and lepers). In parallel, we will discuss the various conceptions of poverty that prevailed in the Middle Ages. These objective will allow us to glimpse the European Middle Ages from an unusual angle as well as reflect on important socio-economic and religious changes.
Prerequisite: HIS220Y1 or a course on the Middle Ages
Instructor: I. Cochelin
Seminar: R 2-4
Division: III
HIS 416H1-F Orientalism and Nationalism in 19th Century Germany
In 1771, with the translation of the Zend-Avesta by the French scholar Anquetil-Duperron, a new era opened in German national culture. From the philosophy of Johann Gottfried von Herder to the novels of Thomas Mann, German writers defined the substance and place of national culture in their writings about India and “the East”. This course analyses nineteenth-century German Orientalist and nationalist ways of thought from the early nineteenth-century texts of Herder, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schlegel to the philosophies of Friedrich Neitzsche and the operas of Richard
Wagner. Topics include: the development of the disciplines of philology, comparative linguistics and ethnology; colonialism and philosophies of world history; classicism and the admiration for ancient Greece and the competing belief in an “Aryan” essence in German national culture. Throughout we will investigate the linking together of humanism, classicism, Orientalism and German nationalism in the texts under review, as well as paying particular attention to conceptions of self, gender and the “other”.
Textbooks: GWF Hegel, The Philosophy of History; Johann Gottfried von Herder, Another Philosophy of History; Friedrich Schlegel, On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, West-East Divan; Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy; Thomas Mann, Death in Venice; Hermann Hesse, Siddharta. A course pack of readings will also be included.
Tentative Course Requirements: Active participation, 2 short papers (3-5 pages) and a final research paper.
Prerequisite: HIS241H1, 242H1/317H1/Y1
Instructor: J. Jenkins
Seminar: M 3-5
Division: III
HIS 417H1-F The Oldest Profession in Canada: Sex Work in Comparative Historical Contexts
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course HIS417H1/HIS1168HF)
This course explores historical populations involved in “the world’s oldest profession” in Canadian and comparative contexts. Using a range of texts, including film, memoirs, oral histories and photographs, students explore both lived experiences and representations of a range of sex-trade involved populations, including madams, clients, and queer and trans workers.
Prerequisite: Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/HIS264H1, an additional .50 300+ level HIS course, permission of the instructor.
Instructor: L. Bertram
Seminar: T 10-12
Division: II
HIS 419H1-F Canada By Treaty: Alliances, Title Transfers and Land Claims
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course – HIS419H1S/HIS1118HS)
This intensive joint graduate/undergraduate research seminar provides opportunity for detailed study of the treaty processes between Indigenous peoples and newcomers in Canadian history, examining the shift from alliance treaties to land surrender agreements during the colonial period through to the signing of recent treaties including the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Nisga’a Final Agreement. We will consider the history of Canada as a negotiated place, mapping the changing contexts of these agreements over more than four centuries through readings and seminar discussions. The first five weeks will be devoted to an intensive study of more than four centuries of negotiated agreements between Indigenous peoples and newcomers to the lands that would become the Dominion of Canada. There will be an optional field trip to the Woodland Cultural Centre and the Mohawk Institute Residential school at the end of October and a class trip to the Royal Ontario Museum. For the major assignment, students will select a treaty and conduct detailed research (guided by the professor), contributing their findings to a mobile campus exhibit on treaties that will launch in April of 2017. Students in Canada By Treaty will have the opportunity to participate in this important campus exhibit and event. Primary source analysis, exhibit panel content, seminar participation, research essay.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/HIS264H1
Instructor: H. Bohaker
Seminar: F 10-12
Division: II
HIS 423H1-F The Social History of Medicine in the 19th and 20th Centuries
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course – HIS423H1F/1269HF)
The seminar, designed to inform students about developments in this scholarly field, will include topics such as the evolution of the doctor-patient relationship, the impact of medical care upon health, the evolution of such medical specialties as internal medicine, neurology and psychiatry, the relationship between culture and the presentation of illness, and the history of medical therapeutics.
Textbook(s): Edward Shorter, Doctors and Their Patients: A Social History.
Tentative Course Requirements: A major historiographical research paper (60%), outline for research paper (25%), participation (15%).
Prerequisite: A minimum of one course in HIS/PSY/SOC
Instructor: E. Shorter
Seminar: R 4-6
Division: II
HIS 426H1-S Medieval Italy, 400-1400
This course surveys the major developments and figures in Italian medieval history by focusing on key primary texts (in translation) with a particular view to urban and legal history which will form the backdrop to understanding artistic and literary achievements in context.
Instructor: N. Everett
Seminar: W 10-12
Division: III
Pre-Modern: ½ credit
HIS 430H1-F Canadians and the World Wars
This course in comparative history introduces students to a range of topics relating to Canadians during the First and Second World Wars where there is a strong secondary literature. Military, political, social, and cultural approaches are examined in connection with Canadians’ wartime experiences both at home and overseas. The required readings for the seminars invite students to compare developments of the First World War with those of the Second World War.
No textbook is required.
Course Requirements: comparative commentaries on required readings; primary source analysis; research essay; oral presentation; participation.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/HIS264H1
Instructor: I. Radforth
Seminar: M 3-5
Division: II/III
HIS 433H1-S Polish Jews Since the Partition of Poland
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course HIS433H1/HIS1287H)
The course will explore the history of Polish Jews from the Partitions of Poland to the present, concentrating on the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. It will examine the state policies toward Jews of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Poland; the rise of Jewish political
movements; the life of Jewish shtetls in Christian neighbourhoods; changes in the economic position and cultural development of Jewish communities in Poland; and the impact of communism on Jewish life. Materials are in English. Primary sources in translation as well as secondary sources representing diverse interpretation and points of view will be analyzed.
Prerequisite: HIS208Y1/251Y1/permission of the instructor.
Instructor: P. Wróbel
Seminar: W 10-12
Division: III
HIS 443H1-F Society, Culture, and Religion in the Renaissance and Reformation
Early moderns communicated with themselves, others, and God in ways that are often foreign to us, about concerns which we may not necessarily share, and working with assumptions that may be lost to us. In this course we will work with a range of primary sources (drama, ritual, diaries, letters, travel literature, treatises, dialogues, and official pronouncements) to understand the fears, hopes, and beliefs of early modern people, and their ways of communicating these. People of the time had a growing fascination with measurement, order and rationality, and they took these as the best ways of reforming politics, religion, and life. We will explore the social, intellectual, and political dimensions of ‘reform’ from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, and see how reform movements generated both intolerance and tolerance. We will look in particular at how reform movements generated mass expulsions and exiles, and created the modern phenomenon of the religious refugee. We will also see how European Christians used religion as a lens through which they sought to understand non-Christian groups like Jews, Muslims, and Aboriginals.
Tentative Course Requirements: seminar participation, class facilitation, book review, one major research paper.
Prerequisite: HIS309H1/357Y1 or permission of instructor
Exclusion: HIS443Y1
Instructor: E. Ferguson
Seminar: W 10-12
Division: III
Pre-Modern: ½ credit
HIS 444H1-S, L0101 Topics in Jewish History: Jewish Migration and Displacement in the 20th Century
During the 20th century, millions of Jews were uprooted from their homes as a result of war, persecution and economic distress. This seminar explores the impact of displacement on Jewish life in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. It covers the major Jewish refugee and migration movements, starting with the exodus from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and concluding with post-soviet emigration. It investigates the relationships between displacement and such issues as gender, nationalist sentiment and Jewish and human solidarity, taking into account the perspectives of various actors, including states, voluntary organizations and the migrants themselves.
Prerequisite: a course in modern European or Jewish history
Recommended Preparation: a course in Jewish history
Instructor: O. Yehudai
Seminar: W 4-6
Division: III
HIS 446H1-F Gender & Slavery in the Atlantic World
The course examines the relationship between gender and the experience of slavery and emancipating several Atlantic world societies from the 17th-19th centuries. Areas to be covered are the Caribbean, Brazil, the U.S. South, West and South Africa and Western Europe.
Prerequisite: HIS291H1/HIS294Y1/HIS230H1,231H1/HIS295Y1
Exclusion: HIS446Y1
Instructor: B. Fisk
Seminar: R 10-12
Division: I/II/III
HIS 451H1-F World War II in East Central Europe
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course – HIS451H1/1279H1)
World War II was much more destructive and traumatic in East Central Europe than in Western Europe. The difference was caused by many reasons, among which the Nazi and Soviet plans and policies were the most important. Yet, there were also numerous East Central European phenomena that contributed to the cruelty of World War II in the East. This seminar will explore the external and internal factors that defined the war in the discussed region. Students will analyze the military, political, economic, and cultural activities of Germany, the Soviet Union, and their allies and enemies. Following sessions will concentrate on the fall of the Versailles systems, diplomatic and military activities throughout the war, on occupational policies of the invaders, economic exploration of the invaded, on collaboration, accommodation, resistance, genocide, the “liberation” and sovietization of East Central Europe after 1944. All the secondary and primary sources used in class are English.
Prerequisite: EUR200Y1/HIS251Y1/HIS334Y1/HIS334H1
Instructor: P. Wróbel
Seminar: R 10-12
Division: III
HIS 452H1-S Science and Society in Britain 1600-1800
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course – HIS452H1S/HIS1419HS)
Interrogates British landmarks of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment in their intellectual, religious, cultural and social contexts. Addresses canonical “achievements” in astronomy, physics and chemistry but deals equally with popular “pseudo” sciences like astrology and mesmerism. Deconstructs progress narratives and paradigms of knowledge-acquisition in Britain and its imperial world. Investigates connections (or lack of them) between elite and popular culture. Do not register for this seminar without at least one of the pre-requisites because this course deals extensively with mentalités of the pre-modern world.
Prerequisite: HIS244H1/HIS337H1/HIS368H1
Instructor: J. Mori
Seminar: R 3-5
Division: III
Pre-Modern: ½ credit
HIS 460H1-S Soviet History and Film: 1941-1991
This course explores Soviet film as a historical source and the institutional and ideological history of Soviet film production, distribution, and exhibition from World War II to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The course is aimed at students who have a background in Russian history or film studies and wish to develop their knowledge in either area or experiment with interdisciplinary approaches. After a brief introduction to the heritage of the Soviet school of montage and socialist realism of the Stalin era, the course will investigate the following themes: fiction film and documentary during the “Great patriotic War” (World War II); Soviet cinema of the Cold War; the “Thaw” of the 1950s and Soviet “new realism” in cinema; the return of the village; avant-garde cinema of the 1960s-80s (Tarkovsky, Paradzhanov, Sokurov) and the question of audience. Special attention will be given to the question of memory and how late Soviet film addresses the Soviet past. By examining the relation between documentary and fiction film, specific questions of form, such as editing, narration, or sound will be used to investigate ways to analyze the complex relationship between reality, ideology, and their representation on the screen. Issues of film reception will be examined through the development of the Soviet institution of “cinefication” and its decline. Taking places in two consecutive sessions, consisting of film screening, presentations, and discussions, this course extends far beyond the limitations of traditional Soviet film courses based on a small number of films with English subtitles.
Students will view never before seen archival footage, as well as films and film clips subtitled by the instructor.
Prerequisite: INI115Y1/HIS250Y1/HIS335H1
Exclusion: HIS450Y1/SLA233H1/SLA234H1
Instructor: T. Lahusen
Seminar: M 5-7 & Screenings M 7-9
Division: III
HIS 466H1-F, L0101 Topics in Canadian History: The History of Education in Canada
Examines the roots of formal education in Canada and explores the changing relationship between public education and (what became) Canadian society between 1840 and 1950. This broad introduction to the history of education will include an examination of the origins of public education and the common school, educational reform, various types of residential schooling, teacher training, and the gendered, racialized and class-differentiated experience of public schooling for teachers, students, and communities, both rural and urban. Students will draw on both primary and secondary sources to explore this topic throughout the course.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1 or permission of the instructor.
Instructor: R. Sandwell
Seminar: F 10-12
Division: II
HIS 466H1-F, L0201 Topics in Canadian History: The City and its Outcasts: The History of Toronto from its Margins
In addition to exploring the history of Toronto from the perspective of the city’s ‘outcasts,’ we will explore the various ways in which different generations of scholars have explored the city’s marginalized and dispossessed. Themes will include the history of the poor and working classes, the history of gender and sexuality, and the history of migration, diaspora, and ‘race.’
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1 or permission of the instructor
Instructor: S. Mills
Lecture: T 2-4
Division: II
HIS 466H1-F, L0103 Topics in Canadian History: History of Commemoration in Canada
Commemoration and Public History in Canada, 1780s-2000s. Covering a time span from, roughly, the late eighteenth century up to the present, we will examine how the past has been remembered in Canada and will explore the processes in which various groups have attempted to create ‘pasts’ or ‘traditions’ for themselves and others in society, often through commemorative practices such as the building of monuments or the staging of historic pageants. The course also looks at the role of the state in areas such as tourism and the creation of historic sites. We will also look the ways in which commemorations and public history might be contested and negotiated by groups such as women, Indigenous people, members of Canada’s working class, and ethnic and racialized groups. The course also explores the relationship between certain landscapes and historical memories, examining their interaction and influences on each other.
Prerequisite: HIS262Y1/HIS263Y1 or permission of the instructor
Instructor: C. Morgan
Seminar: T 2-4
Division: II
HIS 466H1-S, L0101 Topics in Canadian History: Upper Canada Creating a Settler Society
This course explores selected topics in the history of Upper Canada, such as its formation in the crucible of transatlantic and imperial warfare, relationships with Indigenous people, the creation of multiple institutions, and colonial leisure and culture. As well as
having its own particular local characteristics and features, not least its proximity to the United States, Upper Canada was one of a number of settler societies within the British Empire. The course is intended to explore various dimensions of these aspects and, wherever possible, to consider the relationships between local dynamics and imperial currents. Although the colony became ‘Canada West’ in 1841, our readings and discussions will stretch beyond that conventional political boundary, moving us into the 1850s and 1860s.
Prerequisite: HIS262Y1/HIS263Y1 or permission of the instructor
Instructor: C. Morgan
Seminar: T 2-4
Division: II
HIS 467H1-F French Colonial Indochina: Cultures, Texts, Film
This course examines French colonial Indochina through a number of different lenses. Early attention will be afforded to the cross-cultural “contact zones” between colonial and colonized societies. Other issues that will be stressed include contested geographies, the
characteristics of a settler society, imperial cultures, expressions of colonial power, and forms of opposition and resistance. A number of primary sources will serve as fruitful artefacts to be analysed in class: colonial novels, recently translated resistance literature, documentaries, and feature films. The net result will be to underscore the many tensions of colonialism. Finally, we will turn to a series of wistful and nostalgic recent filmic representations of French colonial Indochina, films described as “Indochic” by literary critic Panivong Norindr. By sifting through these phantasmatic memories of Indochina, and contrasting them with a number of case studies, this course will illuminate issues that go well beyond the boundaries of former Indochine – issues of contested memory, identity, and resistance.
Prerequisite: ANT344Y1/EAS204Y1/GGR342H1/HIS104Y1/HIS107Y1/HIS280Y1/HIS283Y1/HIS284Y/HIS315H1/HIS388H1/NEW369Y1
Exclusion: HIS467Y1
Instructor: E. Jennings
Seminar: W 10-12
Division: I/III
HIS 470H1-F History, Rights and Difference in South Asia
This seminar addresses modern South Asian history to think critically about ideas of rights since 1750. Examining themes in the political, economic, and legal history of South Asia (most especially India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh) 1750-present, the course highlights the central place of colonial and postcolonial histories, and the questions of difference they pose, within the intellectual history of rights. The course will survey major debates on rights: citizenship and its relationship with custom and tradition; rights, the rule of law, and the question of cultural and gender difference; and rights and ideas of contract in the context of market exchange, colonial capitalism, and postcolonial development. Readings include primary historical sources from South Asia, legal and political theory on rights, and postcolonial historiography.
Tentative Course Requirements: two short analytical papers, one longer paper on a major theme, class attendance and participation.
Prerequisite: A mark of 73% or higher in HIS282Y1 or instructor’s permission.
Recommended Preparation: background in political and social theory and some background in South Asia.
Instructor: R. Birla
Seminar: W 1-3
Division: I
HIS 481H1-S Elite Women, Power, and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Africa
The role of elite women in twentieth-century Africa has been overshadowed by studies of non-elite women so much as to suggest that all women lacked power. This course aims to show how a very limited but important group of women negotiated power in a century of increasing patriarchy. It combines gender with class analysis.
Prerequisite: 300-level African History course or any of the African Studies courses offered at UofT.
Instructor: N. Musisi
Lecture: M 2-4
Division: I
HIS 489H1-F The History of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Illness
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course HIS489H1F/HIS1270HF)
This course introduces students to some of the main issues in the history of psychiatry and some of the major developments in this unique medical specialty. Classroom discussion will cover such topics as changes in the nature of psychotic illness, the psychoneuroses, disorders of the mind/body relationship, psychiatric diagnosis and the “presentation” of illness.
Textbook(s): Edward Shorter, A History of Psychiatry from the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac.
Tentative Course Requirements: a major historiographical research paper (60%), outline for research paper (25%), participation (15%).
Prerequisite: a minimum of one course in HIS/PSY/SOC
Instructor: E. Shorter
Seminar: F 10-12
Division: III
HIS 490H1-S Everyday Stalinism
This course is an advanced research seminar in Soviet history. It will explore issues of everyday life in Soviet Russia during the Stalin era. What was the “Soviet normal”? Was there such a thing? How did people live in and outside the Gulag? Students will be introduced to major topics through the use of a series of different types of sources. During the first eight weeks of the seminar, students will read intensively, acquiring familiarity with various sources and their specific problems in Soviet history; at the same time, they will design a topic and bibliography for their research paper. The remainder of the course will be devoted to individualized research.
Prerequisite: grade of A in HIS250Y1/grade of B+ or higher in HIS351Y1
Instructor: L. Viola
Seminar: T 4-6
Division: III
HIS 493H1-S The Modern Evolution of the Law of War
This course explores the development of International Humanitarian Law over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Examining jus in bello from an interdisciplinary perspective, the course will consider its evolution in historical context. Questions asked will be how modern warfare has been understood as a political, cultural, social and legal phenomenon, and the ways in which such perspectives developed into a program of restraint. We will consider how effective this evolution has been and what it might portend for the future of armed conflict.
Prerequisite: HIS241H1/242H1/344Y1/EUR200Y1 or another course in modern history
Instructor: M. Marrus
Seminar: W 10-12
HIS 495Y1-Y, L0101 Topics in History: Hacking History
This year-long course examines the relationships among academic history, digital media, and community formation using a variety of texts and methods; it culminates in an intensive semester-long digital storytelling project focused on community engagement. The intellectual focus of the first semester is two-fold: first, on the history of the public sphere and second, on the politics of “engaged” scholarship. At the same time, students will be exposed to techniques of multimedia and nonlinear storytelling. The second semester revolves around a group project undertaken in concert with a community organization. Working closely with their community
partners, students will build a digital archive or storytelling framework using multimedia and/or social networking technologies. The fundamental aim of the course is to expand the reach of historical scholarship outside of the academy, and to develop modes of historical research compatible with community engagement.
Prerequisite: 14.0 FCEs including 2.0 FCE HIS course.
Exclusion: HIS495H1
Instructor: M. Price
Seminar: T 10-1
HIS496H1-S, L0101 Topics in History: Race in Canada
This course explores how ideas about “race” influenced Canadian culture, society, law, politics and science from Confederation in 1867 to the 21st century. Our inquiry will cover both racisms and anti-racisms such as movements for human rights. We will include both mainstream and minority perspectives, as well as both Canadian and Canada’s global contexts. At times in the past, some Canadians conceived of ethnic, national, and religious distinctions as “racial.” Thus we will investigate the history of Canadian ideas about White, Aboriginal, Asian, Black, and Muslim Canadians. In addition to general categories, the class also examines particular ethnic groups (for example, Chinese, Filipino, Mohawk, and Jamaican). The class format is research-oriented, with a focus on case studies and student projects that help us explore major themes and interpretations.
Prerequisite: 14.0 FCEs including 2.0 FCE HIS course. HIS263Y1 or permission of instructor.
Instructor: L. Mar
Seminar: M 10-12
Division: II
HIS 496H1-S, L0201 Topics in History: Historical Memory and Justice in Latin America
Many people living in post-conflict societies and new democracies confronted by the limits of traditional justice have sought alternative measures. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions have multiplied, from Argentina in 1983, to South Africa, Peru and Canada. An important literature has since emerged questioning the claims made by Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. While the enthusiasm for transitional justice is understandable, critical reflection on the politics of memory is also imperative. In what ways has memory in Latin America been mobilized by various groups to confront serious violations of human rights? In what ways and by what practices do individuals, communities and state agents make sense of their memories of the past and engage in actions for change?
Prerequisite: 14.0 FCEs including 2.0 FCE HIS course.
Instructor: L. van Isschot
Seminar: T 10-12
Division: II
HIS 496H1-S, L0301 Topics in History: Religion and Society in Southeast Asia
This course introduces students to the historical debates on religion and society in the eleven states that now constitute “Southeast Asia.” Readings will address how religious practices in the region—animism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism and Christianity—have served as forces for social and political change in the modern period. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role of “religion” in the region’s political transitions in the twentieth century, including the ways in which Southeast Asia’s approach toward “modernity” directly relies upon religious authority.
Prerequisite: 14.0 FCEs including 2.0 FCE HIS course.
Requirements: Undergraduates: History 283Y and Instructor Permission.
Instructor: N. Tran
Seminar: T 1-3
Division: I
HIS 496H1-S, L0401 Topics in History: Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Early Modern Spanish World
The early modern period was characterized by increasing levels of cross-cultural contacts as a result of European expansion across the globe. This course examines some of these encounters by looking at the interactions Spanish explorers, conquistadors, missionaries, and other settlers had with Canary islanders, Moriscos, indigenous peoples, sub-Saharan African slaves, Pacific islanders, and people of mixed-racial background. Students will consider the ways in which these intercultural exchanges were mediated through texts, which shaped Spanish descriptions of difference and larger colonial processes. But through an analysis of various primary sources (letters, relations, histories, and travel narratives), we will also consider the roles of native conquistadors and missionaries in the development of the Spanish empire together with local appropriations of Christianity and alphabetic writing by non-European peoples.
Prerequisite: 14.0 FCEs including 2.0 FCE HIS course.
Instructor: J. Dyck
Lecture: W 10-12
Division: II
HIS 496H1-S, L0501 Topics in History: European Identity and the Politics of Remembrance
Europe’s collective memory is as diverse as its cultures and nations. European policies have nevertheless made an effort to promote a shared European Memory in order to add legitimacy to the European project and foster European identity.
In this course, we explore the tension between attempts to create a common European memory on the one hand and memory conflicts stemming from Europe’s fragmentation into multiple memory communities on the other. The course aims to familiarize students with basic theoretical concepts such as “collective memory” and “lieux de mémoire” (memory sites). We will look into how these concepts can be used to investigate the complex web of historical memory, identity formation, and attempts to coming to terms with the past. We will also ask how historians contribute to the process of “Europeanizing” memories.
The course aims to build students’ analytical competency by helping them evaluate scholarly articles as well as a variety of primary and secondary sources ranging from parliamentary documents and school textbooks to museum and memorial designs.
Prerequisite: 14.0 FCEs including 2.0 FCE HIS course.
Instructor: A. Gerstner
Seminar: W 1-3
Division: III
HIS 498H1-F/S/499Y1-Y Independent Studies Courses
Independent studies courses are for students who wish to pursue a detailed research project under individual supervision. This requires the preparation of an extensive research paper ten to twenty thousand words in length. Where research proposals can be undertaken within the scope of an existing HIS seminar, students will not normally be allowed to enrol in independent studies. Independent study courses are open to senior undergraduate students who are currently enrolled in a History Major or Specialist Program and have a B+ average in a minimum of four History courses. The course designations are: HIS 498H1-F or S, and HIS 499Y1-Y. It is not practical to offer independent studies as a full-credit taken in one term (i.e. HIS 499Y1-F or S). Students are allowed only ONE independent studies course in History.
To enroll in an studies course:
- Complete the HIS498H1 ballot form or the HIS499Y1 ballot form, with the help of your proposed supervisor. Attach a 1-page outline of the project you wish to undertake and a copy of your transcript. Ensure that your supervisor signs the form.
- Return the ballot to the Department by the deadline specified on the form. This is 15 June 2016.
- If approved, your study course will be added to your record on ROSI by the History Department. If it is not approved, we will notify you and your proposed supervisor a.s.a.p by email.
For further information, students may contact the Associate Chair Undergraduate.
JHP454Y1-Y Twentieth Century Ukraine
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course JHP454Y1/JHP1299Y1)
World War I and the Russian Revolution: the Ukrainian independence movement; the Soviet Ukraine and west Ukrainian lands during the interwar period; World War II and the German occupation; the Soviet Ukraine before and after the death of Stalin. Socio-economic, cultural, and political developments. (Given by the Departments of History and Political Science)
Prerequisite: A course in modern European, East European or Russian history or politics such as JHP204Y1/HIS250Y1/HIS351Y1/HIS353Y1
Instructor: P. Magocsi
Seminar: W 3-5
Division: III