Areas of Study:Europe
World
North AmericaOtherCourses in European History:2200 History of Greece (half unit)
Fall, Tuesday/Thursday, 3:05 to 4:20
David Campbell A survey of the history of Greece including the Minoan-Mycenaean civilizations, the development of political institutions including democracy, the Persian Wars, Periclean Athens, the rise of Macedon and the achievement of Alexander the Great.
2201 History of Rome (half unit)
Winter, Tuesday/Thursday, 3:05 to 4:20
David Campbell A survey of the history of Rome including the Etruscans, the unification of the Italian peninsula, the conquest of the Mediterranean, Julius Caesar and the Roman revolution, the Augustan principate, the life and times of the emperors, the rise of the Christian Church and the fall of Rome.
2202 Medieval History (one unit)
Fall/Winter, Monday/Wednesday, 11:05 to 12:20
Roni Gechtman (Fall Term), TBA (Winter Term) In this course we will study the long period in European history, between the fall of the Roman empire and the Renaissance of the fifteenth century, that later came to be known as the “Middle” Ages. Some of the themes we will explore are the waning of the Roman civilization, the rise of the feudal system, the expansion of Christianity and Islam, the Crusades, the conflict between popes and emperors, Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture, the rebirth of agriculture and commerce towards the end of the first millennium, gender roles in medieval Europe, the Italian city states, and the rise of literature in the vernacular languages. Students will have the chance to analyze a wide range of primary sources (including, in the second term, sections of Dante’s Divine Comedy) and numerous works of art.
2205 Europe in the Twentieth Century (one unit)
Fall/Winter, Monday/Wednesday, 3:05 to 4:20
Roni Gechtman This course examines the major political, social and cultural developments in the history of Europe in the twentieth century. Following an overview of the major European countries at the turn of the twentieth century, we will study the two World Wars (their causes, development, and impact on European society and politics), the key political events of the interwar period (the Bolshevik Revolution, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and nazism), the Cold War, and the fall of communism and the Eastern Block. In the process, students will become familiar with the variety of peoples and cultures that make up the European continent. One of the goals of the course is to consider the extent to which many of the dilemmas faced by today’s Western societies — imperialism, militarism and pacifism, the changing role of women, democracy and civil rights, the status of minorities within the nation state, globalization, the proper relation between the free-market economy and the welfare state, etc.— were issues of public concern and causes of conflict in many European countries in the twentieth century.
2207 Social History of European Women (half unit)
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:30 to 11:45
Adriana Benzaquén This course provides an overview of the history of European women from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. We will explore the changing lives, identities, opportunities, and political activism of European women throughout this period and consider the different ways in which they experienced family life, work, politics, culture, religion, sexuality, and war. We will also examine changes in understandings of women’s nature, women’s roles in society, women’s rights, and relations between women and men.
(This course is also listed as a women-emphasis course).
2250 History of Science (half unit)
Winter, Tuesday, 4:30 to 7:00
Jennifer Grabove An examination of the major developments in the history of science, including the emergence of science in antiquity, medieval science, the Scientific Revolution, the expansion of science in the modern world, the relation betweeen science and society, the cultural significance of science and technology, and the role of women in science.
2281 History of Childhood: The European Experience (half unit)
Section 01, Winter, Tuesday/Thursday, 3:05 to 4:20
Section 20, Winter, Contact the Department of Distance Learning and Continuing Education
Jennifer Grabove An examination of the changing attitude toward children in western civilization: the evolution of family relationships, the concept of childhood, the development of educational thought. Such problems as infanticide, child labour, penal practices, dependency and children’s rights legislation are also considered.
3313 Culture, Society and Belief in Early Modern Europe (half unit)
Fall, Monday, 4:30 to 7:00
Andrew Bonnell A combined lecture-seminar course on a selected topic on issues in the cultural, social and intellectual history of Europe from the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution.
4480 History Seminar - Europe: The Spanish Revolution/Civil War (half unit)
Winter, Thursday, 4:30 to 7:00
Roni Gechtman This seminar will examine the history of Spain in the 1930s, giving particular attention to one of the most crucial events in European history in the interwar period: the Spanish Civil War, a conflict that began in 1936 and ended a few months before the outbreak of the Second World War. There were two warring sides —republicans and nationalists— but each one was composed of many different social and political factions. Thus one of the goals of this seminar will be to understand the issues that provoked the war and led to the formation of the two (seemingly cohesive, but in fact internally divided) opposing camps. The Spanish Civil War is especially interesting to historians both in itself and for its significance in relation to the general history of the period. We will consider the extent to which the conflict in Spain epitomizes similar conflicts faced by almost all states in Europe at the time: the clash of classes (peasants, workers, middle classes, aristocracy), ideologies (fascism, conservatism, liberalism, socialism, communism, anarchism), and political regimes (monarchy, dictatorship, representative democracy); struggles around gender and sexuality, nationalism and internationalism, centralism and regionalism; and competing views of the role of church and military in the modern state. The Spanish Civil War (also known as the Spanish Revolution) aroused hope and enthusiasm among left-leaning workers, intellectuals and activists all over the world, hundreds of thousands of whom went to Spain as volunteers ‘to fight fascism’. But these hopes were crushed and Franco’s victory in 1939 initiated a long period of military dictatorship and repression.
Prerequisite: written permission from the Chair of the Department of History
Courses in World History:1130 World History (one unit)
Fall/Winter, Tuesday/Thursday, 12:05 to 1:20
Jonathan Roberts This course will introduce students to the history of China, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The first half of the course will cover the concepts of “Global” and “World” History, with special focus on genetic evidence, the histories of the Zhou dynasty, Indian Vedic texts, Arabic Tarikhs, Greek historia and African oral traditions. The second half will cover the convergence of cultures and the development of global commerce via oceanic trading systems. Some topics include Chinese voyages of exploration, the Columbian exchange, world systems theory, the little ice age, the rise of the West, the globalization of disease, and the spread of world religions. Students will be asked to write a book review and a research paper on a globally traded commodity.
2265 Introduction to African Civilizations (half unit)
Winter, Monday/Wednesday, 3:05 to 4:20
Jonathan Roberts This is a multidisciplinary course on human experiences in Africa and the African Diaspora. It will include discussions about African culture, society, economies and politics from a continental and global perspective. Students will learn about African history, literature, drumming and dancing, and art from a critical perspective that asks if there are ideas or concepts that essentially African in origin.
3360 Selected Topics in World History: Early Africa (half unit)
Fall, Monday/Wednesday, 12:30 to 1:45
Jonathan Roberts The purpose of this course is to introduce students to important historiographical questions about the African past. We will consider two components of historical investigation: (1) methodologies, or the techniques used to gather evidence about the past, as well as (2) epistemologies, or different ways that we know and understand the past. This approach will encourage comparisons between professional western historiography with indigenous forms of historical consciousness that have existed in the many different cultures of Africa. Some topics will include the deconstruction of “race,” the diffusion and convergence of cultures, historical linguistics, and the study of oral tradition (i.e., epics and myths), and memories of the slave trade.
3361 Selected Topics in World History: Islam in Africa (half unit)
Winter, Monday/Wednesday, 12:30 to 1:45
Jonathan Roberts Over 300 million people on the African continent today are followers of the Islamic faith, representing about 20% of the entire Muslim world. This course will discuss Islam as a source of historical change within African cultures, from the birth of the prophet Muhammad to the Islamic communities of today. The overarching goal is to trace how various regions of the continent have been Islamicized, and how, in turn, those regions have Africanized Islam. The semester will begin with an introduction to the doctrines of Islam in order to familiarize students with Islamic terminology. The rest of the course will cover the spread of Islamic culture from the Middle East to Africa, with discussions of topics such as Egypt as a centre of Islamic learning, Islam in Western Sudan, the Swahili Coast, Cape Malay culture, Islamic merchants in the Ashanti Empire, and the jihads of the Sokoto Caliphate.
Courses in North American History:1120 Canada (one unit)
Fall/Winter, Monday/Wednesday, 11:05 to 12:20
Corey Slumkoski (Fall Term); Janet Guildford (Winter Term)
This is an introductory survey of Canadian history, from the contact period to the present day. Lectures are designed to acquaint students with major issues and problems in Canadian history, range widely in theme and content, and delve into economic, social, political, and cultural history. Major issues covered in the first term are the confrontation between Native and non-Native cultures, the relationship of the colonies to the empires of France and Great Britain, the growth of colonial identities and self-government, and confederation and the early nation-building process. The second term focuses primarily on the attempt to adapt the federal system to meet competing demands of region and nation, French and English, rich and poor, as well as the external demands of the international arena.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies).
2217 Canadian-American Relations: The Formative History (half unit)
Section 01, Fall, Tuesday/Thursday, 9:05 to 10:20
Section 20, Fall, Contact the Department of Distance Learning and Continuing Education
Reginald Stuart
This course runs from the American Revolutionary Era to 1931. Why 1931? Because that’s the year Ottawa legally had full sovereignty as a nation. It could make and conduct its own foreign policy. In between the course covers cultural, social, economic, and political themes that run through the 1775 to 1931 era. We pay attention to cultural, social, and economic, as well as political and diplomatic themes to see how a cross-border upper North America emerged that interlinked two distinct sovereign countries. We will also discuss articles from assigned readings on topics such as anti-Americanism, trade relations, migrations, and shared values. Assignments emphasize effective reading and historical interpretations of events.
2218 Canadian-American Relations: Continental Nations (half unit)
Section 01, Winter, Tuesday/Thursday, 9:05 to 10:20
Section 20, Winter, Contact the Department of Distance Learning and Continuing Education
Reginald Stuart
This course combines Political Studies and History to explain the evolution of cultural, social, economic, and political themes to current times. We look at Prime Minister-President relations, North America’s mass entertainment system, Free Trade, and eternal issues such as Softwood Lumber. We consider how the constitutional and political structure and domestic systems of each country influence the relationship and illustrate that continental nations have waltzed with each other in the post-September 11, 2001 climate. Students will explore contemporary affairs and historical events through various assignments.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies and cross-listed as POLS 2218).
2222 Canadian Women in Historical Perspective (half unit)
Fall, Monday/Wednesday, 12:30 to 1:45
Janet Guildford
This course offers a broad survey of the history of women in Canada from the early contact period to the present day. Themes include women’s paid and unpaid work, the changing status of women in law and in the wider society, and changing attitudes toward women’s bodies. Women’s activism–especially the first and second waves of feminism–will be an especially important theme. Finally, the diverse experiences of Canadian women over time will be investigated.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies and as a women-emphasis course).
2230 History of the Maritime Provinces to Confederation (half unit)
Section 01, Fall, Monday/Wednesday, 8:30 to 9:45
Martha Walls
Section 02, Fall, Tuesday/Thursday, 3:05 to 4:20
Section 20, Fall, Contact the Department of Distance Learning and Continuing Education
Corey Slumkoski
This is a survey of the history of the Maritime region from the contact period down to Confederation in 1867. Attention focuses initially on the first contact between Europeans and Native peoples, thereafter on the strategic importance of the area for the rival empires of France, Great Britain, and the United States of America, and the consequent effect this had on economic, social, and political change in the region. Students are asked to explore how, within this general imperial and regional context, individuals struggled to wrest a living from sea, land, and forest, and, in the process, establish distinctive communities. Themes pursued include Native and non-Native interaction, the pattern and pace of European immigration (with particular emphasis on the expulsion of the Acadians), the bases of unity and diversity within the region, and provincial attempts to reach some measure of economic prosperity, social cohesion, political maturity, and cultural sophistication. This course culminates with an examination of the impulses that led the region to participate in Confederation.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies).
2231 History of the Maritime Provinces since Confederation (half unit)
Section 01, Winter, Monday/Wednesday, 12:30 to 1:45
Martha Walls
A survey of the history of the Maritime provinces since Confederation, this course focuses on the integration of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island into the Canadian nation. Themes include the region’s persistent economic problems, the failure of industrialization in the Maritimes, and the ups and downs of primary industries such as the fishery. The social and cultural history of the region will also be addressed, with an emphasis on the diverse experiences of Maritimers.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies).
2231 History of the Maritime Provinces since Confederation (half unit)
Section 20, Winter, Contact the Department of Distance Learning and Continuing Education
Michael Earle
This course provides a survey of the history of the Maritime provinces since Confederation. It focuses on the integration of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island into the Canadian nation, and their subsequent political, economic, social, and cultural development.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies).
2282 History of Childhood: The North American Exerience (half unit)
Fall, Tuesday/Thursday, 1:30 to 2:45
Frances Early
This course examines selected aspects of the history of childhood in North America from the beginning of European settlement to the twenty-first century. We will consider the experiences of children in rural, pre-industrial and modern urban-industrial settings; as well, children’s experiences of war will be examined with focus upon the World War II era. Other themes and topics include changing perceptions of children and interpretations of the meaning of childhood; the place of children in the family and their role in the economy in different eras; children under enslavement in the U.S. ante-bellum South; and social and educational policies pertaining to children, notably aboriginal Canadian children. We will also study the North American experience of growing up in a female body over the course of the twentieth century and consider how popular culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century is negotiating the challenge of Third Wave Feminism.
3304 Gender in Historical Perspective: The State and the Family (half unit)
Winter, Monday, 4:30 to 7:00
Corey Slumkoski
Canadian government policy has long had an impact on family norms. Much of state policy has focused on establishing what sociologist Dorothy E. Smith calls the “Standard North American Family,” a “traditional” white Anglo nuclear family featuring a father as breadwinner and a mother as homemaker. This course will critique this conceptualization of the family by examining the impact of state policies on the development of family structure and by detailing how these policies have affected the construction of masculinity and femininity in the family context. It will also examine the experiences of those typically excluded from the Standard North American Family, such as single-parent families, First Nations families, and same-sex families. This course will be conducted as a seminar. (This course is also listed as a women-emphasis course).
3322 Maritime Women’s History (half unit)
Fall, Monday/Wednesday, 3:05 to 4:20
Janet Guildford
This course will focus on the changes and continuities in all aspects of women’s lives in the Maritime provinces in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to examining women’s economic roles and the legal regulation of women, the course will place particular emphasis on the late nineteenth-early twentieth century women’s reform movement and the second wave of feminism in the region. Students will have the opportunity work with primary documents, including newspapers, personal correspondence, diaries and autobiographical writing.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies and as a women-emphasis course).
3325 Selected Topics in the History of Atlantic Canada [ST]:
Maritime Workers and Unions (half unit)
Section 20, Winter, Contact the Department of Distance Learning and Continuing Education
Michael Earle
This is a course on trade union history, but an attempt will be made throughout to relate this topic to the economic, social, and political history of the Maritimes and of Canada. The course will deal with the history of the Maritime trade union movement from the mid-19th Century to the present, dealing with the transformations of the unions throughout this period, and the local unions' relations with national and international unions. While the main concentration will be on the labour history of Nova Scotia, some reference will be made to developments elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. Particular attention will be given to the history of unions of great regional importance, such as those of the coal miners. In addition, other aspects of labour history will be touched on, such as the role of women in unions, the relationship of unions to politics and to the state, and the condition of unorganized as well as unionized workers in the region.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies).
3329 Modern Canada (half unit)
Winter, Tuesday/Thursday, 12:05 to 1:20
Corey Slumkoski
Particular emphasis will be placed on the vagaries of the concept of the Canadian nation in response to the aspirations of Quebec, regional tensions, charter groups, and globalization.
(This course is also listed under Canadian Studies).
3337 Revolution, Reform, Reaction: U.S. Protest Movements in the 1960's (half unit)
Winter, Tuesday/Thursday, 1:30 to 2:45
Frances Early
Utilizing both primary and secondary sources, this course will examine the major protest movements that arose in response to conditions in post-World War II America. Topics include the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, the New Left, the Anti-War Movement, the Counterculture, and the Women's Liberation Movement. Evaluation will be based on an in-class document test, a chronology assignment, a film review, and a final exam.
(This course is also listed under Peace and Conflict Studies).
3345 Afro-North American History (one unit)
Fall/Winter, Tuesday/Thursday, 10:30 to 11:45
Frances Early
This course will investigate the enduring problem of the colour-line in U.S. society and culture, beginning in 1619 - when Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia - and ending as close as possible in our present era, the l990s. Slavery, the most extreme institution ever established in the Americas, will be examined in depth in the first semester. Topics to be covered include: the international slave trade; plantation society; the culture of enslavement; gender and enslavement; and slave rebellions and abolitionism. In the second semester, the varied responses (including organized resistance movements) on the part of African Americans to post-enslavement institutionalized racism will be examined. Assigned readings will include both secondary sources and primary sources; the autobiographical writings of African Americans will comprise a large proportion of reading assignments, particularly in the second semester. Course evaluation will be based on a research paper, a book review, and several exams, including a Christmas exam and a spring exam.
3352 War and the USA in Modern Times (half unit)
Fall, Tuesday/Thursday, 12:05 to 1:20
Reginald Stuart
This course looks at the American and United States (not necessarily the same thing) experience with war and peace in modern times, principally from the post-Civil War (1861-1865) era onward. We will examine war as an instrument of state policy as well as strategic perspectives and how these changed through time. We will also test a template for understanding war as an historical process. And we will begin this historical investigation with the current US war against Terrorists to link present and past.
(This course is also listed as a Peace and Conflict Studies Emphasis Course).
4481 History Seminar: North America (half unit)
Fall, Thursday, 4:30 to 7:00
Janet Guildford
The focus of this seminar is women’s work, both paid and unpaid, in 19th and 20th century Canada. The concept of women’s work is defined very broadly and will encompass productive and unproductive labour as well as women’s roles as volunteer community builders and activists. The seminar is intended to familiarize students with the historiography of women’s work and the major debates in the field. Students will also have the opportunity to do primary research for their seminar papers.
Prerequisite: written permission from the Chair of the Department of History
Other History Courses:3390 Historiography (half unit)
Winter, Wednesday, 4:30 to 7:00
Ken Dewar This course will examine history as a particular way of understanding the past and making it meaningful to the present. Weekly readings will consider such questions as what constitutes history, the nature of historical explanation, the relationship of history to other disciplines, and the uses of historical study. Attention will also be paid to the question of how the discipline has changed over time. These general and theoretical questions will be discussed in the context of modern historiographical practice, as exemplified in three major works, Garrett Mattingly’s
The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Fernand Braudel’s
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, and Natalie Zemon Davis’s
The Return of Martin Guerre. The course will be conducted as a seminar.
Prerequisite: written permission of the Chair of the Department of History
3391 Historical Methodology (half unit)
Fall, Wednesday, 4:30 to 7:00
Frances Early This seminar course for history majors examines contemporary approaches to history on a variety of topics and focuses on the conceptual frameworks and practical problems associated with historical research and analysis. Course readings will be diverse, and evaluation will be based on a range of assignments that are designed to sharpen and deepen the critical intellectual skills required of students who are engaged in the practice of historical research and writing.
Prerequisite: written permission of the Chair of the Department of History