300 Level Course Descriptions

Undergraduate

300 Level Courses (2023-2024)

Course Designators

Below are descriptions of courses with the following designators (the 3 letter code in front of the course number):

Course Prefix Department
HIS Department of History
JHA Joint History and Asia-Pacific Studies
(administered by the Asia-Pacific Studies Program1 Devonshire Place (At Trinity College)
JHM & JMH Joint History and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
(administered by the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Avenue)
JHN Joint History and New College
(adminstered by the Caribbean Studies ProgramRoom WE 133 (300 Huron Street)
JIH Joint History and Indigenous Studies
(adminstered by the Department of History)
JSH Joint History and Slavic Languages and Literatures
(administer by the Slavic Languages and Literatures, 121 St. Joseph Street, Alumni Hall (AH), Room 431)

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

  • H1-F = "First Term"; the first term of the Fall/Winter Session (September - December)
  • H1-S = "Second Term"; the second term of the Fall/Winter Session (January - April)
  • Y1-Y = full session (September - April)
  • Students should note that courses designated as "...Y1F" or "...Y1S" in the Timetable are particulary demanding.

300-level HIS courses are more specialized and intensive. They deal with more closely defined periods or themes. They vary in format, with some being based around lectures, and others involving tutorial or discussion groups. Most 300-level courses have Prerequisites, which are strictly enforced. First year students are not permitted to enrol in 300 or 400-level HIS courses. Although some upper level courses do not have specific Prerequisites, courses at the 300- and 400-level are demanding and require a good comprehension of history.


HIS 300H1-F, L0101 Energy and Environment in Canadian History

This course examines the history of energy in Canada from the perspective of environment, business, state, daily life, and culture, with emphasis on the twentieth century. Topics include Big Oil, large dams, nuclear power, energy colonialism, pipeline disputes, climate change, daily life, and the relationship between energy and social power.

Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: S. Penfold
Lecture: Thursday 1-3
Geographic Area: b

HIS 301H1-S, L0101 World War II France

This third-year lecture course examines the experience of the Second World War in France. Special attention is paid to questions of collaboration, resistance and accommodation. Other topics include the role of the French overseas colonies in this era, the issue of internal vs. external resistance, and the fate of civilian populations. Students engage with a set of primary and secondary sources as well as visual material that includes films.

Exclusions: VIC102H1
Recommended Preparation: A course in modern European history
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: E. Jennings
Lecture: Wednesday 9-11
Geographic Area: c

HIS 302H1-S, L0101 Material Culture in Victorian Britain

This course examines physical things produced and promoted during the first and second industrial revolutions. It focuses on the twin processes of commercialisation and consumerism. Topics include food, drink, soap, baths, parks, libraries, department stores, advertisements, housing, appliances and clothing.

Recommended Preparation: HIS109Y1 or HIS241H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: L. Loeb
Lecture: Friday 10-12
Geographic Area: c

HIS 311H1-F, L0101 Canada in the World

Ranging from the fifteenth through to the turn of the twenty-first century, students will learn about the treaties, trade agreements and alliances, as well as the informal traditions, working relationships and cultural ties that shape relations of people living within the boundaries of present-day Canada with the world. For this course, “international relations” is broadly defined, including military, political, economic, environmental and immigration policies, both official and informal.

Exclusion: HIS311Y1/HIS311H5/HISC46H3
Recommended Preparation: A course in Canadian history or politics
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: J. Meehan
Lecture: Tuesday & Thursday 10-11
Geographic Area: b

HIS 312H1-F, L5101 Immigration to Canada

From the colonial settlement to 21st century, immigration has been a key experience and much debated in Canadian life. Drawing on primary sources, as well as historical and contemporary scholarship, this course will discuss migration, citizenship and belonging as central features in Canada’s experience of immigration. This course focuses on the individuals, groups, and collectives who built, defined, contested, and reimagined this country, to help make and remake Canada through immigration.

Recommended Preparation: HIS263Y1/HIS264H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: K. Song-Nicholas
Lecture: Tuesday 5-7
Geographic Area: b

HIS 314H1-F, L0101 Twentieth-Century Quebec

This course will explore the history of Quebec in the 20th century. In addition to looking at more traditional themes focused on nationalism and constitutional politics, we will also look at the history of encounter between groups of different backgrounds and origins. As such, we will place a large emphasis on colonialism and Indigenous history, and the politics of language, race, and immigration. Themes will include, among others, the history of Quebec in an era of British imperialism, jazz, the art world, literature, the Oka Crisis, and Quebec’s ties to Haiti and other parts of the non-Western world.

Exclusion: HIS314Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: S. Mills
Lecture: Friday 9-11
Geographic Area: b

HIS 317H1-S, L0101 20th Century Germany

This course surveys political, social and cultural developments in Germany from the beginning of the First World War to implementation of the Euro. Germany’s history as a unified nation has been short and unusually violent; its history provides a good test case of the political and social tensions of industrial modernity. First unified in 1871, Germany experienced no less than six state forms in the twentieth century ranging from the monarchical-authoritarian structure of the Second Empire, the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic, the ‘racial state’ of the National Socialist dictatorship, the twin developments after 1949 of liberal democracy in the Federal Republic and ‘real existing socialism’ in the German Democratic Republic to the reunified state of Germany after 1990. This course explores the development of industrial society and political culture in Germany with special attention to political movements, class tensions, ethnic nationalism and anti-Semitism, and the development of conflict-management strategies, social policy, racial policy, and modernist culture. The First and Second World Wars, the rise of Nazism, the transformation of Germany in the postwar period and the place of Germany in the world today are central themes.
Attendance at lectures, a midterm and final exam, and completion of a research paper are the core components of this course. The course will include a film club (voluntary, for extra credit).

Prerequisite: HIS103Y1/HIS109Y1/(HIS241H1, HIS242H1)/EUR200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: J. Stollenwerk
Lecture: Thursday 1-4
Geographic Area: c

HIS 318H1-S, L0101 Histories of the "Wild" West

What happens when histories of North America begin in the West? This course examines the critical challenges that the myths and legacies of the West pose to North American history, from pre-contract to 1990. Themes include First Nations and colonialism, immigration, racism, economic development, regionalism, prostitution and illegal economies.

Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: L.K. Bertram
Lecture: Wednesday 1-3
Geographic Area: b

HIS 319H1-F, L0101 Histories of the Horn of Africa

A critical, introductory survey exploring major themes in the political, social, economic, and cultural histories of the Horn of Africa [Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan] and surrounding Red Sea and Indian Ocean from prehistoric times to the present.

Recommended Preparation: HIS295Y1/ HIS297Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: S. Aidid
Lecture: Thursday 11-1
Geographic Area: a

HIS 323H1-F, L0101 Rites of Passage and Daily Life in the Middle Ages

Reflecting on the life cycle (birth, childhood, youth, old age and death) in the medieval period gives the opportunity to cross over the thresholds into the dwellings and daily lives of peasants, nobles, monks, nuns and burghers. It also provides an interesting angle from which to study the differences between female and male life experiences, and to confront important contemporary questions (such as adolescent rebelliousness) in a completely different historical setting. Questioning the historiography on the medieval life cycle will be an important part of the course.

Recommended Preparation: A course in the Middle Ages in any discipline
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: I. Cochelin
Lecture: Thursday 3-6
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 327H1-F, L0101 Rome: The City in History

This course investigates the development of Rome from its mythical foundations, through the Empire, the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque to the modern city, illustrating the shift from the pagan to the papal city and its emergence as the capital of a united Italy after 1870 and a modern European metropolis.

Prerequisite: At least 1.0 credit European History course(s)
Exclusion: VIC348Y1 (offered in Fall/Winter 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015 and 2015-2016) and VIC162H1 (offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017 and Fall 2018)
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: K. Bartlett
Lecture: Tuesday 3-5
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 328H1-F, L5101 Modern China

This course traces the history of modern China in its profound and often violent political, social, economic, and cultural transformations from the late 19th through the early 21st centuries. We'll consider how these transformations broke with as well as continued previous developments, and how they've reflected and influenced connections between China and the rest of the world. You're expected to arrive in this class with some previous knowledge of Chinese history. Our particular emphasis will be going beyond dates and names to place different types of historical sources in critical context.

Prerequisite: HIS280Y1/EAS102Y1
Exclusion: JMC201Y1, HIS328Y1
Recommended Preparation: HIS380H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: Y. Wang
Lecture: Wednesday 5-7
Geographic Area: a

HIS 332H1-S, L0101 Crime and Society in England, 1500-1800

The changing nature of crime and criminal justice in early-modern England; the emergence of modern forms of policing, trial and punishment.

Prerequisite: 9.0 credits, including 1.0 HIS credit excluding HIS262H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: J. Mori
Lecture: Tuesday 3-5
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 335H1-S, L0101 Canadian Legal Histories

This course examines Canadian legal history through differing Indigenous, civil, and common law legal traditions, using multiple categories of analysis, including race, gender, class, spirituality and sexuality. Legal history is a strong and engaging field of study in Canada. Topics will include constitutional histories, treaties, law-making, differing systems of land tenure, the franchise and the structure of deliberative bodies (e.g. legislatures), courts and systems of justice, policing and criminal law, punishment (including histories of incarceration and alternatives).

Prerequisites: 4.0 credits including HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1. Students who do not meet the prerequisite are encouraged to contact the Department.
Exclusions: HIS389H1 (offered as "Ontario's Treaties: The First Law of the Land"), taken in Winter 2020, (offered as "Topics in Canadian Legal History"), taken in Winter 2021, (offered as "Canadian Legal Histories"), taken in Winter 2023.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: C. Murdoch
Lecture: Friday 1-3
Geographic Area: b

HIS 337H1-F, L0101 Culture, Politics and Society in 18th Century Britain

Deals with England, Scotland, Ireland and the Atlantic World. Addresses major political, social, economic, intellectual and cultural highlights of the “long” eighteenth century. Deals with enlightenment, industrialization and the loss of the first British empire. Interrogates Britain’s emerging status as a world power.

Exclusion: HIS337Y1
Recommended Preparation: EUR200Y1/HIS109Y1/HIS243H1/HIS244H1/HIS368H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: J. Mori
Lecture: Tuesday 1-3
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 338H1-F, L0101 The Holocaust, to 1942

German state policy towards the Jews in the context of racist ideology, bureaucratic structures, and varying conditions in German-occupied Europe. Second Term considers responses of Jews, European populations and governments, the Allies, churches, and political movements.

Prerequisite: Completion of 6.0 credits
Exclusion: HIS388Y1/HIS398Y1/HIS338H5
Recommended Preparation: A course in modern European history
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: G. Wiens
Lecture: Friday 10-12
Tutorials: TBA (bi-weekly)
Geographic Area: c

HIS 343H1-F, L0101 History of Modern Intelligence

This course explores the rise of modern intelligence over the long 20th century, from Anglo-Russian imperial competition before World War I through to the post-9/11 era. Students will study the contribution of intelligence services to victories and defeats in war, peace, and the grey areas in between. The course will also examine the relationship between intelligence services and society.

Exclusion: HIS343Y1
Recommended Preparation: HIS103Y1 or an equivalent introduction to modern international relations
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: T. Sayle
Lecture: Monday 1-3

HIS 344H1-F, L0101 The Global Cold War

This course examines the Cold War through its global dimensions, going beyond the American-Soviet bipolar rivalry to explore the impact of the Cold War in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Students will work closely with original primary sources and interrogate historical interpretations of the Cold War through different regional and thematic perspectives.

Exclusion: HIS344Y1
Recommended Preparation: EUR200Y1/HIS103Y1/HIS241H1, HIS242H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: V. Dimitriadis
Lecture: Tuesday 3-5
Geographic Area: c

HIS 347H1-F, L0101 The Country House in England 1837-1939

This course explores the grand country houses of the aristocracy at their peak between 1837 and 1939.    Culturally identified as the symbol of elite status, every member of England’s titled aristocracy maintained a country house in the nineteenth century. Self-made millionaires of the industrial revolution built them in their quest for social acceptance. This course will analyze the material culture of the houses—their floor plans, exteriors, interiors, and gardens. It will also study the activities associated with the houses, including fox hunting, shooting and deerstalking; weekend parties; philanthropy and community engagement.  Finally, it will look at the people of the country houses, including owners, families, and servants.

Prerequisite: A course in British or European history
Recommended Preparation: HIS349H1/HIS302H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: L. Loeb
Lecture: Friday 10-12
Geographic Area: c

HIS 349H1-S, L0101 History of Britain: Struggle for Power

This is an introductory course in the history of Britain from 1800 to the present day.  It will consider the waning of the power of the crown, the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle and working classes. Topics include welfare, the Irish question, gender, race, immigration, and European Union.  The objective is to put contemporary issues in British society in historical perspective.

Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: L. Loeb
Lecture: Thursday 9-11
Geographic Area: c

HIS 351H1-S, L5101 The Soviet Union and After

A survey of the history of Twentieth-Century Russia, from the collapse of the Russian Empire and the establishment of the Soviet Union through to the end of the Cold War and the establishment of a new Russian Federation. The social, economic, and political developments of the era are emphasized.

Prerequisite: HIS250Y1
Exclusion: HIS351Y1/ HIS351H5
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: F. Cowan
Lecture: Tuesday 5-7
Geographic Area: c

HIS 352H1-F, L0101 A History of Women in Pre-colonial East Africa

This course examines the lived experience of women in societies, communities and polities of varying sizes across territories that cover eight contemporary East African states. It encompasses the period from 1000 B.C to the end of the nineteenth century. Topics covered are clustered under four broad themes: a) Ecology, work in commodity production, wealth and exchange relations; b) “Institutional” power, ideology and structures; c) “Creative” power particularly in the areas of healing, resistance/contestation and transformation; and d) Violence, war and vulnerability.
The course challenges present day gender and identity categories applied to Africa’s deep past and highlights critical nuances of gender, identity and power dynamics in Africa.

Prerequisite: AFR150Y1 or any course in African History
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: N. Musisi
Lecture: Thursday 1-3
Geographic Area: a
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 355H1-S, L0101 A History of Pre-modern Medicine

This course surveys major themes and developments in the history of medicine from c.600 BCE to 1800 CE. Topics include: Hippocrates, Galen and their reception in the Middle Ages; monasteries, medicinal gardens and hospitals; medieval licensing of physicians and pharmacists; medieval scholastic medicine; the Black Death; Renaissance anatomy and charlatans; New World drug discoveries; William Harvey’s heart, William Withering’s foxglove, the isolation of morphine.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in medieval or pre-modern history. Students who do not meet the prerequisite are encouraged to contact the Department.
Recommended Preparation: HIS220Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: N. Everett
Lecture: Wednesday 11-1
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 356H1-S, L5101 War in Canadian History

This course examines war as a major force in the history of Canada from the so-called colonial period to recent times. In addition to key dynamics in military history (e.g. battles, military organization), the course will stress the links between war and society, politics, empire and colonialism, technology and environment, memory and commemoration, and identity. Topics may include indigenous warfare and diplomacy, imperial rivalry in early North America, Canada and the British Empire, the world wars, the Cold War, and peacekeeping. Soldiers and peaceniks are both welcome and will be equally happy and annoyed.

Recommended Preparation: HIS264H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: S. Penfold
Lecture: Wednesday 5-7
Geographic Area: b

HIS 359H1-S, L0101 Regional Politics and Radical Movements in the 20th Century Caribbean

The role of nationalism, race and ethnicity, class conflict and ideologies in the recent development of Caribbean societies; Europe’s replacement by the United States as the dominant imperial power in the Caribbean; how this mixture of regional and international pressures has led to widely differing political systems and traditions.

Recommended Preparation: HIS294Y1/HIS230H1,231H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: M. Newton
Lecture: Wednesday 11-1
Geographic Area: b

HIS 361H1-S, L0101 The Holocaust from 1942

Follows on HIS338H1. Themes include: resistance by Jews and non-Jews; local collaboration; the roles of European governments, the Allies, the churches, and other international organizations; the varieties of Jewish responses. We will also focus on postwar repercussions of the Holocaust in areas such as justice, memory and memorialization, popular culture and politics. 
Tentative Course Requirements: analysis of a primary source, term project, a mid-term test, and a final examination.

Prerequisite: completion of 6 undergraduate full-course equivalents and HIS338H1
Exclusion: HIS338Y1/HIS361H5
Recommended Preparation: a course in modern European history
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: G. Wiens
Lecture: Friday 10-12
Tutorials: TBA (bi-weekly)
Geographic Area: c

HIS 362H1-S, L5101 Topics in Early American History: The Social Network of the Early American Press

This course explores the web of the early American press and the ways in which early American newspapers and letter writing functioned as a social network, reinforcing a unified worldview for American readers. The course will focus on the ways in which letters, pamphlets, newspapers, books, and other written and printed material influenced and were influenced by the major events and ideas in English America from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. Themes include reading and writing in colonial America and the early United States, the social networks established through letter writing, the ways in which the early American press was structured and the ways in which it functioned, political campaigning and press attacks, reading and Republican Motherhood, the rise of print advertising, the early Black American press, the early Indigenous press, the ways in which American newspapers influenced the rise of the First Party System, and the early American book printing industry. At a time when the media seems to be playing an increasing role in American politics and society, this course explores the roots of the relationship between the mass media press, the American political system, and early American society.

Prerequisites: 4.0 credits
Recommended Preparation: HIS271Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: J. Bayer
Lecture: Thursday 5-7
Geographic Area: b

HIS 364H1-S, L0101 From Revolution to Revolution: Hungary Since 1848

Once a powerful kingdom in Central Europe, Hungary and the Hungarians have a rich history of interchanging periods of conquest, dominance, expansion, and contraction.
This 12-week course has its focus on the multiple transformations of Hungary: From the revolutionary “Springtime of Nations” in 1848 when Hungary’s quest for independence was halted through political sovereignty and partnership with Austria in the Dual Monarchy between 1867 and 1918, to a truncated but independent existence in the interwar period; from there to subjection first to Nazi Germany and then to the Soviet Union, and finally to renewed independence in 1989 and membership in the European Union in 2004.
The focus is on the revolutions of 1848-1849, 1918-1919, the 1956 Revolution against Soviet rule and the collapse of communism in 1989. The story has been invariably heroic, violent, and tragic. In the long peaceful periods, long at least for East Central European conditions, Hungary changed from a patriarchal and rural country to an urbanized and industrialized nation.
The course will offer a chronological survey of the history of Hungary from 1848 until the present. It is ideal for students with little or no knowledge of Hungarian history but who possess an understanding of the main trends of European history in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Prerequisite: A 100 level HIS course
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: R. Austin
Lecture: Wednesday 9-11
Geographic Area: c

HIS 372H1-S, L0101 Topics in U.S. History: Mass Incarceration in the United States
(Joint undergraduate courses HIS372H1/AMS311H1)

The United States is home to five percent of the world’s population but twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners, including a disproportionate number of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. This vast carceral archipelago generates significant profits for private corporations while exacerbating government deficits and wreaking havoc in those communities targeted by systematic policing and imprisonment. It has also provoked public and scholarly debates about the history, ethics, and function of incarceration in the United States. In this course, we will consider the rise of contemporary mass incarceration from an interdisciplinary perspective that draws upon history, sociology, and legal scholarship.

Exclusions: HIS372H5/HISD36H3
Recommended Preparation: HIS271Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities

Instructor: M. Mishler
Lecture: Thursday 11-1
Geographic Area: b

HIS 375H1-F, L0101 Crime and Punishment in the Early Modern World

What did it take to break the law in the period 1400-1800, and how were people prosecuted and punished when they did? We will review the kinds of crimes that triggered arrest, the different types of law codes in place and the importance of the revival of Roman law, ways of avoiding prosecution, the criminalization of “deviance”, judicial processes in colonization, and variations based on age and gender. We’ll also look at forms of punishment, including the varieties of corporal and capital punishment, the operation of prisons, the use of exile and transportation.

Prerequisites: 4.0 credits
Exclusions: HIS357Y1
Recommended Preparation: HIS243H1/ HIS244H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: N. Terpstra
Lecture: Monday 12-1 & Wednesday 1-3
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 377H1-S, L0101 U.S.A in the World

A survey of the history of American foreign relations focusing on the 20th century to the present. Themes include imperial expansion and the uses of power; the relationship of business and government in U.S. foreign policy; and the role of culture and ideas in Americas relations with the world.

Recommended Preparation: HIS271Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: T. Sayle
Lecture: Tuesday 1-3
Geographic Area: b

HIS 379H1-F, L0101 Vietnam at War

Vietnam At War This course examines the French and American Wars in Vietnam, also known as the Indochina Wars, beginning with the Japanese surrender in 1945 through the capture of Saigon in 1975. We will consider the military, diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of the conflict in its local contexts and with a global perspective in relation to the ongoing Cold War and geopolitical landscape.

Prerequisite: 1.0 HIS credit in any field excluding HIS262H1
Exclusion: HIS400H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: C. Ewing
Lecture: Tuesday 11-1
Geographic Area: a

HIS 381H1-S, L0101 Youth in the Early Modern World

Adolescence is a time of adaptation between childhood and adulthood, and it’s often described as a modern invention. This course will look at how people in their teens and twenties navigated social demands and expectations around work, law, education, and marriage in the period 1400-1700. The course will address issues around biology, gender, violence, sexuality, mobility, and forced labour, with attention to comparing experiences between distinct traditions in different parts of the early modern world.

Prerequisites: 4.0 credits
Exclusions: HIS357Y1
Recommended Preparation: Any one of HIS205H1/ HIS220Y1/ HIS230H1/ HIS243H1/ HIS244H1/ HIS265Y1/ HIS280Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: N. Terpstra
Lecture: Tuesday 1-3 & Thursday 2-3
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 382H1-S, L0101 China from the Mongols to the Last Emperor

This course traces the history of Chinese empire from its political reorganization, economic expansion, and cultural efflorescence in the 11th century, through its peak of power in the 18th century, and to its decline during the 19th. We will consider how these centuries broke with as well as continued previous developments, and how they have influenced Chinese and world history in the last 150 years.

Prerequisite: HIS280Y1/EAS103H1/EAS209H1 or comparable course in E. Asian/Chinese history
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: J. Guo
Lecture: Thursday 3-5
Geographic Area: a

HIS 383Y1-Y, L0101 Women in African History

The past 30 years have seen African women’s history enter its second generation. During this time, African historians have produced a body of literature moving the sub-field from the margins to a more central position. This course subjects our increasing knowledge about African women’s history from the mid-19th century to the present to critical analysis. It goes beyond restoring women to history and seeing African women as victims impacted upon and struggling against colonialism and neo-colonialism. More specifically, it examines how African women’s lived experiences have been captured, represented, packaged, and delivered to different audiences. Central to this enquiry will be critical interrogation of concepts such as “Africa,” “woman/women,” “body,” “modernity,” “colonial/post-colonial,” “poverty,” “agency,” “space,” “motherhood,” “power,” “culture.”

Prerequisite: HIS295Y1/HIS297Y1/AFR150Y1/AFR250Y1/AFR351Y1/POL301Y1 or permission from the Instructor
Exclusion: HIS383H1/HISC97H3
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: N. Musisi
Lecture: Monday 11-1
Geographic Area: a
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 388H1-F, L0101 France Since 1830

This course explores modern and contemporary France, from the Revolution of 1848 to the 1990’s. We will examine in detail fin-de-siècle culture and society, as well as major political dramas and traumas, including the Paris Commune, the Dreyfus Affair, the Vichy regime, and the wars of decolonization. Beyond the realm of politics, the course delves into a number of social, intellectual, and cultural themes including pluralism and feminism in France, the place of intellectuals in French society, and forms of French cultural expression. Finally, the course opens a window onto the broader French-speaking world, by analysing colonialism and neo-colonialism, as well as the emergence of la Francophonie.

Prerequisite: EUR200Y1/one course in HIS/FRE
Exclusion: HIS388Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: E. Jennings
Lecture: Wedneday 1-3
Geographic Area: c

HIS 389H1-F, L0101 Topics in History: Medieval and Early Modern Ukraine

This course traces the history of Ukraine from earliest times to the end of 18th century. The format is two hour-long lectures per week. Among the topics to be considered are: Crimea and Black Sea region in antiquity; Kievan Rus' (9th to 14th centuries); the Mongol impact; Lithuanian-Polish-Crimean period; the Cossack state; Polish and Russian rule.

Prerequisite: 4.0 credits including 1.0 HIS credit
Distribution Requirements: Humanities

Instructor: P. Magocsi
Lecture: Monday & Wednesday 10-11
Geographic Area: c
Temporal Requirement: ½ credit

HIS 389H1-F, L0201 Topics in History: The Criminalization of Protest in Latin American History

The criminalization of protest is generally understood in terms of policing, and the use of legal measures, including the declaration of states of emergency, to quell dissent. Criminalization can also refer to the stigmatization of individuals, groups, and communities, whereby state or private actors disparage those perceived to be their ideological enemies. Indeed, the criminalization of protest refers a wide range of norms and practices, political as well as social and cultural. This course invites students to study criminalization in the Latin American context, from the Cold War, to the War on Drugs, to the War on Terror. We will examine processes of state formation and popular mobilization throughout the twentieth century. Students will analyze primary sources, write research papers, and present their work to the class. We will read history, as well as a few key works from anthropology, political science, and law.

Prerequisite: 4.0 credits including 1.0 HIS credit
Distribution Requirements: Humanities

Instructor: J C. Mezo-González
Lecture: Wednesday 11-1
Geographic Area: b

HIS 389H1-F, L0301 Topics in History: History of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Illness

This class introduces students to some current issues in the history of psychiatry and some of the major developments in the evolution of this unique medical specialty.

The class will use a lecture format, with ample class discussion encouraged.  We will cover such topics as:

  • Psychiatric diagnosis and classification
  • Disorders of the mind/body relationship
  • Changes in the “presentation” of psychiatric illness

Text: Shorter, Edward.  A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. (New York: Wiley, 1997)

Prerequisite: 4.0 credits including 1.0 HIS credit
Distribution Requirements: Humanities

Instructor: E. Shorter
Lecture: Friday 10-12

HIS 389H1-S, L0101 Topics in History: 19th and 20th Century Ukraine

This course traces the history of Ukraine during the long 19th (1780s-1914) and 20th centuries. The format is two hour-long lectures per week. Among the topics to be considered are: the national awakening under Austrian and Russian rule; post-World War I statehood; interwar Soviet Ukraine and Poland; World War II and postwar Soviet Ukraine; independence and its aftermath. Aside from political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors, much attention is given to peoples other than ethnic Ukrainians living on Ukrainian territory: Jews, Poles, Crimean Tatars, Russians, Germans, amonth others.

Prerequisite: 4.0 credits including 1.0 HIS credit
Distribution Requirements: Humanities

Instructor: P. Magocsi
Lecture: Tuesday & Thursday 10-11
Geographic Area: c

HIS 389H1-S, L0301 Topics in History: Democracy and Dissents in Postwar Canada

This course will explore the background, experience, and legacy of social movements in Canada during the post-Second World War era.  While many of the groups, organizations, and movements that we will be studying have come, retrospectively, to be associated with the ‘Sixties,’ studying the decade alone cannot do justice to the wide variety of movements during the period.  Many, after all, had their roots in the 1940s and 1950s, and still others did not really emerge as major political forces until the 1970s or 1980s.  Collectively, however, the political movements of the period greatly affected the larger cultural world in which we live.  

Prerequisite: 4.0 credits including 1.0 HIS credit
Distribution Requirements: Humanities

Instructor: S. Mills
Lecture: Friday 11-1
Geographic Area: b

HIS 389H1-S, L0401 Topics in History: Maps, Guns, and Silver: China's Global Connections through Objects since 1600

What might Chinese history look like when we focus on objects themselves and their connections with the world? This course examines how various commodities, things, and structures have fueled the global history of China since the 17th century. Weekly topics may range from silver to guano, tea to porcelain, sugar to opium, maps to armaments, and lighthouses to artificial islands. Through this material lens, students are challenged to rethink popular tropes of China as having been largely insular for much of world history — and more broadly, to explore inanimate objects as active drivers of history rather than simply as passive items.

Prerequisite: 4.0 credits including 1.0 HIS credit
Recommended Preparation: Students should ideally have already taken and passed an introductory-level Chinese history (or be currently enrolled in HIS280Y), East Asian history, East Asian Studies, or equivalent course before taking this course, since it is thematic and requires basic knowledge of Chinese or East Asian history.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities

Instructor: C. Chung
Lecture: Monday 3-5
Geographic Area: a

HIS390H1-S, L0101 Slavery in Latin America

This seminar focuses on the history of African slavery in Latin America from its origins in the fifteenth century to its abolition in the nineteenth century. Readings will draw from primary sources and historical scholarship related to a range of topics, including the slave trade, gender, religious and cultural practices, and emancipation.

Prerequisite: HIS106Y1/ HIS231H1/ HIS291H1/ HIS292H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: P. Peralta
Lecture: Monday 5-7
Geographic Area: b

HIS 393H1-F, L0101 Digital History

Digital History requires close attention and open-minded engagement. In this course, we will explore how the digital era has influenced the discipline of History; the ways it has and might transform the questions we raise about the past and the methods we apply to answer them. Particularly, we will examine how computational tools and the internet have enhanced interdisciplinary collaborations and the dissemination of historical knowledge to the public, and whether they increased the democratization and commodification of history. The course combines recent conceptual frameworks and creative hands-on exercises drawing on digital historiography, multi-media and visual studies, linguistics, business, and movements for social change.

Prerequisite: 200-level History course or one of DHU235H1/DHU236H1
Exclusion: HIS389H1 (Topics in History: Digital History), offered in Summer 2015, Winter 2016, and Winter 2017
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: N. Yaari
Lecture: Friday 1-3

JHA 384H1-F, L5101 Japan in the World, mid-16th to mid-20th century

This course examines Japan within the context of world history from roughly 1600 to the mid-20th century. Examples of topics include: the mid-16th to early 17th century European expansion into East Asia; the Dutch and Chinese influence on early modern Japan; the Meiji “Restoration” as a global event; Japanese nationalism in a world of nations; Japan as both semi-colony and colonizer; the “woman question”; and the US Occupation of Japan.

Prerequisite: One course from: HIS102Y1, HIS103Y1, HIS107Y1, HIS241H1, HIS242H1, HIS244H1, HIS250H1, HIS250Y1, HIS271Y1, HIS280Y1, HIS281Y1, HIS282Y1, HIS283Y1, HIS291H1, HIS291Y1, HIS292H1, HIS292Y1, HIS297Y1, or 1.0 credit from CAS200H1, CAS201H1, CAS202H1, CAS310H1, CAS320H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: J. Shen
Lecture: Monday 5-7
Geographic Area: a

JIH 366H1-S, L0101 Indigenous Histories of the Great Lakes, 1815 to the Present

Explores the history of Aboriginal peoples (Indigenous and Metis) living in the Great Lakes Region after the Great Lakes were effectively split between British North America (later Canada) to the north and the united States to the south, when a rapidly increasing newcomer population on both sides of the border marginalized Indigenous peoples and settled on their land. Topics include a comparative examination of Indigenous experiences of colonialism, including treaties and land surrenders as well as the development of government policies aimed at removing and/or assimilating Great Lakes peoples. This course will also study resistance by First National and Tribal Councils to those programs over nearly two centuries and assess local strategies used for economic and cultural survival.

Prerequisites: HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1/ HIS271Y1/ INS200H1/ INS201Y1
Exclusions: HIS366H1/ HIS369Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)

Instructor: C. Clark
Lecture: Tuesday 3-5
Geographic Area: b