Undergraduate
400 Level Courses (2026-2027)
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 |
| JIH | Joint History and Indigenous Studies (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.
400-level HIS courses are two-hour seminars that deal with very specialized subjects ad 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 Prerequisites). During the SECOND ROUND of enrolment, access to 400-level seminars is open to all 3rd and 4th year students with the appropriate Prerequisites.
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 2025-2026 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 ‘Equivalent 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.
HIS406H1 Advanced Topics in Gender History: Trends in Women and Gender History in the Global South
This seminar is intended as an introduction to key issues, debates, and themes in the historiography of women and gender in the global south. The course focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, nationalism and transnationalism in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean within the context of colonialism, decolonization and globalization from the late 19th century to the early 21st century. Case studies range from gender and tradition in colonial and nationalist discourses; nationalist leaders and women’s emancipation; body politics; sexuality, the state and citizenship to feminism, nationalism and transnationalism. The seminar asks not only questions of gendered and sexual inclusive and exclusive discourses and practices; it also considers questions of what history is and how it is constructed. The seminar will be a space for intellectual exploration and learning, for the forming and sharpening of ideas, and for discovery about some of the ways women and gender historians have been making histories, working in a variety of fields and archives, defining and theorizing problems and using evidence-based research.
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS406H1 Advanced Topics in Gender History: Trends in Women and Gender History in the Global South
This seminar is intended as an introduction to key issues, debates, and themes in the historiography of women and gender in the global south. The course focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, nationalism, and historical representation in Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean from the late 19th century to the early 21st century. Case studies range from gender and tradition in colonial and nationalist discourses; gendered identities and decolonial imaginations; body politics and the representation of gendered bodies; sexuality, the state and citizenship; and networks of feminism, nationalism and transnationalism. This seminar interrogates what it means to do history in the context of gendered and sexual (inclusive and exclusive) discourses and practices. The seminar will be a space for intellectual exploration and learning, for the formation and sharpening of ideas, and for discussing some of the ways women and gender historians have produced histories by working with a variety of theories, methodologies, and archives.
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS412H1 A Global History of Universities: The University of Toronto in Comparative Context
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course - HIS412H1/HIS1025H)
This course explores the history of universities, from their origins in medieval Europe, their reinvention as research institutions in nineteenth-century Germany, and their dissemination around the world in the context of European colonial empire and globalization. We will consider the history of higher education in broader social, cultural, intellectual, and political context. We will focus particular attention on the history of the University of Toronto as a vital, multidimensional historical experience that, in its status as one of the world’s leading universities, embodies many features of the broader history of universities. We will focus on a number of important features of U of T’s history, including: its origins in the longer history of European and North American universities; its relationship to settler colonialism in Canada; its changing function in society over time; its links to broader off-campus politics; pedagogies, student experience and social life; race, gender, class; the role of the research university in modern nation-states and capitalist economies; protest and contestation. Students will use the University as a site for historical investigation by completing individual research projects into U of T’s history; they will identify and analyze sources in U of T’s archives and experiment with different forms of historical production (scholarly writing, oral and visual presentation, public history, digital production, etc.).
Prerequisites: 1.5 HIS credits. Students who do not meet the prerequisites are encouraged to contact the Department.
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS417H1 Sex Work History in North America, 1763 onwards
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course - HIS417H1/HIS1168H)
This seminar explores the historical effects of the "world's oldest profession" in Canada and beyond. Using a range of texts, including film, memoirs, oral history and visual culture, it seeks to enhance both historical and contemporary discussions of the sex trade by examining its rich, difficult and problematic pasts. Seminar readings and discussions will examine the lives and experiences of multiple sex trade-involved populations, from affluent 19th-century madams to streetwalkers and queer and trans communities.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1
Exclusion: HIS417Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS419H1 Canada By Treaty: Alliances, Title Transfers and Land Claims
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course - HIS419H1/HIS1118H)
A detailed study of the treaty process between indigenous peoples and newcomers in Canadian history, with examination of the shift between alliance treaties to land surrender agreements from the colonial period through to the signing of recent treaties including the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Nisga’a Final Agreement.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS422H1 Early Modern English Popular Culture, 1500-1800
Deals with issues of orality, literacy, gender, class, cultural bricolage and vernacular epistemology – the constituents of popular, as opposed to elite knowledge - through the study of folklore, magic, religion, drink, sex, riot and festivity in early modern England. Some background in medieval and/or early modern history or literature is highly recommended. Extensive work will be undertaken with primary printed sources.
Prerequisite: HIS101Y1/ HIS109Y1/ HIS220Y1/ HIS243H1/ HIS244H1/ HIS368H1/ HIS337H1/ HIS349H1/ HIS357Y1
Exclusion: HIS496H1 (Topics in History: Early Modern English Popular Culture, 1600-1800), offered in Summer 2018
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS425H1 From the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany: How Do Democracies Die?
This seminar on Weimar and National Socialist Germany analyzes the advent of the country’s first democracy after WWI, its destruction between 1929 and 1933 and the subsequent building of the National Socialist dictatorship. How does the destruction of Germany’s first democratic republic provide a map for how democracies die? What lessons can Germany’s history provide for the current political moment? In analyzing the country’s movement from democracy to dictatorship an interdisciplinary variety of texts will be studied, covering topics from political violence and economic instability, to the languages of civil society and the importance of trust in a democratic polity. Prerequisite: 14.0 credits including 2.0 HIS credits
Exclusion: HIS496H1 (offered as "Weimar and Nazi Germany: How do Democracies Die?") taken in Fall 2019, 2022.
Recommended Preparation: At least one of HIS241H1, HIS242H1, HIS330H1, or HIS317H1.
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS426H1 Early Medieval Italy, 300-1000 CE
This seminar examines major developments in Italy 300-1000, including the Christianization of Italy, the collapse of Roman rule, the establishment of several barbarian successor kingdoms, and changes in architecture, art and literature in a period known as Italy's Dark Ages.
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
Geographic Area: C
Temporal Requirement: 0.5 credit
HIS432H1 Advanced Topics in Medieval History: The Spanish Inquisition
The students define together with the professor eight different topics (e.g. relics, masculinity, leprosy, clothes, recluses, peasants houses, gynecology and the peace of God). Each topic is approached through a class discussion, on the basis of a common corpus of secondary sources, plus presentations by the students.
Prerequisite: A course in Medieval history such as HIS220Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS435H1 Themes in Toronto History
This course will examine aspects of Toronto’s history. It is not a general survey of Toronto history; instead, the course will normally revolve around a specific theme or group of themes. Specific themes vary by year, depending on the focus of the instructor. Strong emphasis will be placed on reading and research.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS444H1 Advanced Topics in Jewish History: Jewish daily life in the Middle Ages
Medieval Jewish history is often taught through the perspectives of political and religious elites, kings, nobles, church and municipal authorities, and through their negotiations with Jews as a collective, typically represented by rabbis or affluent community leaders. Alternatively, it is presented through theological frameworks that emphasize dialogue and polemics between Jewish and Christian traditions. This course takes a different approach. We will explore the lives of medieval European Jews from the bottom up, using local perspectives and tracing the experiences of individuals and families. Focusing on the period between 1100 and 1400, and on the Jews of northern and central Europe (Holy Roman Empire, France and England) we will connect major historical events with the rhythms of daily life. A central theme will be how crises, both those shared by all Europeans, such as famine, war, and plague, and those directed specifically at Jewish communities, shaped Jewish daily practices, cultural creativity, and social relationships. The course will integrate close readings of primary sources with critical engagement with scholarly research and methodological debates, offering students a richer and more grounded understanding of Jewish life in medieval Europe.
Prerequisites: HIS208Y1 or 1.0 credit from HIS241H1/ HIS242H1/ HIS244H1/ HIS268H1/ HIS354H1/ HIS391H1/ JJH370H1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS450H1 Advanced Topics in African History: African Historians and History Writing
This advanced seminar explores the rich evolution of African historical thought from ancient times to the present. Moving beyond Western-centric perspectives, the course focuses on pre-, de-, and post-colonial traditions of record-keeping and interpretation. Students will engage directly with the works of African historians to understand how they have grappled with universal methodological challenges: the validation of oral traditions, the use of archaeology and other non-literary sources, and the decolonisation of the archive. By examining these diverse historiographies, students will gain a deeper understanding of how African intellectuals have theorised their own pasts and contested global narratives of historical knowledge.
Prerequisite: HIS295Y1 or 1.0 credit alternative African History course
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS452H1 Advanced Topics in European History: Archiving the 90s- Knowledge, Pasts, and Power
Selected topics in a specific period of European History. Content in any given year depends on instructor. Please see the History Department website for complete description.
Prerequisite: 9.0 credits including one of HIS241H1, HIS242H1, HIS243H1, HIS244H1, and a minimum 1.0 HIS credit
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS466H1 Advanced Topics in Canadian History: Race, Policy and Law in Canada and the United States
Selected topics in a specific period of Canadian history. Content in any given year depends on instructor. Please see the History Department website for complete description.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1 or permission of the instructor
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS466H1 Advanced Topics in Canadian History: Women Who Changed the Law - Gender, Advocacy, and Legal Reform in 20th Century
This fourth-year research seminar examines the role of women in shaping Canadian law and legal institutions from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. Although women were long excluded from the legal profession and political office, they played a significant role in debates over family law, criminal law, and social policy. Through advocacy organizations, professional associations, public campaigns, and eventually positions within the legal profession itself, women helped challenge existing legal norms and pressed for reform. The seminar explores these efforts by examining key moments in Canadian legal history, including struggles over marriage, property, divorce, sexual violence, and criminal justice. Students will engage closely with primary sources and historiography while developing an original research project on the relationship between gender, law, and reform in modern Canada.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1 or permission of the instructor
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS468H1 Commemorations and Public History in Canada, 1800 - 2000
This course explores selected topics in the history of commemoration, public memory, and public history in Canada. Remembering the past has often involved various groups - political, economic, and social elites - who have attempted to create ‘pasts’ or ‘traditions’ for themselves and others in society, often as part of creating socio-economic and political hegemony. We also will read about their contestation by women, working-class people, and ethnic and racialized groups to counter the powerful’s apparent monopoly on public memory. As well, we will explore how historical memories have shaped and created landscapes, in ways both discursive and material.
Prerequisite: HIS264H1
Exclusion: HIS466H1 (offered as "History of Commemoration in Canada") taken in Winter 2015, Fall 2016 or 2018, (offered as "Commemorations and Public History, Canada, 1800s-2000") taken in Fall 2020 or 2021, (offered as "Commemoration in Canada") taken in Fall 2022.
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS469H1 Upper Canada: Creating a Settler Society, 1790s–1860s
This course explores selected topics in the history of Upper Canada: 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 explores various dimensions of these aspects and considers the relationships between local dynamics and imperial currents.
Prerequisite: HIS264H1/ HIS263Y1
Exclusion: HIS466H1 (offered as "Upper Canada: Creating a Settler Society") taken in Fall 2014, Winter 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 or 2023, (offered as "Upper Canada") taken in Fall 2019, (offered as "Upper Canada: Creating a Settler Society, 1790s-1860s") taken in Winter 2021.
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS475H1 Senior Research Seminar
In this seminar, students will learn the historical methodology skills required to undertake their major independent research project for future professional use or graduate studies, including the development of a topic, formal literature reviews, and the writing of research and grant proposals. History Specialists & Majors only (priority enrollment for Specialists). Not eligible for CR/NCR option. See department website for prerequisite details and registration instructions. Students may count HIS475H1 towards the Specialty methodology pathway or carry on to HIS476H1: Senior Thesis.
Prerequisite: Consent of supervisor and department
Exclusion: HIS476Y1, HIS491Y1, HIS498H1, HIS499Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS476H1 Senior Thesis Seminar
Students research and write a primary-sourced based thesis of approximately 7,000 words, building on the prospectus and literature review developed in HIS475H1. Students attend seminar meetings to discuss the hypotheses they have formulated, present their work in progress and engage in constructive critique of other students’ work. History Specialists & Majors only (priority enrollment for Specialists). Students must find topics and thesis supervisors. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. See department website for prerequisite details and registration instructions.
Prerequisites: HIS475H1 and consent of supervisor and department
Exclusions: HIS476Y1, HIS498H1, HIS499Y1, HIS491Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS477H1 Topics in the Social and Cultural History of Victorian Britain
Examination of the impact of industrialism on Victorian society and values. Concentration on Victorian social critics including Engels, Owen, Mayhew, Dickens and Morris.
Prerequisite: 9.0 credits including 1.0 credit in History
Recommended Preparation: A course in modern British History/Victorian literature
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS484H1 The Car in North American History
This seminar examines the history of the car in North America from the perspective of technology, business, landscape and popular culture. Particular attention is paid to issues of production, consumption, geography, and daily life, and to the importance of class race, gender, region, and age in shaping the meaning and experience of car culture.
Prerequisite: HIS263Y1/ HIS264H1/ HIS271Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3) Geographic Area: B
HIS485H1 Advanced Topics in Asian History: Religion and Rebellion in China
Have historians underestimated the role of religion in rebellion and revolution in China? Or has “religion” merely served as a pretext for mobilizing economic, social, or ethnic grievances? What do we mean when we speak of “religion” in the Chinese historical context? This course examines the nature and function of religion in China from the medieval to the modern periods, engaging traditions such as Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, and Daoism through key historical episodes, introducing recent developments in the study of religion in China. Students will complete a primary-source-based research essay on the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901)—an anti-foreign movement rooted in popular religious practices and martial arts traditions—and present their findings in an in-class workshop. No knowledge of any language other than English is required.
Prerequisite: EAS102Y1/HIS280Y1/ JMC201Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS485H1 Advanced Topics in Asian Histories: Sexuality in Chinese History
What does it mean to think about sex and sexuality historically? How does sexuality relate to politics, law, economics, or culture? Is there a specifically "Chinese" history of sexuality? In this fourth-year seminar, we examine a range of primary historical materials and scholarly research on these and related questions. Students will emerge from the course with improved abilities to think critically, appraise others' writing, and communicate their own historical arguments.
Prerequisite: EAS102Y1/HIS280Y1/ JMC201Y1, another Chinese/East Asian history course, or permission of the instructor. Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
HIS495H1 Advanced Topics in History: TBD
Prerequisite: 14.0 credits, including 2.0 HIS credits excluding HIS262H1. Further prerequisites vary from year to year, consult the department.
Recommended Preparation: Varies from year to year
HIS495H1 Advanced Topics in History: The Colonial Americas in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course - HIS495H1/HIS1104H)
"Between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, parts of Africa, Europe, North and South America comprised an integrated system called the Atlantic World. It was a moment of intense migration of people (the majority forced migrants), unprecedented scale of long-distance trade, mining, agricultural production, and environmental transformations. Framing the region as an Atlantic system corrects historians’ tendency to impose contemporary national boundaries that did not exist in the early modern period. Narratives that connect the development of European settlements to today’s independent countries do not capture the complexity of European empire-building projects and colonization of the Americas. The course is divided into four roughly chronological parts: emergence, consolidation, integration, and disintegration. Historical processes essential to present-day questions took shape within the Atlantic World, such as the rise of racialized slavery, Indigenous peoples’ land dispossession, and the plantation system. The intense interactions between peoples and cultures on four continents also created new cultures, religions, identities, and languages. Widespread enslavement and land dispossession sparked debates on ideas of freedom and sovereignty that helped disintegrate the Atlantic system and still shape our world today."
Prerequisite: 14.0 credits, including 2.0 HIS credits excluding HIS262H1. Further prerequisites vary from year to year, consult the department.
Recommended Preparation: Varies from year to year
HIS496H1 Advanced Topics in History: Imperial Russian Social History
(Joint undergraduate/graduate course - HIS496H1/HIS1286H)
How do states understand and categorize their people? And how do those categories affect the work of historians? This course begins with the 1897 census of the Russian Empire, an effort to enumerate and categorize a vast, diverse population according to gender, social status, profession, education, religion, and language (not, notably, by race, by ethnicity, or by nationality). It then looks at each of these categories to understand how they both help historians make sense of past society and how they obscure parts of that past society.
Prerequisite: 14.0 credits including 2.0 HIS credits including either HIS325H1 or HIS351H1.
HIS 497H1 Animal Politics and Science
Why is thinking about the animal unsettling for some or strange for others? Especially since Darwin, the question of the animal-what it says about being or not being human-has been at the core of important philosophical and scientific debates. This course examines the ways that question has been answered over time.
Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in political theory, history of science, or intellectual history. Students who do not meet the prerequisite are encouraged to contact the Department.
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
HIS498H1/HIS499Y1 Independent Study
Independent Studies are open to both History Specialists and Majors with a B+ (77 and above or 3.3 GPA and above) average in at least 4.0 HIS credits in History, at the discretion of the Department and with the approval of eligible History faculty member who has agreed to act as supervisor. (An assistant, associate or full professor who has a continuing appointment in the St. George History Department).
The Department of History offers senior undergraduate students the possibility of study under the course designations HIS498H1-F/S or HIS499Y1-Y. These courses result in the production of an independent research project. This may not necessarily take the form of a major essay and could include a creative output such as a digitally-curated exhibit.
Please note that faculty are under no obligation to supervise I.S. projects.
Note:
- It is not practical to do an I.S. as a full-credit taken in one term (i.e. HIS499Y1-F or 499Y1-S)
- Students are allowed only 1.0 I.S. course in History
- Where research projects can be undertaken within the scope of an existing HIS course, students will not normally be allowed to enroll in Independent Studies. In other words, Independent Studies courses cannot be used to deal with timetable conflicts.