2024-2025 Academic Year
Courses offered by the History MA Program:
HIST-5118H Themes in Canadian History
This course invites students to study Canadian history in the context of shifting popular and elite conceptions of historical expertise. Topics include the decline of taught history, the “uses and abuses” of history, the “end of history”, historians as public intellectuals and activists, and emergent debates over memory, apology and reparation.
HIST-5210H Themes in Comparative Colonial History
With a stress on historiographies and historical methods, this course addresses economic, social, political, and cultural aspects of imperial rule and subject peoples under colonial authority. The approach is topical and may cover problems in race, gender, business, and social hierarchies.
HIST-5220H Themes in Medieval and Early Modern History
In the Fall 2024, the course will focus of the themes of freedom and un-freedom. It will explore the changing concepts of absolute and partial freedom; the distinctions between religious, civic, and personal freedoms/liberties; the freedom of conscience and the lack of it; the idea and principles of tolerance; the distinctions between the status of “free” and “unfree” persons; restrictions based on age and gender; the question of slavery, serfdom and seigneurial rights; and the restrictions on social and physical mobility.
HIST-5230H Themes in Modern European History
At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe was the center of the world; the most advanced and dynamic societies were European. Yet, in 1945 it was a bankrupt continent, ravaged by destruction and horror. Why and how did all of this happened? How did civilization give birth to barbarism? This course is an introduction to some of the main aspects (political, military, economic, social and cultural) of Europe’s wars, and their long-lasting effects and memory. This course explores, beyond the limits imposed by borders and states, a trans-national historical analysis of 1) how both world wars came about; 2) the different forms of war; 3) their impact in modern Europe; 4) the changing memories of those events.
Cross listed courses offered by MA programs and available to History MA students:
HIST-5171H Indigenous Settler Relations
This course explores the evolution of Indigenous settler relations in Canada, tracing how they are shaped by economic, social, cultural, religious, political and military factors, and how they differ across regions and First Nations. Themes include comparative imperial policies; treaties, land and space; law and Aboriginal-settler relations; education; religion; the state and policy development; political organization and resistance; gender, familial and sexual relations. Not open to students with credit for INDG 4801H.
HIST-5301H Policy, Economy & The State
This course explores the political economy tradition in Canada, and specifically the complex relationship between the state, economy, society, politics, and
culture. The course content will provide essential grounding in the approaches, methods, and themes that have been critical to the ongoing development of this Canadian tradition.
HIST-5105H Feminist, Gender & Women's Studies
This course explores the scholarly interpretations, debates, and theories that have shaped our understanding of women and gender in the Canadian and North American context. The historical and social construction of gender identity, culture, and sexualities are explored, and topics such as work, reproduction, ‘race,’ colonialism, political engagement and social movements.