History

People have made the Arctic home for millennia, creating circumpolar cultures in its challenging climate. This course compares and examines connections in the contested polar region through several themes: cultures in contact, trade and exploration, environment, crime and punishment, and defense and sovereignty.

Ranging widely chronologically and geographically, this course explores the phenomenon of violence in history. It examines the role and meanings of violence in particular societies (such as ancient Greece and samurai Japan), the ideological foundations and use of violence in the clash of cultures (as in slavery, holy wars, colonization, and genocide), and the effects and memorialization of violence.

Interactions among peoples, empires, and cultures, with particular attention to the non-European world. Can we speak of “international relations” before the modern concept of nation-states was established? What forms did globalization take in the pre-modern era? Covering a broad chronological sweep from before the Silk Road to the present day, we will look at exchanges of goods and technologies; dissemination of ideas and religions; voyages of migration and exploration; and episodes of conquest and colonization.

An analysis of the development of the international system, from 1648 to 1945, which highlights the role of war as an instrument of national policy, as a determinant of the system of states and as a threat to international society.

This course introduces the history of the African Diaspora in the Americas, from 1492-1804. Lectures and readings will draw from primary sources and historical scholarship to focus on a range of topics, including slavery and the slave trade, race relations, gender and sexuality, religious and cultural practices, and liberation struggles.

This course draws on the history of China, Korea and Japan between 1600 to 1950 to explore historical issues of gender, nationalism, war and relations with the West.

This course offers an introduction to history as a discipline - to the history of the discipline itself, to the questions, categories, and methodologies that constitute it, and how they have evolved in varied times and places, and to the methodologies students need to acquire to engage in historical inquiry and writing. The course will be part methodological workshop, part epistemological reflection.

The shape of traditional society; the forces at work on the social, political, economic, cultural and intellectual structures of Western Europe since the high Middle Ages: the Structure of Traditional Society; the First Period of Challenges, 1350-1650; the Second Period of Challenges, 1650-1815; Confidence, Stability and Progress, 1815-1914; the Collapse of the Old Order and the Condition of Modern Europe, 1914-1945.

This course introduces you to the connected and interdependent world people who lived between the present day cities of Dakar, in West Africa, and Jakarta, in Indonesia, from about 1000 to the present. We explore in this class the three "C"s which have linked human experience in Africa and Asia via routes which connected the Indian Ocean World: Connectedness, Contingency, and Cosmopolitanism. We study how people who lived more than a thousand years before our time transported ideas, products, and scripts by land and sea via routes that connected large parts of Africa, Central & South Asia, and East and Southeast Asia, and their histories. The land and sea routes connected these communities and the cosmopolitan outlook of the hosts provided the contingent conditions for a Buddhist monks to travel from all over China to Southern and Southeast Asia; Muslim scholars to travel from West Africa to Indonesia; and merchants and writers to move within these worlds. Human migration, economic trade, and religious conversion had linked the lands and the seas, making it possible for our imams, merchants, monks, and servants to traverse these territories, across the Africa and Asia. This vibrant and wealthy world of African and Asian thinkers, merchants, leaders, and communities became the envy of the world, and as late as the seventeenth century, these crazy rich Africans and Asians dominated the world as it was known. We'll see how history is contingent--and that human migration, economic exploitation, lack of reciprocity, and legacies of European colonial racism have disrupted the cosmopolitan worlds of the Indian Ocean. The world is different today, but more than three quarters of the human population still live in Africa and Asia--see the richness of their worlds as it was for thousands of years, and what will be left for the people of this world as climate change makes the seas rise.

In the 21st century, the idea of fake news and its rapid circulation via social media shapes how humans perceive events around them. The issue of what counts as authentic, or “fake,” is not simply a recent phenomenon, but is central to the idea of history itself. What materials get saved, whose stories get told, and why are some stories represented as more important than others? By examining specific examples of “misinformation”–propaganda, suppression of information, and hidden actors-- in a global context, this course explores how historical narrative and public memory have been shaped by the collection and valuation of texts, experiences, and material objects, all themes central to the craft of history.

Ever wonder how and why the founding of Islam in 610, the Mongol conquests of Eurasia in the 13th century, the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), or the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed the world? This course ten events changed the world and continue to have ramifications today. Experts will give guest lectures on the important “events,” while students will learn how historians work to understand the significance of these moments, human agency, and the idea of an “event,” itself.

This course introduces students to the basics of historical methods and approaches through a survey of the history of the Toronto. We will stress the way Toronto’s history has been a product of local, regional, national, continental, and global developments. Considerable attention will be paid to building historical methods, including working with primary sources, hands on research, and local history. Possible topics will include colonialism, immigration, urban development, suburban growth, capitalism, politics, environment, and other developments.

We have all just lived through a major historical disruption caused by CoViD-19. In this course, you will be invited to use your experience of the pandemic as a tool for understanding other times, other places, and the study of history itself. We will study plagues and diseases from the ancient world to the Twentieth Century, and introduce methods from social, cultural, and economic history, as well as concepts from the histories of science and medicine.

A first-year seminar on the history of queerness, in all its complexity and diversity, in the no less complex and diverse settings of East, South, and Southeast Asia. Our journey will encompass empires and Indigenous peoples, rulers and rebels, and range from early recorded history down to the twentieth century. Focus will be placed on primary sources and introducing students to the evolving definitions of "queerness" itself. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

The last Indian Residential School in Canada closed in 1996. For more than a century and half before that, the Canadian state supported church-run residential schools intended to take Indigenous children away from their families, cultures, languages and traditions. Over 150,000 children passed through the doors of these different schools that operated from coast to coast. Using the formal report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a central text, this course explores that history and the ongoing legacy of residential schools in Canada while introducing first year students to historical research methods and sources. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course will look broadly at the question of power and resistance in the Americas (Canada, the United States, and Latin America) through the prism of graphic novels. Each week we will read a graphic novel related to important historical moments or events, drawing on scholarly articles to help us contextualize the novel. We will discuss the medium of graphic novels, their history and place in the broader culture, as well as how they might help or hinder our ability to study and disseminate information about the past. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This seminar explores the roles of religion in extreme violence. Working backward from the 1990s (Rwanda, Yugoslavia), we will consider cases including Guatemala, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Holocaust, Armenians, German Southwest Africa, and genocide of Indigenous peoples in North America. Students will produce a final project based on original research. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course focuses on the theories and practices of medicine in Europe, c.500-1500, by examining surviving evidence from the period, including (in translation) pharmaceutical recipes, diagnostic guides, doctor’s records, treatises on anatomy, surgery and gynecology, commentaries on Hippocrates and Galen, laws and regulations for physicians, university lectures, disputes in court records, satirical writings against physicians, and so on, as well as visual evidence of artifacts, surgical instruments, manuscript illumination/diagrams, hospital sites and design. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course introduces students to the historiographical and theoretical debates in women's and gender history from a global perspective, with emphasis on the local histories of women in the non-western world. Students will study the themes in women's history as articulated by first and second wave feminists. The second part of the class deconstructs the basic assumptions of Western feminism through the perspective of post-colonial feminist writings and empirical studies. The readings are structured so that you consider how examples from Asia disrupt narratives of universality in Western feminist epistemologies. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

What role does social media play in the spread of historical falsehoods? Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube are relatively new, but the hidden power structures that shape their content are not. This course explores the relationship between social media platforms and history in two ways. First, class discussions, workshops, and guest lectures introduce students to overlooked histories of social media itself, including the rise of the early internet and its roots in histories of race, LGBTQ+ expression, sex work, and capitalism. Second, we explore how and why social media platforms promote the spread of historical misinformation, while censoring or burying accurate and important historical content. Our course focuses on the big histories behind algorithms while offering students hands-on experience building original, critical historical content for social media. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Histories of wine or beer or vodka often focus either on the production of these alcoholic beverages and their role in national or local economies, or on the ways that drinking is part of celebration. But drunkenness enters the historical record in other ways, too—not just as a social lubricant but as a social ill, one associated with intimate violence or violence to the self and with mass protest. From worries about the Gin Craze to race-based restrictions on consumption, from tax policies to policing, this class will consider the many ways that drunkenness has been accepted, denounced, and legislated in societies around the world.

This course examines scientific ideas about human difference from the 18th-century to the present. It explores how scientists and their critics portrayed the nature of race, sex difference, and masculinity/femininity in light of debates over nation, citizenship, colonialism, emancipation, knowledge and equality. The course will also introduce students to the uses of gender and race as analytic categories within the practice of history. While the course draws much of its subject matter from the history of the United States, it also explores selective issues in European and colonial contexts.

This course critically examines gender in the context of politics, society, culture, and economics across a range of comparative times and spaces depending on instructor expertise. In what ways have gendered norms and transgressions been part of human societies and lived experiences? How have those norms shifted across historical and geographical contexts? How has the history of gender impacted gender as it is lived and made political today?  Throughout the course, we will be querying the theoretical assumptions underlying and framing the historical texts we are studying, as well as assessing the different kinds of primary sources used to recover women’s and gender history.

This course introduces students to the diverse experiences of women from a comparative perspective. Students will study how women’s strategies have shaped the major cultural, economic, political and social processes in the world and how these processes have affected women’s experiences in their particular societies.  By studying women’s history from both local and global perspectives, students will engage critically with claims that women’s history is universal.  The local focus of the course will rotate between Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, depending on the expertise of the instructors.

An introduction to the history of the Jews throughout the world over the past two thousand years.

A lecture-based course designed to introduce students to key moments and concepts in the field of environmental history since c. 1400. This course will track the reciprocal influence of humans and the non-human world since the so-called "Columbian Exchange," emphasizing the ways in which the non-human world-from plants, animals, and disease organisms to water, topography, and geography- have shaped human endeavours. At the same time, students will engage with many of the ways in which human beings have shaped the world around us, from empire and colonization, to industrial capitalism, nuclear power, and modern wildlife conservation.

Political, religious, and educational ideas and institutions of the Middle Ages, from the late Roman period to the fifteenth century, with a focus on primary sources, to listen to as many medieval voices as possible.

An introduction to the history of Africans and people of African descent in the Americas generally, and the United States in particular. Major themes include modernity and the transatlantic slave trade; capitalism and reparations; Atlantic crossings; African women, gender, and racial formations; representation, resistance, and rebellion; nation-building; abolitionism and civil war; historical method and the political uses of the past.

This course examines the history of black people in the United States after the abolition of slavery. Major themes include the promise and tragedy of Reconstruction; gender and Jim Crow; race and respectability; migration, transnationalism, and 20th century black diasporas; black radical traditions and freedom movements; intersectionality and black feminisms; the drug war and mass incarceration; sexuality and the boundaries of blackness.

This course introduces students to the study of Caribbean history from first human settlement to the late 18th century. Subject matter covered includes indigenous social structures, cosmology and politics; the process of European conquest; the economics, society and political order of colonial society; the Middle Passage; the everyday lives and struggles of enslaved peoples.

This course explores the history of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century Caribbean, from the Haitian Revolution to the U.S. occupation of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Students learn about the first struggles for political independence; the struggle to abolish the slave trade; slave emancipation; indentureship and struggles to define freedom after emancipation.

Many scholars believe that the initial 1900s had only been an extension of the 19th century and that the First World War opened the next age. Many feel that it changed Europe and the entire world and started a long period of military conflicts, genocides, nationalism, and high-speed modernization. This course will offer the most important facts related to the Great War and discuss their consequences. The course will demonstrate that it is difficult to understand our contemporary world without basic knowledge of World War I, that we are all grandchildren of that war.

An introduction to modern European history from Napoleon to the outbreak of World War I. Important political, economic, social, and intellectual changes in France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and other countries are discussed: revolution of 1848, Italian and German unification, racism and imperialism, the evolution of science, art, and culture, labour protest, and the coming of war.

The evolution of European politics, culture, and society from 1914: the two world wars, Fascism and Nazism, the post-1945 reconstruction and the movement towards European integration.

The political, social, economic, and intellectual history of continental Europe. The Renaissance, the Reformation, Counter-reformation, growth of the territorial monarchies, the religious wars.

The political, social, economic, and intellectual history of continental Europe. Development of royal absolutism, social change and the crisis of the ancient regime, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era.

This course will introduce students to the history of European colonialism. It will analyze the nature of colonial rule, the impact of empire on both colonies and metropoles, and delve into questions of power, gender and culture. It considers slavery and abolition, imperial networks, colonial capital, colonial competition, colonial cultures, the twilight of colonial rule, and a variety of settings.

This course introduces the history of the modern Russian Federation and its predecessor states from the founding of Moscow through the ages of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union to the present day. Emphasis is placed on reading primary source documents.

The Polish, Czech, and Hungarian background; the Balkans in the late medieval and early modern periods. Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-reformation, decline and national awakening to the beginning of the 19th century. Partitioned Poland, nationalism in the 19th century; World War I, Peace Settlement, interwar years and the Communist period.

Designed for non-history students, this introductory survey fulfills the Society and Its Institutions breadth requirement.  It is open to all who want to know more about Canada.  Make sense of politics today and develop a deeper understanding of Canadian society and its institutions through study of the major events and demographic trends that have shaped the development of this country.  Topics will include First Nations/newcomer relations (including treaties and the Truth & Reconciliation report), French/English relations (including Quebec separatism), regionalism, the North, economic history, constitutional developments, and the development of Canadian identity, including common symbols associated with Canada.  No essay requirement.  Instead, enhance your critical reading and thinking skills through short writing assignments and weekly discussions of tutorial readings.

*This course will not count towards History program requirements or as a prerequisite for upper level courses*

This course introduces key issues in Canadian history and foundational principles of historical analysis. It is primarily designed for potential History majors/specialists. It is not a comprehensive survey. Examples serve to deepen analysis and introduce important methods and debates, preparing students for upper year courses in Canadian history.

This course explores the historical experiences of persons of African descent in Canada. We begin by examining the presence of free and enslaved Africans in New France and British North America, moving into twentieth century themes exploring Black liberation, immigration and resistance in Canada. The course brings into sharp focus the historical production of racial categories and racist thought and practice in Canada and examines the experiences of Black Canadians within the context of ‘multiculturalism.’

The course examines the history of Asian Canadians from the mid-1800s to the present by analyzing their contributions to the socio-cultural, economic, and political development of Canada. It explores how Asian Canadian history reconfigures prevailing understanding of race, migration, multiculturalism, and national identity through intersectional, comparative, and transnational frameworks.

Business, and its history and evolution, is a fundamental aspect of understanding modernity. Capitalism and globalization, two of the most important aspect of business and its history, shape our world in profound ways. Utilizing a “glocal” approach that combines global and Canadian business history cases within a transnational context, this course seeks to interrogate and understand the evolution and development of modern business, capitalism and globalization from the late 19th Century into the early 21st.

The Federal Interpretation Act of Canada states that the ‘law is always speaking’. If the law is always speaking, then it must be speaking in present tense. But if it only speaks in present tense, does it have a past? How might we consider the field of law from different historical angles? This course will introduce students to different historical approaches to and uses of law. Using examples from a wide array of legal traditions (e.g. Common Law, Civil Law, Indigenous Law, Islamic Law), the course will help students gain a greater appreciation for the function, study, and development of law across different times and places.

A survey of the economic, social, cultural, and political history of the United States from the colonial era to present times.

A critical history of the place we today call China from prehistoric times to the 21st century, tracing shifting borders, identities, governments, and cultures while challenging any singular definition of "China."

An introductory survey addressing major themes in the history of South Asia, examining South Asian political economy, social history, colonial power relations and the production of culture. Emphasis is on the period after 1750, particularly the study of colonialism, nationalism, and postcolonial citizenship and modernity.

This course examines how the cultural, economic, religious, and social histories of "Southeast Asia" [Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Thailand, & Vietnam] shaped the world as we see it today. Lectures will demonstrate how the millennia-long cultural and material exchanges Southeast Asians engaged via water across the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the lands across Eurasia affected the lives of its inhabitants and the proximal and distant regions with which it had contact. In Tutorials, students will be trained to read primary sources. Themes to be explored include economic exchange, colonialism and its impact, gender and sexual diversity, and religion and society.

Explores critical historical issues about ethnic Chinese outside of China from the 1500s to the present, emphasizing the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, and covering six continents. Topics include Chinese migrations, Chinese diasporas, ethnic Chinese identities, communities, cultures, and racializations outside of China, relations with China, impacts on their host societies, and relations with non-Chinese.

Oral history explores the past through peoples’ voices, memories and testimonies. The course will explore oral histories of Asian Canadians, especially in Greater Toronto, as a way to investigate Asian Canadian experiences of the most recent half century. Students will explore diverse community oral traditions. They also will study and practice generating new oral histories through dialogue. Often the class will interpret select Asian Canadian oral testimonies about Toronto and Canada as part of a collective course project to better understand the perspectives of growing Asian Canadian populations in recent decades. Students also will assess oral history’s strengths and limitations as an accessible means to create new archives of otherwise under-studied populations.

The evolution of Spanish and Portuguese America from pre-Columbian civilizations to the wars of independence.

A survey of Latin American history from the wars of independence to the present day.

This course introduces students to the social, economic, cultural and political history of the Atlantic world resulting from European exploration and colonization in the Americas beginning in the 1490s and the growth of the transatlantic slave trade. It focuses on interactions between Africans, Europeans, and Amerindians around the Atlantic Ocean.

An introduction to African history and the methodology of history more broadly, this course sets out to question how historians do history, examine differences in theories of knowledge, and explore the relationship between academic and cultural representations of the past. The course also draws on anthropology and related disciplines.

This survey of African history is analytical rather than narrative in its approach. It rethinks the way that African history has hitherto been conceptualized and taught by placing the question of gender at the center of the story of Africa.

This is a thematic survey course addressing issues of gender, class, ethnicity, religion, war, economics and political strife through broad-sweep coverage of a region’s history. Prepares students for upper-level study through exposure to eyewitness primary sources and conflicting secondary interpretations of events. 

Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities…. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course examines the history of energy in North America from the perspective of political economy, environment and social-cultural history. Particular attention is paid to twentieth-century developments and to the relationship between energy and social power. Examples are drawn from both Canada and the United States.

History and Literature were always interconnected in Russia. Writers not only sought to reflect the society around them, but were themselves often social critics and political figures. The course examines key texts in Russian literary tradition both as works of art and as primary sources for the historian. All readings in English.

An examination of the products of the first and second industrial revolutions in Victorian England. This course focuses on the cultural history of commercialization and consumerism.

The course treats contact and conflict between Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the premodern Mediterranean world. Within the framework of broad political and economic developments, the course explores a range of topics, including holy war, slavery, religious polemics, colonialism, the commerce in goods and ideas, and ethnic relations.

An in-depth examination of Middle East historical issues. Content in any given year depends on instructor. See History Website for more details.

This course examines the experiences of enslaved people in the Americas and introduces students to the complex history of the ‘plantation’ as a site of violence; social, economic, labour and political organization and experimentation; kinship, culture and community recreation and rebellion. The course will focus on the 17th to 19th century Caribbean in comparative and transnational relationship to the continental Americas.

This course examines the formation and encounters of Islamic Law with Legal Others from roughly the 8th century CE to the early formation of the Ottoman Empire. The Islamic legal tradition arose in a complex historical context in which legal traditions mapped onto, and gave legal cover to, imperial polities. As the Islamic polity expanded, so too did the imagination of jurists having to contend with new realities (political, geographic, economic, and otherwise). This course will introduce students to the formation of Islamic law in a context of contending legal orders, its ongoing encounters with legal orders in the course of Islamic expansion, and the retraction of Islamic legal orders and institutions as a tradition that anticipated political sovereignty experienced the limits of that sovereignty. Examples will be drawn from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and South East Asia. The course will introduce students to the disciplinary focus of Law and History through a focus on doctrine, institution, and the implications on both as territory and people are subject to varying waves of imperial designs and local resistance.

This course continues with the themes treated in HIS303H1, specifically in the context of relations between the Ottoman empire and European states and the growing impact of the Atlantic world on the Mediterranean.

The Reformation has traditionally been approached as a 16th century European phenomenon. This course will consider religious reform movements from the 15th to 18th centuries and set these into a global framework, considering spatial and sensory dimensions, cross-cultural engagements and exchanges, and intersections with race and colonization.

This course examines the emergence of a modern ‘consumer society’ in North America from about 1850 to recent times. The aim is to combine political, social, economic and cultural history to chart changing relationships between North Americans, consumer commodities, and identities.

Canadian international affairs in a broader context. Anglo-American as well as Canadian-American relations; the European background to questions such as the League of Nations, appeasement and rearmament, which directly affected Canada without this country being consulted.

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.

What happens to history when we take the category of the animal as the subject? This course pursues the history of people and other animals since the early modern period, with a thematic focus located in the Atlantic world.

This course will explore the history of Francophone Canada from the late 19th century until today. 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 francophone Canada 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. For 2021, we will explore these histories through a focus on the city of Montreal.

This course introduces students to the narratives that diverse actors have used to talk about Vietnamese histories. We will focus on the histories and perspectives of the indigenous peoples of the peninsula, ethnic minority groups, as well as that of the majority "Kinh people." We'll explore themes which have been central to shaping the geographic space, the socio-political regimes, and the cultural entity we now call "Viet Nam," while examining how varying types of historical method and archival strategies can influence the telling of histories. This course may fulfil the methodology requirement portion of the major.

This course explores the political, social, and cultural history of Harbin, one of the major cities of Manchuria/Northeast China, the product of competing Russian, Japanese, and international colonialism during the first half of the twentieth century, and an early case of multi-ethnic emigration and multiculturalism.

A survey of modern German history in the twentieth century. Topics include World War I and the postwar settlement, the Weimar Republic, the National Socialist dictatorship, the Holocaust, the division of Germany, the Cold War, German reunification, Germany and the European Union, nationalism, political culture, war and revolution, religious and ethnic minorities and questions of history and memory.

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

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.

Covers major events and themes for the period 300-600, including decline of Greco-Roman paganism, conversion to Christianity, individual barbarian groups (Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns, Burgundians, Vandals, Franks, Lombards), their culture and impact on empire, Justinian's reconquests.

Surveys major events and figures for the period c. 600-1000, including: Pope Gregory the Great, the Merovingian Franks, Lombard Italy, Byzantine civilization, the rise of Islam, Charlemagne, the Carolingian Renaissance, the Vikings, Anglo-Saxon England to King Alfred, the Ottonians.

Explores the legacies of the pre-Columbian era, as well as the post-1492 experiences of people of pre-Columbian Caribbean ancestry. Examines the origins and consequences of the Caribbean's narrative of "indigenous absence", as well as the relationship between indigeneity, globalization and diaspora.

Reflecting on the life cycle and rites of passage in the medieval period gives the opportunity to study the daily lives of peasants, nobles, monks, nuns, and burghers, and to observe from an interesting angle the differences between female and male life experiences.

The British empire, at its zenith, covered one-quarter of the earth's land surface. Whatever the rights and wrongs of its history were, the legacies of this global experience continue to influence politics in today's world. Equal coverage is given to early modern and modern history. Some background in British history or international relations is strongly recommended. This course begins at home with English expansionism in the British Isles before moving on to deal with case studies selected from North America, the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia and East Asia. Coherence comes from thematic foci consisting of economics, law, migration, gender and governance.

This course focuses on Russia's history during a period of remarkable change and turbulence, when the country more firmly established its far-flung empire while simultaneously attempting to define itself as a nation. From the wars and reforms of Peter the Great through the end of the empire during the First World War, the course touches on questions of social and cultural change, and the political events that allowed or constrained them.

Selected topics on a specific period in Chinese history. Topics in any given year depend on the instructor.

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.

An examination of political, social and economic developments in modern Chinese history to the present day. Main topics may include the decline of the Imperial order and the challenge of Western imperialism; the Republican period; the rise of the Communist movement; the Peoples Republic of China.

A chronological survey from 900, with the foundation of Cluny by the Duke of Aquitaine, the last waves of Vikings, and the decline and end of the Carolingian Empire, up to 1200, with the Battle of Bouvines, the more formal organization of the first universities and the construction of the Gothic cathedrals. The main question will be: what happens when there is no real central power? Why did the term “Feudalism,” now nicknamed the F word by medievalists, was judged inappropriate to describe the situation?

Topics include German reactions to the French Revolution, Napoleonic occupation, the Wars of Liberation, industrial expansion, the Revolutions of 1848, unification in 1871, Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II, everyday life, gender relations, avant-garde culture, nationalism, antisemitism, colonialism, and the Great War of 1914-18.

The history of the Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 1900 to the present day, with emphasis on the emergence of independent Baltic states, World War II, communist era, the Baltic Revolution, the restoration of independence and European integration.

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

This course examines the impact of Catholicism in Asia, from its introduction to its relevance in the contemporary global order. Students will be introduced to how Catholicism and the technologies accompanying it affected historical transitions in local communities in Asia as well as how the growth of these communities has affected the global Catholic Church.

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.

This course emphasizes the interaction of Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and the cultural and political distinctiveness of Castile and Aragon in the development of state, society, and culture in medieval Spain.

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.

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.

This course explores the history of the Jewish state from the rise of Zionism to the present. Topics include the Zionist-Arab conflict, immigration, the construction of a new Hebrew identity, interactions between religion and state, the impact of the Holocaust, and the relationship between Israel and the Jewish diaspora. 

The course examines the history of the Ottoman Empire from the beginning of the 19th c. until its dissolution in the course of World War I. Topics include Ottoman reforms, relations between the Empire’s populations and the state, the diplomatic interactions known as “the Eastern Question,” the Young Turk revolution, gender, and intellectual, cultural and artistic developments.

This course places Germany's long national history in a transnational and global context, exploring its place among the global empires of Britain, Russia, France and the United States from the mid-seventeenth century to the present. Events of the German nation-state's political, social and cultural developments are analyzed through a framework focused on both military expansion and the development of the world economy after 1700. Particular attention is paid to the interplay between strategies for a global expansion and transformations in national culture, looking at Germany in the world and the world in Germany.

This course examines the growth of movements for the political liberation of Africa and the psychological liberation of Africans from Western imperialism and cultural hegemony. Postcolonial thinking and art was fundamental to the project of decolonization. It uses primary text and films to explore African cultural and intellectual history.

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.

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.

This course is designed to further students knowledge of films relationship to the events they depict and their undeniable power as representational systems to render history effectively. This will necessarily entail both close examination of the formal systems film rely upon and an understanding of the distinction between fictional and non-fictional forms in film.

This course examines the importance of food products in the livelihoods of the inhabitants of Southeast and in the world economy. It traces the circulation of these products within the Southeast Asian region in the pre-modern period, into the spice trade of the early modern era, and the establishment of coffee and sugar plantations in the late colonial period, and the role of these exports in the contemporary global economy.

This course examines class, distinction and community through the lens of the English country house from 1837 to 1939.  Topics include owners, servants, houses, collections, gardens and rituals such as fox hunting.

An in-depth examination of issues in gender history. Content in any given year depends on instructor. See History website for more details.

An introduction to the history of modern England with emphasis on the search for identity with reference to the nation, the crown, class, gender, age, political parties, race and ethnicity.

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.

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.

Social and political history of Poland from the 10th to the 20th century. Analysis of the political history in a broader, central European context; consequences of Christianization of medieval Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian union; Sarmatian culture, Antemurale, Polish Messianism and Cordon sanitaire.

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.

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.

A social history of the 15th and 16th centuries set against the cultural and political background. Emphasis on changes in customs and living conditions resulting from economic, legal, intellectual, and religious developments of the period.

The Canadian history course focuses on museums and material culture (history of objects). Using museum visits, lectures, and workshops, students in this course have an opportunity to conduct original research on how artefacts (and the institutions that house them) offer us new ways of thinking about the past.

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.

This course explores the long history and diverse experiences of African Canadians in Canada. Topics may include slavery, the underground railroad, migration, and Black life in rural and urban Canada throughout the 20th century. Discussions will be situated in broad and transnational debates about race.

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.

A lecture course which deals thematically with gender issues in Canadian history (including familial roles, changing patterns of work and employment, and participation in the public sphere).

This course offers a chronological survey of the history of Hungary from the 1848 revolution 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. 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 not been invariably heroic, violent and tragic.

This course is a survey of the Great Lakes Region as a “trans-national space” from the 1780s to recent times. Attention is focused on the development of the region from indigenous space to industrial heartland and its subsequent deindustrialization. Key themes include economic development, colonialism and re-settlement, environmental history (particularly of the lakes themselves), and the role of the Canada-US border in shaping the region. The course includes material from both Canadian and American history. Considerable attention is paid to Toronto as a Great Lakes city.

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.

The cities of Central Europe, and most notably those of the Habsburg Empire, were at the forefront of Europe’s cultural, artistic and intellectual development until the outbreak of the Second World War. Moreover, these cities remain living monuments to the achievements of European culture to the present day. These cities also represent some of the darker aspects of European history. The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the history of Central Europe, the complex historical role of central European cities, their interaction with imperial and then national cultures, economies and societies, and their importance in creating modern nation states.

Offered in summer only as part of the Summer Abroad Program.

Introduction to the political, social and religious history of early modern England, Scotland and Ireland. Particular attention will be paid to the history of the monarchy, the Protestant Reformation, gender issues and relations between different parts of the British Isles.

Explores the history of Aboriginal Peoples (Indigenous and Métis) living in the Great Lakes Region from the 16th century to the aftermath of the War of 1812. Weaving together interdisciplinary sources, this course examines central events in Great Lakes history including the formation of the Wendat and Haudenosaunee Confederacies and key Anishinabek alliances, the arrival of European newcomers into an Indigenous landscape, the social-political impact of new diseases, reactions to European missionaries, the fur trade, major conflicts and peace processes including the Great Peace of Montreal, the Treaty of Niagara and the 60 Years War for the Great Lakes; and ending with the period of significant encroachment of new settlers on Indigenous lands. Tutorials, primary source analysis, essay, exam.

Weekly lectures provide an overview of the political struggles over Palestine between Zionist and Palestinian national movements in the twentieth century in the context of British colonialism, UN negotiations and resolutions, Third-Worldism, superpower rivalry and everyday cooperation and occupation on the ground.

This course examines the history of Canadian politics from the late colonial period to the recent past. Lectures and tutorials will focus attention on specific political issues (responsible government, Confederation, war, welfare, battles over voting rights, campaigns for social change, etc) but also consider the deeper structural, social, economic, and cultural dynamics that shaped politics over time. The course takes a broad view of politics (elections and parties but also social movements, interest groups, bureaucracy). A key theme is the nature of political power in a democratic polity.

In-depth examination of selected periods or themes in U.S. history. Topic in any given year depends on instructor. See History website for more details.

This course will explore the history of all types of servants, from the ladies-in-waiting to the domestic slaves, in Western Europe between 1000 and 1700. The goal will be to observe especially their working and living conditions, as well as the changing perception of service through time.

An exploration of some of the historical roots of issues that are of particular importance to understanding the United States of the early 21st century: e.g., the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria and U.S. global leadership (or hegemony); the impact of globalization on the domestic economy; cultural innovation vs. neo-conservatism.

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.

A survey of one of the most turbulent decades in American history. Examines the political, social, economic and cultural revolutions that transformed the face of America.

This course examines war in modern Vietnam, beginning with Vietnamese nationalism in the 19th century to the conflicts with France, the United States, and China. We will consider the military, political, economic, and cultural contexts of these complex and interconnected wars, especially from the viewpoint of the Vietnamese people.

Explores histories of Chinese in Canada, and how scholars have researched, interpreted and analyzed them in ethnic, multicultural, transnational and diasporic contexts. Students will be exposed to a wide range of research approaches including: archives, oral history, community studies, visual studies, popular culture, racial-ethnic studies, and food studies. Chinese in Greater Toronto will be a focus.

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.

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. It examines how African women’s lived experiences have been represented, packaged, and delivered to different audiences.

This course traces political, cultural and socio-economic developments in North-Eastern Europe, the Baltic Sea region, from the Viking Age to the end of the 19th century. Topics include the crusades, the Hanseatic League and trade, the Reformation, the struggle for hegemony between the Swedish and Russian empires, the Enlightenment, national movements, and industrialization.

This course examines Japan within the context of world history from the mid-16th to the mid-20th century. Rather than seek comprehensive coverage of Japan's national history along a linear timeline, we will use Japan as a lens through which to consider key moments in the history of the modern world.

A study of political, economic, and social change in the British colony of Hong Kong from 1842 until the present day.

A study of political, economic, and social change in the British colony of Hong Kong from 1842 until the present day.

Offered in summer only as part of the Summer Abroad Program.

What happens to the shariʿa when it is applied by modern nation-states? This course introduces students to the way states, with Muslim majorities and minorities, from Canada to Malaysia, passing by Nigeria, Palestine, Iran, and Pakistan approach, accommodate, or apply Islamic law. We also discuss the way Muslims, lay and scholarly, talk about, practice, and follow Islamic law under modern states. Based on an examination of law in practice, we will be able to theorize modern transformations of the shariʿa and provincialize the modern state and its legal regime.

A comparative and transnational examination of fascist movements and regimes in Europe during 1919-1945. Beginning with Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany, this course analyzes manifestations of the phenomenon in various European countries, including France, Spain, the Baltic states, Central Europe and Scandinavia. We analyze the factors that led to fascist movements obtaining power in certain countries and to their failure in others. Collaboration with Nazi Germany during the Second World War is also explored. Finally, we discuss whether the concept of ‘generic’ fascism can also be applied to other regions and periods.

This course considers the history of France, from the rise of absolutist monarchy under the seventeenth-century, Bourbon monarchs, through the Enlightenment, the Revolution and Napoleonic Empire, and the Restoration, to the fall of the constitutional monarchy in 1848.

A study of French society, politics and culture from the Paris Commune to the 1990s. Special attention is paid to watersheds like the Dreyfus Affair and the Vichy regime, to issues of regionalism/nationalism, cultural pluralism, women's rights, intellectual and cultural trends, and decolonization.

In-depth examination of historical issues. Content in any given year depends on the instructor and further prerequisites vary from year to year. See History website for more details.

In-depth examination of historical issues. Content in any given year depends on instructor. See History website for more details.

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.

Anthropological and Historical perspectives on topics that vary from year to year.

Anthropological and Historical perspectives on topics that vary from year to year.

Black writers and historical actors were at the vanguard of re-conceiving, implementing, and realizing much of the Enlightenment project of freedom. Africans and people of African descent significantly affected its meaning in the Atlantic world. The course sets out to explore this history as well as the contemporary practice of freedom.

This course examines how filmmakers in Africa, The Americas, and Europe have dealt with subjects such as slavery, colonialism, racism and postcolonial issues such as illegal immigration or structural adjustment. The course interpolates texts from HIS391Y1 into these films in order to bring new perspectives to questions of freedom in different media, times, and places.

N.B. This course supplements HIS391Y1.

Explores implications for history and its methods of the shift from print to digital sources. Imparts introductory skills in the manipulation digital media, such as the use of maps, GIS and big data.

Superseding 19th century European missionary and explorers' accounts of Africa; media in the 20th and 21st centuries have unequivocally played a key role in shaping the globe's views of Africa and Africans. In 2005, BBC Focus on Africa put out an impressive list of more than 100 "African Icons". Since then, a number of websites have come up with various lists of African icons. Who are the African icons and what makes them icons? How have the media contributed in making them icons?

This course examines the Second World War in the Asia Pacific region and highlights: (1) how imperialism and colonialism of both the Euro-American and Japanese varieties were central to the War's outbreak, conduct, and “resolution”; (2) various “local” rather than simply national experiences and memories of the War, including those of marginalized groups in Japan and its colonies, “comfort women,” victims of war atrocities, Asian North Americans, African Americans, and Pacific Islanders.

This course provides an opportunity for exceptional third-year students to undertake an independent research project on a topic for which there is not a suitable course offering. Students must find an appropriate supervisor from the Department, submit a proposal, and receive approval for the project. Students must be enrolled in either a History Specialist or Major program; have taken at least 3.0 HIS credits with a B+ average; and have approval of an instructor willing to supervise the project. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course provides an opportunity for exceptional third-year students to undertake an independent research project on a topic for which there is not a suitable course offering. Students must find an appropriate supervisor from the Department, submit a proposal, and receive approval for the project. Students must be enrolled in either a History Specialist or Major program; have taken at least 3.0 HIS credits with a B+ average; and have approval of an instructor willing to supervise the project. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course examines the rise of big business in America and its relationship to social and economic changes in United States in the so-called Progressive Era (roughly 1880-1920). We will focus on several themes: the evolution and characteristics of big business; rise of organized labor; evolution of business-government relations; social and economic reform movements; and the changing status of immigrants, African Americans, and women (both white and African-American). In short, we will be studying a pivotal moment in the transformation of modern American society.

This course will explore human rights theory and practice from a Latin American perspective.  There will be a focus on the local derivation, development and impact of the movement for human rights in Latin America.  The course will focus on the history of organized protest against violence in the twentieth century.

An instructor-supervised group project in an off-campus setting. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities…. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

An instructor-supervised group project in an off-campus setting. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities…. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities…. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course examines the French and American Wars (1945-75) in Vietnam and its effects on the population of Vietnam and Southeast Asia. It begins with a brief overview of pre-colonial Vietnamese history and moves into a study of the impact and legacies of colonial rule and centres on the impact of the Wars on the cultures, economies, and societies of Southeast Asia.

The course reviews the history of the Cold War in light of formerly-secret archival documents. Examples include the US White House Tapes and Venona decrypts; massive declassification of records in the ex-Soviet bloc; and parallel developments in China, Cuba, and other Communist states. Archival discoveries have cast new light, not just on individual episodes (e.g., Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979) but on the origins, strategies, and driving forces of this 45-year conflict. The focus will be mainly on the superpowers and their alliance systems.

This course will explore the multi-faceted ways in which Canada was shaped by and was an active participant in global decolonization following the Second World War. An emphasis will be placed on the larger global context in which post-war Canadian history unfolded. Topics will include Indigenous politics, changing migration patterns, Quebec nationalism, diasporic politics, anti-colonial thought and oppositional social movements.

The course focuses on aspects of Jewish-Christian relations ca.300-1600, such as royal and ecclesiastical Jewish policies; religious polemics; intellectual collaboration; social and economic interaction; anti-Judaism and religious violence. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

Selected topics in U.S. history. Topics in any given year depend on the instructor. Please see History website for details.

A course on Canadian external relations since 1945. Topics include Canada and the Cold War, the Korean War, the Suez crisis and the war in Vietnam, membership in international organizations, and bilateral relations with other countries. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

An in-depth examination of issues in gender history. Content in any given year depends on instructor. See History website for more details.

Historiographical controversies and the latest empirical findings concerning social conflict and political mobilization under Bismarck and Wilhelm II. Problems raised by competing schools of interpretation include definitions of the authoritarian state, bourgeois hegemony, localism and regionalism, radical nationalism, workers 'culture, and gender relations. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

This advanced undergraduate seminar will explore themes in environmental history. Thematic focus will vary from year to year, and may include extinction, nuclear power in environmental history, empire and environment, toxicity and contamination, climate change, the Columbian exchange, the Anthropocene, agriculture, animals, and/or other themes. Time period and geographical focus will also vary in keeping with the thematic focus of this course.

This fourth-year seminar immerses students into the rich world of mineral water cures. It explores the relationship between the medical sciences and society, and the connections between prescriptive and normalizing medical rituals and sites of pilgrimage, capitalism, and sociability. The seminar will also focus on shifting medical meanings, on gender dynamics at these sites, and on uses and practices surrounding hot water springs, as well as varied experiences of spa towns as sites of leisure and tourism. The course is transnational and features case studies in Mexico, Madagascar, Britain, Germany, Tunisia, Japan, France, Austria, Hungary, Greece, and Canada.

This seminar course will study a handful of great trials in close detail. Using materials from the modern period in Europe and North America, we will look at the clash of ideas represented in these high-profile cases, the historical setting in which they were embedded, the human drama, legal and sometimes constitutional issues, and their impact both on their societies and our own.

This course explores the long process of the ‘unfinished revolution’ of abolition in the Atlantic World from the 18th-late 19th century Atlantic World. It will take a comparative and transnational approach, with materials that include primary printed sources, classic texts, current historiography, literature, explorations of the history of emancipation through digital and visual culture. We will examine scholarship and historical debates about abolition in the Caribbean, North and South America, West Europe and Africa.

Explores the life conditions of individuals on the lower echelons of medieval society (the poor, servants and apprentices, the exiled, prisoners, slaves, foreigners and lepers). In parallel, we will discuss the various conceptions of poverty that prevailed in the Middle Ages. These objectives will allow us to glimpse the European Middle Ages from an unusual angle as well as reflect on important socio-economic and religious changes.

Investigates the modern concept of the nation and its connections to the idea of collective memory in twentieth-century Europe. Through reading and discussing seminal works on nationalism and national memory, we will discuss the connections between modern notions of nation and practices of remembering.

In 1771, with the translation of the Zend-Avesta by the French Scholar Anquetil-Duperron, a new era opened in German national culture. From the philosophy of Johann Gottfried von Herder to the novels of Thomas Mann, this course analyzes the ways in which German writers defined the substance and place of national culture in their writings about India, Central Asia and the East.

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.

Environmental historians study the reciprocal relationship between humans and nature over time. This course examines key themes in the history of Canada's environment. Possible topics include food, energy, pollution, cities, parks, and environmental movements. Specific themes vary by year, depending on the focus of the instructor. Strong emphasis is place on reading and research.

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.

The course examines Russia’s wars with Napoleon and Hitler, both as military campaigns and as important nation-building events, largely through memoir literature.

Exploration of oral history interview research methods, their contributions to the History field, and practical training in the skills and art of doing oral history. This is a research workshop course, oriented to developing student research projects, and each student will do oral history research. Topics include: memory, interviewing, ethics, interpreting oral testimonies and issues in community-engaged research.

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.

Introduces students to current issues in the social history of medicine and some of the major developments in the modern history of the discipline. The format is class discussion based on themes covered in the course textbook, covering such topics as the history of the doctor-patient relationship, changes in physicians' social status, changing attitudes toward the body, and the evolution of various medical and surgical specialties including obstetrics and gynecology. (Joint undergraduate-graduate).

This seminar explores the social function and meaning of violence in medieval society, and the development of rituals and institutions to control violence. Among the topics treated: Germanic blood feud, aristocratic violence and chivalry, criminal justice systems, violence against minorities, and violence and gender. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

This course surveys the major developments and figures of Italian history by focusing on key primary texts (in translation) with a particular view to urban and legal history which will form the backdrop to understanding artistic and literary achievements in context.

The Golden Legend or Readings on the Saints, compiled by Jacobus de Voragine C. 1260, serves as the basis for a seminar on the relation of history and legend as understood in the High Middle Ages. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

The first goal of this seminar is to help students read the sources with a more critical eye, especially narrative sources (Lives of Saints) and normative sources (rules and customaries). The second goal is to study the evolution of the monastic ideal from its origin to the 12th century. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

This course explores the ways in which twentieth century Canada was shaped by its complex relationship to empire. Course readings place Canadian historiography into dialogue with new theoretical and methodological approaches drawn from postcolonial studies, new imperial history, feminist and critical race theory. Topics include the meaning of empire in everyday life, migration, the impact of global decolonization, and Indigenous politics.

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.

To explore the history of Polish Jews from the Partitions of Poland to the present time, concentrating on the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries: situation of Polish Jews in Galicia; Congress Kingdom of Poland; Prussian-occupied Poland before 1914; during World War II; and post-war Poland. Focus on an analysis of primary sources. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

The origin of Rus, international trade, the impact of nomadic peoples, the introduction of Christianity, the economic system an the problem of feudalism, the political structure and the dilemma of princely succession; literature and architecture; the displacement of political power centres and depopulation, the preservation of the Kievan heritage. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

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.

This research seminar explores topics and issues of violence in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, beginning with forced collectivization and ending with the Great Terror. The seminar focuses on new archivally-based research and aims to contextualize Stalinist terror within larger theories of political and social violence.

Examines historiographical controversies and their public reception. Topics include the forged Hitler diaries, the David Irving trial, German responsibility for 1914, Daniel Goldhagen’s “eliminationist” thesis, Auschwitz as an “Asiatic deed,” Wehrmacht complicity in the Holocaust and retrospective films about East Germany.

Focusing on the institution of the inquisition, this seminar explores the response of ecclesiastical and secular authorities to religious heterodoxy. Among the groups prosecuted by the inquisition discussed: Cathar heretics in France, crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims in Spain, and witches in Italy.

This course examines ways in which the Russian Empire and Soviet Union expanded their territories, the ways they controlled those colonies, and the ways in which they dealt with rising nationalism both at home and abroad.

Examines the use of maps through the ages to depict spatial relationships and political, social, or cultural authority. Explores the visual display of quantitative information, the evolution of historical atlases, and cartographic crime. Such topics as Lebensraum and gerrymandering illustrate how maps can distort historical processes and communal relationships.

This course is an advanced research seminar in Soviet history. It will explore the Jewish experience in the Soviet Union, with a focus on the Holocaust. The seminar will begin with an examination of the history of Jews in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in the years leading up to the Second World War. Then the course will pivot directly to the topic of the Holocaust on Soviet soil. How did the Holocaust in the “east” differ from the Holocaust in the “west”? How did the conduct of war condition genocide in the Soviet Union? How did Soviet Jews and non-Jews respond to the German genocide? What was the response of Stalin and the Soviet government to the Holocaust? How is the Holocaust remembered by the states and people of the former Soviet Union.

Developments in popular/lay/local religion as expressed in a variety of cultural, political, and social forms from 1400-1600; the relation of these forms to both Catholic and Protestant institutional churches. Impact of Renaissance humanism on notions of kinship, order, community, perfection.

Selected topics on a specific period or theme in Jewish history. Topic in any given year will depend on the instructor. Please see History website for details.

What is a nation? Are nations ancient or modern, unchanging or malleable? Do nations create states, or does the state create the nation? This course seeks to answer these questions through an examination of nationalism, primarily in Europe, from the 1700s through the present.

The course examines the relationship between gender and the experience of slavery and emancipating several Atlantic world societies from the 17th-19th centuries. Areas to be covered are the Caribbean, Brazil, the U.S. South, West and South Africa and Western Europe.

The role of the intelligentsia in East European national revivals; the ethnographic and literary revival; the language question; the press and cultural organizations; education; religion; and political movements. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

The fall of the Versailles system, German and Soviet diplomatic and military activities and their occupational policies in East Central Europe during World War II, economic exploitation, collaboration, resistance, and genocide in the discussed region, its liberation and sovietization in 1944-1945. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

This course provides a unique opportunity to grapple with the challenges of public history, while exploring new methods and technologies in the digital humanities. Each year, we partner with one or more community groups to create historical websites which endure well beyond the school year. Topics vary annually.

Explores the central themes in the history of the French Revolution: the causes of the Revolution; the contested varied efforts to build a new regime; the invention of a novel republican political culture; counterrevolution and Terror; the Haitian Revolution; Napoleon and the Empire; the Revolution as a global phenomenon; the Restoration; the Revolution's legacy today.

The history of Soviet cinema and the importance of film as a historical source. Documentary and fiction film; editing, narration, and sound; film distribution and exhibition; the Soviet school of montage and socialist realism; nationality and gender; the Soviet musical comedy of the Stalin era; resistance and dissidence.

Soviet film as a historical source and the institutional and ideological history of Soviet film production, distribution, and exhibition. Fiction and documentary film during World War II; the cinema of the Cold War and the Thaw; Soviet new realism and the return of the village; avant-garde cinema of the 1960s-80s; memory and historical revision in late Soviet film. Screenings include never-before-seen archival footage, as well as films and film clips subtitled by the instructor.

The 20th century has been an age of experiments for Poland. Universal, general problems of democracy, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, communism, socialism, free market and centrally planned economies, are examined, as are the ongoing adjustments made by the Polish people. (Joint undergraduate-graduate)

Cloth was a major commodity in the early modern world. Positioning early America within a global context and employing a material culture framework, textiles and clothing provide the lens through which to view the social, cultural, economic and industrial development of the United States from pre-European contact until the 1860s.