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 explores the cultural and social history of everyday life as it affected Asian Canadians with focus on Chinese, Filipinos and South Asians from the 1960s to present. It introduces oral history and documentary film as key research methods for understanding changing cultural practices and identities within families, in food, and in social settings within and beyond ethnic communities.

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 will explore the background, experience, and legacy of protest movements in Canada in the post-1945 era. The course will draw on the latest historical literature and will situate Canadian social movements in the broad transnational context in which they unfolded. Topics will include anti-racist movements, feminism, nationalism, Indigenous politics, environmentalism, labour, and the New Right and the New Left.

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

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 consider nonhuman animals as subjects and actors alongside humans? This course revisits episodes, events, and historical processes with nonhuman animals in mind to explore the interpretive and analytic possibilities that emerge when other animals are considered as full participants in the historical record. Thematic focus is located in the Atlantic world since the early modern period.

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

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. What kinds of techniques did Vietnamese and Western political actors, scholars, and writers, employ to narrate the Vietnamese past(s) and how do these visions tell us about the crafter of these narratives? What counts as “history” and who gets/got to decide? Whose experiences were relevant in the different epistemological approaches?

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

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.

Selected topics on a specific period, aspect or themes in African history. Topics in any given year depend on the instructor.

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 criminalization of protest is generally understood in terms of policing, and the use of legal measures, including states of exception, to quell dissent. Criminalization can also refer to the stigmatization of individuals, groups, and communities by the state, and the marginalization of working class or racialized groups. This course invites students to study lived experiences of criminalization in Latin American history.

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.

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

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.