Recently Added History Courses - now open for registration

 This course surveys the history of American mass media in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to covering the rise of various communications technologies and genres within a specific national context, it also interrogates the relationship between media, culture, identity, and power. Topics discussed in this course include: dime novels and mass journalism, radio, the Hollywood Studio System, comics,  media globalization, and theories of cultural production and reception.

 This course surveys some major themes and events in the history of Indian subcontinent since the sixteenth century. Thematically, it explores the making of modern Indian subcontinent in the course of interaction with colonial modernity and the birth of organized nationalist movement. Chronologically, it surveys the history of Indian subcontinent from the inception of colonial rule in the late eighteenth century to the establishment of independent nation states of India and Pakistan in the middle of the twentieth century.

The course is necessarily selective as to the subject, period and region, but hopes to provide a good understanding of modern South Asian history as basis for more advanced study, and as a training in historical methods. Students will be asked to consider a range of historical controversies, demonstrating the perpetual disagreements of historians, but also the need to understand historical techniques and to develop skills of historical judgments.

The reading is illustrative but not exhaustive. It is not a list of set readings. The list of introductory works gives students a choice of books to study (and possibly buy) so as to obtain an overview and to follow lectures and contribute to class discussions. The reading assignments are an initial guide to help in the search for materials related to the topics within the course which individuals will study in detail- such research develops some of the important historical skills. Additional advice will be given in discussion classes and lectures.

The partition of India in 1947 not only led to the birth of two independent republics of India and Pakistan but also caused exodus of millions of people across the new borders of nation sates. Rival nationalist movements, informed by deep religious sensitivities drawing upon Muslim and Hindu traditions of the subcontinent, clashed with each other at the time of British imperial retreat from South Asia in 1947. As colonial political elites drew the boundaries of new nations states in the summer of 1947 in a rather hasty manner, riots flared in different corners of the subcontinent and ethnic cleansing began in full swing rendering millions homeless. People left their homes and possessions and crossed the border in order to evade being trapped in wrong nations. This overwhelming tragic saga of religious conflicts, nationalist mobilizations and plight of refugees, came to constitute a critical aspect of politics and social life in independent India and   informed popular culture in various ways.

This course explores the representation of religious conflicts, mass exodus and refugee lives in India in films. While official narratives of the Partition provide politically charged stories of nationalism, films locate stories within the context of families and provide a human dimension to the political process. Questions we will investigate include: how did religious group identities evolve in South Asia historically? Was the partition conflict simply about religion? In what ways did movies locate the implication of partition within the framework of family tragedy? In what ways did gender play a central role in the Partition process? How did the micro details of family tragedies reflect the story of nation formation from the perspective of women and refugees? How did movies create ideas of popular histories of religious conflict, partition and the struggle for survival from margins?  

Who owns Classical Antiquity? Academics, dilettante antiquarians or “the public”? Do monuments and ideas belong to States or Humanity as a whole? Why have Classics been such an important aspect of modern academia and what explains their decline today? Why has the classical past fascinated so many people, been reinterpreted so many times and given rise to so many public uses and, one is tempted to say, abuses (ex. the Nazis and the Olympic Games)? What is the connection between archaeology, colonialism, nationalism? Why do people are ready to travel far away, engage in a costly voyage and spend so much time under the burning sun just to see ruins?

This course will address all these issues. It will examine the evolution of the interest in and study of Classical Antiquity from the 18th c. to nowadays through the simultaneous and intertwined processes of the progressive professionalization of history and archaeology as academic disciplines, the emergence of nationalism and the nation-states, the transformation of cultural practices from the Grand Tour to the modern museum and mass tourism.

The dominant figure in India’s nationalist movement for nearly thirty years, M. K. Gandhi has also been one of the twentieth century’s most influential peace activists and thinkers. He has been the source of inspiration for peace and civil rights movements throughout the twentieth century. This course charts Gandhi’s career against the background of events in London, South Africa and India. It examines the evolution and practical application of his ideas and techniques of non-violent resistance, and his attitudes toward the economy, society and state. Gandhi’s influence on Indian politics and society is critically assessed and his reputation as the ‘apostle of non-violent revolution’ examined in the light of developments since his death in 1948. Though helpful, a prior knowledge of Indian history is not required for this course.

This course explores the history of political activism in Canada in the twentieth century. Students will interrogate how notions of the "political" evolved after 1900 at the local, regional and national level. Case studies include organized party politics, nationalism, environmentalism, First Nations' movements, women's rights and civil rights.

This course looks at the role of corporations in European expansion in the Atlantic and their relationships to developing states and empires.  Through such topics as slavery, sovereignty and law, the course will explore how early modern large-scale corporations such as commercial and colonizing companies helped to shape the modern world.  Its approach is comparative, drawing on Iberian, French, British, and Dutch experiences.  Throughout the course, we’ll consider both the opportunities and limits of the Atlantic framework for studying the interplay between empire building and state building.  Students will write a major primary-source based research paper and be responsible for leading weekly discussions of readings in class.

This course presents an historical perspective on being young and growing-up in the United States during the twentieth century.  It traces the formation of various American youth sub-cultures, interrogates the changing social and cultural meanings of adolescence, and explores the historical factors that shaped individual and group experiences of being a teenager.  The course also stresses the importance of consumer practices to youth sub-cultures and considers how gender, race, class, and sexuality influenced articulations and representations of youth culture in America.

This reading and writing seminar will examine the European displaced persons crisis in the twentieth century. Topics will include the pogroms in Eastern Europe, the conundrum of statelessness, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the refugee crisis at the end of the Second World War, the politicization of “the refugee” during the Cold War, and the establishment of norms, laws and institutions to manage these problems.

Readings and research on the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath.  Emphasis will be on the political and intellectual history of religious, dynastic and constitutional conflicts in the British kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland.  We will make extensive use of online databases and research tools for British history.

 This course will draw upon primary and secondary sources to study interactions between indigenous peoples of Canada and the emergent Canadian state during the long century between the Royal Proclamation and the Northwest Rebellion. We will explore the meaning of tradition and progress as cultural and political frameworks for those interactions. The course considers the history of settler colonialism in Canada from the top down and from the bottom up, with particular attention to practical experiences and experiments in governance. Students will write a substantial research paper based on primary sources.