Recently Added History Courses - now open for registration

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.