Why does Southern Asia’s pre-colonial history matter? Using materials that illustrate the connected worlds of Central Asia, South Asia and the Indian Ocean rim, we will query conventional histories of Asia in the time of European expansion.
Same as GASB53H3
0.5 pre-1800 credit
Africa & Asia Area

Africa from the 1960s to the present. After independence, Africans experienced great optimism and then the disappointments of unmet expectations, development crises, conflict and AIDS. Yet the continent’s strength is its youth. Topics include African socialism and capitalism; structural adjustment and resource economies; dictatorship and democratization; migration and urbanization; social movements.
Same as AFSB54H3

Asia and Africa Area

A survey of South Asian history. The course explores diverse and exciting elements of this long history, such as politics, religion, trade, literature, and the arts, keeping in mind South Asia's global and diasporic connections.
Africa and Asia Area
Same as GASB57H3

This course provides an overview of the historical changes and continuities of the major cultural, economic, political, and social institutions and practices in modern Chinese history.
Same as GASB58H3
Africa and Asia Area

This is a gateway course to the study of the history of science, technology, and medicine, examining the development of modern science and technology in service of and as a response to mercantile and colonial empires. Students will read historical scholarship and also get a basic introduction to the methods, big ideas, and sources for the history of science, technology and medicine. Such scientific and technological advances discussed will include geography and cartography; botany and agricultural science; race science and anthropology; tropical medicine and disease control; transportation and communication technologies.

The development of Europe from the Late Roman period to the eleventh-century separation of the Roman and Byzantine Churches. The course includes the foundation and spread of Christianity, the settlement of "barbarians" and Vikings, the establishment of Frankish kingship, the Empire of Charlemagne, and feudalism and manorialism.
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Medieval Area

An introduction to the social, political, religious and economic foundations of the Western world, including Church and State relations, the Crusades, pilgrimage, monasticism, universities and culture, rural exploitation, town development and trade, heresy, plague and war. Particular attention will be devoted to problems which continue to disrupt the modern world.
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Medieval Area

An exploration of the interplay of culture, religion, politics and commerce in the Mediterranean region from 1500 to 1800. Through travel narratives, autobiographical texts, and visual materials we will trace how men and women on the Mediterranean's European, Asian, and African shores experienced their changing world.
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Transnational Area.

This course explores the history of early and medieval Islamic societies, from the rise of Islam in the seventh century up to the Mongol invasions (c. 1300). The course will trace the trajectory of the major Islamic dynasties (i.e.: Umayyads, Abbasids, Seljuks, Fatimids, and Ayyubids) and also explore the cultural and literary developments in these societies. Geographically, the course spans North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

Pre-1800 course

Medieval Area

This course explores the political and cultural history of early modern and modern Muslim societies including the Mongols, Timurids, Mamluks, and the Gunpowder empires (Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals). It concludes with the transformations in the Middle East in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: European colonialism, modernization, and the rise of the nation-states.

Pre-1800 course
Medieval Area

For those who reside east of it, the Middle East is generally known as West Asia. By reframing the Middle East as West Asia, this course will explore the region’s modern social, cultural, and intellectual history as an outcome of vibrant exchange with non-European world regions like Asia. It will foreground how travel and the movement fundamentally shape modern ideas. Core themes of the course such as colonialism and decolonization, Arab nationalism, religion and identity, and feminist thought will be explored using primary sources (in translation). Knowledge of Arabic is not required.

Same as GASB65H3

Africa and Asia Area

This course explores the social circulation of Asian-identified foods and beverages using research from geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians to understand their changing roles in ethnic entrepreneur-dominated cityscapes of London, Toronto, Singapore, Hong Kong, and New York. Foods under study include biryani, curry, coffee, dumplings, hoppers, roti, and tea.
Same as GASB74H3

Africa and Asia Area

Europe from the French Revolution to the First World War. Major topics include revolution, industrialization, nationalism, imperialism, science, technology, art and literature.
European Area

Europe from the First World War to the present day. War, political extremism, economic crisis, scientific and technological change, cultural modernism, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and the European Union are among the topics covered.
European Area

The course is an introduction to some of the most radical European ideas from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. We will study ideas that challenged the existing political order and aimed to overturn the social status quo, ideas that undermined centuries of religious belief and ideas that posed new visions of what it meant to be human. This will include the study of classic texts written by well-known intellectual figures, as well as the study of lesser-known writers and people who challenged the received wisdom of the day.
European Area

An examination of the nature and uses of evidence in historical and related studies.
Historians use a wide variety of sources as evidence for making meaningful statements about the past. This course explores what is meant by history and how historians evaluate sources and test their reliability as historical evidence.

This is an intensive reading course that explores the Marxist historical tradition in critical perspective. It builds upon HISA09H3, and aims to help students acquire a theoretical and practical appreciation of the contributions, limitations, and ambiguities of Marxian approaches to history. Readings include classical philosophers and social critics, contemporary historians, and critics of Marxism.

An examination of the places of animals in global history. The course examines on-going interactions between humans and animals through hunting, zoos, breeding, and pets and the historical way the divide between humans and animals has been measured. Through animals, people have often thought about what it means to be human. 
Same as (IEEC03H3)
Transnational Area

This class seeks to recover a celebratory side of human experience that revolves around alcohol and stimulating beverages. Although most societies have valued psychoactive beverages, there has also been considerable ambivalence about the social consequences of excessive drinking. Students will examine drinking cultures through comparative historical study and ethnographic observation.

Transnational Area

This course puts urban food systems in world historical perspective using case studies from around the world and throughout time. Topics include provisioning, food preparation and sale, and cultures of consumption in courts, restaurants, street vendors, and domestic settings. Students will practice historical and geographical methodologies to map and interpret foodways.

Same as FSTC05H3

Transnational Area

In the oft- titled “Information age” how has historical practice changed? How will researchers analyze the current moment, which produces ever more, and ever-more fragile information? This third-year seminar explores the foundations of digital history by understanding the major shifts in historiography and historical research that have occurred through computing. Students taking this class will be prepared to take HISD18 and further extend their knowledge of digital methodologies.

This course prepares students to work in the field of digital history. We focus on the development of concrete skills in spatial and visual analysis; web technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Components; and multi-media authoring. Each year, we choose a different thematic focus and use techniques of digital history to explore it. Students completing this class will acquire skills that qualify them to participate in ongoing Digital History and Digital Humanities projects run by department faculty, as well as to initiate their own research projects.

An examination of the depiction of empires and the colonial and postcolonial experience on film. This course also introduces students to the development of national cinemas in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. The relationship between academic history and history as imagined by filmmakers is a key theme.
Transnational Area

This course examines early modern globalization through that cosmopolitan actor, the pirate. Beginning in the Caribbean, we will explore networks of capitalism, migration, empire, and nascent nationalism. By studying global phenomena through marginalized participants—pirates, maroons, rebels, and criminals—we seek alternate narratives on the modern world’s origins.

This course focuses on the History of ancient Egypt, with a focus on the Hellenistic to early Arab periods (4th c. BCE to 7th c. CE). Lectures will emphasize the key role played by Egypt’s diverse environments in the shaping of its socio-cultural and economic features as well as in the policies adopted by ruling authorities. Elements of continuity and change will be emphasized and a variety of primary sources and sites will be discussed. Special attention will also be dedicated to the role played by imperialism, Orientalism, and modern identity politics in the emergence and trajectory of the fields of Graeco-Roman Egyptian history, archaeology, and papyrology.

Same as (IEEC52H3), CLAC05H3
0.5 pre-1800 credit
Ancient World Area

A critical examination of multiculturalism and cultural identities in the Greek and Roman worlds. Special attention will be dedicated to the evidences through which these issues are documented and to their fundamental influence on the formation and evolution of ancient Mediterranean and West Asian societies and cultures.
Same as CLAC24H3
0.5 pre-1800 credit
Ancient World Area

This course will explore the representations and realities of Indigeneity in the ancient Mediterranean world, as well as the entanglements between modern settler colonialism, historiography, and reception of the 'Classical' past. Throughout the term, we will be drawn to (un)learn, think, write, and talk about a series of topics, each of which pertains in different ways to a set of overarching questions: What can Classicists learn from ancient and modern indigenous ways of knowing? What does it mean to be a Classicist in Tkaronto, on the land many Indigenous Peoples call Turtle Island? What does it mean to be a Classicist in Toronto, Ontario, Canada? What does it mean to be a Classicist in a settler colony? How did the Classics inform settler colonialism? How does modern settler colonialism inform our reconstruction of ancient indigeneities? How does our relationship to the land we come from and are currently on play a role in the way we think about the ancient Mediterranean world? Why is that so? How did societies of the ancient Mediterranean conceive of indigeneity? How did those relationships manifest themselves at a local, communal, and State levels?

Same as CLAC26H3
Ancient World Area

An examination of the ideals of the Enlightenment against the background of social and political change in eighteenth-century Europe.
This course looks at Enlightenment thought and the ways in which European monarchs like Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great adapted it to serve their goals of state building.
0.50 pre-1800 credit
European Area

This course examines the political, cultural and social history of fascism, from historical regimes and movements to contemporary expressions of the far right, alt-right and populist nationalism. We will explore topics including intellectual origins, the mobilization of culture, the totalitarian state, political violence, and global networks.

This course examines the impact of Second World War on the political, social, and cultural fabric of European societies. Beyond the military and political history of the war, it will engage topics including, but not limited to, geopolitical and ideological contexts; occupation, collaboration and resistance; the lives of combatants and civilians in total war; the Holocaust and the radicalisation of violence; and postwar memory.
European Area