How – and why – do societies remember? How do institutions like museums and archives work, and how do they connect to their political, social, and cultural environments? What is the relationship between memory, knowledge and power? This course examines the ways in which groups conserve, commemorate, and contest memories, as well as the roles played by institutions and professional practices, political and social factors, and community stakeholders in their development. Students will explore key methodological and conceptual frameworks, meet practitioners in the field, and develop original research in collaboration with community partners.

What do ‘things’ tell us about the society that made them? This is a fundamental question for historians, anthropologists, and anyone studying social or cultural issues. By interpreting the material evidence produced – from monuments and buildings to everyday items or images – we find clues about how a society thinks, works, lives, and presents itself. This course will teach you how to recognise and interpret the ‘stuff’ that societies have made as a way of understanding those societies. It will introduce you to a range of examples of material evidence produced in different time periods and how this is studied by different disciplines. You will interact with ‘things’ and develop your critical, analytical, and communication skills.

This course prepares students to actively use a wide variety of research methods in the Humanities. Students will develop hands-on skills in key methods and interpretive perspectives, cultivating skills and knowledge applicable to their future research and professional lives. These will include textual, visual, and material analysis; digital humanities methods; community-engaged research; feminist research methods; archival research; and oral interviewing methods. The course also specifically prepares students to contribute to faculty-led research projects.

This course offers students the opportunity to collaborate in ongoing faculty research in Historical and Cultural Studies. Working alongside faculty mentors, students will engage hands-on with key methods and interpretive perspectives, and contribute directly to project outcomes. In the process, they will cultivate skills and knowledge applicable to their future research and professional lives.

In this experiential learning course, students will have opportunities to apply their HCS program-specific knowledge and skills, develop learning, technology and/or transferable competencies, and serve the GTA community. This experience will allow students to meaningfully contribute to and support projects and activities that address community needs by completing a placement at a community organization.

The course provides an introduction to Canada’s intellectual property (IP) systems, copyright, patent, trademark and confidential information. Topics include use, re-use and creation of IP, the impact of the digital environment, the national implication of international agreements and treaties and information policy development.

The course investigates licit and illicit drugs over time and place to reveal shifts in how they have been used, understood, controlled, and represented. Zooming in and out on specific drugs in specific historical contexts, we will look at how they have played a role in religious ceremonies, imperial struggles, criminal enterprises, medical treatments, cultural movements, and attempts at consciousness expansion.

Transnational Area

We live in a world that has been profoundly altered by technology. Our homes, our work, our relationships, even our bodies all give evidence of our complex historical and cultural relationship with the tools we use. In this course, we examine how technology makes our world by studying pivotal moments in which technology has deeply transformed economic, social, and cultural relationships. We end by considering some of the ways in which contemporary technology is changing how we think and act. Students will explore theories of technological change and apply them to historical and cultural analysis, including an examination of their own experience. We pay particular attention to the ways that information technology both enable and constrain our work as investigators of historical and cultural phenomena, and we make extensive use of tools from the digital humanities to enhance our understanding and abilities.

Transnational 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.

Africa and Asia Area

An introduction to history that focuses on a particular theme in world history, which will change from year to year. Themes may include migration; empires; cultural encounters; history and film; global cities.

An introduction to history that focuses on a particular theme in world history, which will change from year to year. Themes may include migration; empires; cultural encounters; history and film; global cities.

This course introduces Global Asia Studies through studying historical and political perspectives on Asia. Students will learn how to critically analyze major historical texts and events to better understand important cultural, political, and social phenomena involving Asia and the world. They will engage in intensive reading and writing for humanities.
Same as GASA01H3

Africa and Asia Area

An introduction to the main features of the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean world from the development of agriculture to the spread of Islam. Long term socio-economic and cultural continuities and ruptures will be underlined, while a certain attention will be dedicated to evidences and disciplinary issues.
Same as CLAA04H3
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Ancient World Area

This course explores the rise of capitalism – understood not simply as an economic system but as a political and cultural one as well – from roughly the 14th century to the present day. It aims to acquaint students with many of the more important socio-economic changes of the past seven hundred years and informing the way they think about some of the problems of the present time: globalization, growing disparities of wealth and poverty, and the continuing exploitation of the planet’s natural resources.

Transnational Area

The British Empire at one time controlled a quarter of the world's population. This course surveys the nature and scope of British imperialism from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, through its interactions with people and histories of Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the British Isles.
Transnational Area

Practical training in critical writing and research in History. Through lectures, discussion and workshops, students will learn writing skills (including essay organization, argumentation, documentation and bibliographic style), an introduction to methodologies in history and basic source finding techniques.

This course provides a general introduction to digital methods in History through the study of the rise of information as a concept and a technology. Topics include the history of information theory, the rise of digital media, and, especially, the implications of digital media, text processing, and artificial intelligence for historical knowledge. Using simple tools, students learn to encode texts as data structures and transform those structures programmatically.

A course to introduce students of history and classical studies to the world of late antiquity, the period that bridged classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. This course studies the period for its own merit as a time when political structures of the Medieval period were laid down and the major religions of the Mediterranean (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism) took their recognizable forms.

Same as CLAB09H3

Ancient World Area

A survey of the history and culture of the Greek world from the Minoan period to the Roman conquest of Egypt (ca 1500-30 BC). Special attention will be dedicated to the nature, variety and limits of the available evidences, to socio-cultural interactions as well as to historical processes of continuities and ruptures.
Same as CLAB05H3
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Ancient World Area

A survey of the history and culture of the ancient Roman world, from the Etruscan period to the Justinian dynasty (ca 800 BC-600 AD). Special attention will be dedicated to the nature, variety and limits of the available evidences, to socio-cultural interactions as well as to historical processes of continuities and ruptures.
Same as CLAB06H3
0.5 pre-1800 credit
Ancient World Area

The representation of the classical world and historical events in film. How the Greek and Roman world is reconstructed by filmmakers, their use of spectacle, costume and furnishings, and the influence of archaeology on their portrayals. Films will be studied critically for historical accuracy and faithfulness to classical sources.
Same as CLAB20H3

Ancient World Area

This introductory survey course connects the rich histories of Black radical women’s acts, deeds, and words in Canada. It traces the lives and political thought of Black women and gender-non-conforming people who refused and fled enslavement, took part in individual and collective struggles against segregated labour, education, and immigration practices; providing a historical context for the emergence of the contemporary queer-led #BlackLivesMatter movement. Students will be introduced, through histories of activism, resistance, and refusal, to multiple concepts and currents in Black feminist studies. This includes, for example, theories of power, race, and gender, transnational/diasporic Black feminisms, Black-Indigenous solidarities, abolition and decolonization. Students will participate in experiential learning and engage an interdisciplinary array of key texts and readings including primary and secondary sources, oral histories, and online archives.

Same as WSTB22H3
Canadian Area

A survey of American history from contact between Indians and Europeans up through the Civil War. Topics include the emergence of colonial societies; the rise and destruction of racial slavery; revolution and republic-making; economic and social change in the new nation; western conquest; and the republic's collapse into internal war.
United States and Latin America Area

This course offers a survey of U.S. history from the post-Civil War period through the late 20th century, examining key episodes and issues such as settlement of the American West, industrialization, urbanization, immigration, popular culture, social movements, race relations, and foreign policy.
United States and Latin America Area

The history of northern North America from the first contacts between Europeans and Aboriginal peoples to the late 19th century. Topics include the impact of early exploration and cultural encounters, empires, trans-Atlantic migrations, colonization and revolutions on the development of northern North America.
Canadian Area

Students will be introduced to historical processes central to the history of Canada's diverse peoples and the history of the modern age more generally, including the industrial revolution, women's entry in social and political "publics," protest movements, sexuality, and migration in the context of international links and connections.

Canadian Area

Slavery was the dominant condition for Black women, men, and children in Canada from 1629 to 1834. Both the French and British colonial regimes enacted laws and ordinances that legalized slavery and gave enslavers property rights in and over Black people. This course probes the experience of enslaved Black people in New France, the five older colonies of Canada (Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario), with attention also paid to Newfoundland and the Ohio and Illinois valleys. Links will be drawn between slavery in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean.

0.50 pre-1800 credit

Canadian Area

How have relationships between humans and animals depended on and shaped the development of science? This course examines precisely how these relationships have been mediated through various forms of science – veterinary science, laboratory and biological sciences, medical sciences, agricultural sciences, and zoology, among others – and how these scientific modes interact with broader socio-cultural understandings of animal life across the globe.

Transnational Area

An introduction to the history of Sub-Saharan Africa, from the era of the slave trade to the colonial conquests. Throughout, the capacity of Africans to overcome major problems will be stressed. Themes include slavery and the slave trade; pre-colonial states and societies; economic and labour systems; and religious change.
Africa and Asia Area

Same as AFSB50H3

Modern Sub-Saharan Africa, from the colonial conquests to the end of the colonial era. The emphasis is on both structure and agency in a hostile world. Themes include conquest and resistance; colonial economies; peasants and labour; gender and ethnicity; religious and political movements; development and underdevelopment; Pan-Africanism, nationalism and independence.

Same as AFSB51H3

Africa and Asia Area