History

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

An interdisciplinary introduction to the history and development of Africa with Africa's place in the wider world a key theme. Students critically engage with African and diasporic histories, cultures, social structures, economies, and belief systems. Course material is drawn from Archaeology, History, Geography, Literature, Film Studies and Women's Studies.
Africa and Asia Area
Same as AFSA01H3

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.

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.

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

An exploration of how eating traditions around the world have been affected by economic and social changes, including imperialism, migration, the rise of a global economy, and urbanization. Topics include: immigrant cuisines, commodity exchanges, and the rise of the restaurant. Lectures will be supplemented by cooking demonstrations.
Transnational Area

This class will examine Latin America’s social and cultural history from the ancient Aztecs and Incas to the twentieth-century populist revolutions of Emiliano Zapata and Evita Perón. It will also focus on Latin America’s connections to the wider world through trade, migration, and cuisine.

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

This class will examine Mexico’s social and cultural history from the ancient Aztecs through the Spanish Conquest to the twentieth-century revolutionary movements led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. It will also focus on Mexico’s connections to the wider world through trade, migration, and cuisine.

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

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

An interdisciplinary introduction to African and African diasporic religions in historic context, including traditional African cosmologies, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, as well as millenarian and synchretic religious movements.
Same as AFSB01H3
Africa and Asia Area

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

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.

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 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

The course will present the causes, processes, principles, and effects of the French Revolution. It will additionally present the relationship between the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, and look at the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.

0.5 pre-1800 credit

European Area

The course will cover major developments in sexuality in Europe since antiquity. It will focus on the manner in which social, political, and economic forces influenced the development of sexuality. It will also analyze how religious beliefs, philosophical ideas, and scientific understanding influenced the ways that sexuality was understood.

European Area

This course explores familiar commodities in terms of natural origins, everyday cultures of use, and global significance. It analyses environmental conditions, socio-economic transactions, political, religious, and cultural contexts around their production, distribution, and consumption. Commodity case studies will be selected among tea, opium, chocolate, rice, bananas, cotton, rubber, coffee, and sugar.
Transnational Area

Collectively, immigrants, businesspeople, investors, missionaries, writers and musicians may have been as important as diplomats’ geopolitical strategies in creating networks of connection and exchange between the United States and the world. This course focuses on the changing importance and interactions over time of key groups of state and non-state actors.

United States and Latin America Area

Overview of the political and social developments that produced the modern United States in the half-century after 1877. Topics include urbanization, immigration, industrialization, the rise of big business and of mass culture, imperialism, the evolution of the American colour line, and how Americans used politics to grapple with these changes.
United States and Latin America Area

An examination of the relationship between culture and politics in modern American history. The course considers culture as a means through which Americans expressed political desires. Politics, similarly, can be understood as a forum for cultural expression. Topics include imperialism, immigration and migration, the Cold War, and the "culture wars".
United States and Latin America Area

This transnational history course explores the origins, consolidation, and unmaking of segregationist social orders in the American South and South Africa. It examines the origins of racial inequality, the structural and socio-political roots of segregation, the workings of racial practices and ideologies, and the various strategies of both accommodation and resistance employed by black South Africans and African Americans from the colonial era up to the late twentieth century.

Transnational Area

Overview of the waves of immigration and internal migration that have shaped America from the colonial period to the present. Topics include colonization and westward migration, immigrants in the industrial and contemporary eras, nativism, stances towards pluralism and assimilation, and how migration experiences have varied by race, class, and gender.
United States and Latin America Area

Students in this course will examine the development of regional cuisines in North and South America. Topics will include indigenous foodways, the role of commodity production and alcohol trade in the rise of colonialism, the formation of national cuisines, industrialization, migration, and contemporary globalization. Tutorials will be conducted in the Culinaria Kitchen Laboratory.

Same as FSTC37H3

United States and Latin America Area

This course examines black life and culture in the cotton South through the medium of the blues. Major topics include: land tenure patterns in southern agriculture, internal and external migration, mechanisms of state and private labour control, gender conventions in the black community, patterns of segregation and changing race relations.

United States and Latin America Area

An examination of aspects of the history of immigrants and race relations in Canada, particularly for the period 1840s 1960s.
The course covers various immigrant and racialized groups and explores how class, gender and race/ethnicity shaped experiences and racial/ethnic relations.
Canadian Area

A look at Canada's evolution in relation to developments on the world stage. Topics include Canada's role in the British Empire and its relationship with the U.S., international struggles for women's rights, Aboriginal peoples' sovereignty and LGBT equality, socialism and communism, the World Wars, decolonization, the Cold War, humanitarianism, and terrorism.
Canadian Area

This course addresses literary, historical, ethnographic, and filmic representations of the political economy of China and the Indian subcontinent from the early 19th century to the present day. We will look at such topics as the role and imagination of the colonial-era opium trade that bound together India, China and Britain in the 19th century, anticolonial conceptions of the Indian and Chinese economies, representations of national physical health, as well as critiques of mass-consumption and capitalism in the era of the ‘liberalization’ and India and China’s rise as major world economies. Students will acquire a grounding in these subjects from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives.

Same as GASC51H3

Asia and Africa Area

This course uses a focus on material history and visual culture to explore Ethiopia from the fourth through the nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on the Christian Church, the monarchy, links with both the Mediterranean world and the Indian subcontinent, and the relationship of individuals to their social, economic, artistic and geographic environments.
Same as AFSC52H3 and VPHC52H3
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Africa and Asia Area

Students examine historical themes for local and regional cuisines across Global Asia, including but not limited to Anglo-Indian, Arab, Bengali, Chinese, Himalayan, Goan, Punjabi, Japanese, Persian, Tamil, and Indo-Caribbean. Themes include religious rituals, indigenous foodways; colonialism, industrialization, labour, gender, class, migration, globalization, and media. Tutorials are in the Culinaria Kitchen Lab.

Same as FSTC54H3 and GASC54H3

Africa and Asia Area

Conflict and social change in Africa from the slave trade to contemporary times. Topics include the politics of resistance, women and war, repressive and weak states, the Cold War, guerrilla movements, resource predation. Case studies of anticolonial rebellions, liberation wars, and civil conflicts will be chosen from various regions.
Same as AFSC55H3
Africa and Asia Area

An introduction to the distinctive East Asian legal tradition shared by China, Japan, and Korea through readings about selected thematic issues. Students will learn to appreciate critically the cultural, political, social, and economic causes and effects of East Asian legal cultures and practices.
Same as GASC50H3
Africa and Asia Area

A study of the history of China's relationship with the rest of the world in the modern era. The readings focus on China's role in the global economy, politics, religious movements, transnational diasporas, scientific/technological exchanges, and cultural encounters and conflicts in the ages of empire and globalization.
Same as GASC57H3
Africa and Asia Area

Delhi and London were two major cities of the British Empire. This course studies their parallel destinies, from the imperial into the post-colonial world. It explores how diverse cultural, ecological, and migratory flows connected and shaped these cities, using a wide range of literary, historical, music, and film sources.
Transnational Area

This course explores the transnational history of Tamil worlds. In addition to exploring modern Tamil identities, the course will cover themes such as mass migration, ecology, social and economic life, and literary history.
Same as GASC59H3
Africa and Asia Area

An exploration of how medieval and early modern societies encountered foreigners and accounted for foreignness, as well as for religious, linguistic, and cultural difference more broadly. Topics include: monsters, relics, pilgrimage, the rise of the university, merchant companies, mercenaries, piracy, captivity and slavery, tourism, and the birth of resident embassies.
Same as (IEEC51H3)
0.5 pre-1800 credit
Transnational Area

Social and cultural history of the Venetian Empire from a fishermen's colony to the Napoleonic Occupation of 1797. Topics include the relationships between commerce and colonization in the Mediterranean, state building and piracy, aristocracy and slavery, civic ritual and spirituality, guilds and confraternities, households and families.
0.5 pre-1800 credit
European Area

This course tracks the evolving histories of gender and sexuality in diverse Muslim societies. We will examine how gendered norms and sexual mores were negotiated through law, ethics, and custom. We will compare and contrast these themes in diverse societies, from the Prophet Muhammad’s community in 7th century Arabia to North American and West African Muslim communities in the 21st century.

Same as WSTC66H3

Transnational Area

This course examines the history and historiography of the formative period of Islam and the life and legacy of Muḥammad, Islam’s founder. Central themes explored include the Late Antique context of the Middle East, pre-Islamic Arabia and its religions, the Qur’ān and its textual history, the construction of biographical accounts of Muḥammad, debates about the historicity of reports from Muḥammad, and the evolving identity and historical conception of the early Muslim community.

Same as CLAC67H3
Pre-1800 course
Ancient World Area

This course reflects on the concept of Orientalism and how it informs the fields of Classical Studies and Anthropology. Topics to be discussed include the Orientalization of the past and the origin, role, and significance of ancient representations of the "Other" in contemporary discourses.
Same as ANTC58H3 and CLAC68H3

The migration of Caribbean peoples to the United States, Canada, and Europe from the late 19th century to the present. The course considers how shifting economic circumstances and labour demands, the World Wars, evolving imperial relationships, pan-Africanism and international unionism, decolonization, natural disasters, and globalization shaped this migration.
Same as AFSC70H3
Transnational Area

The course will explore the history and career of a term: The Global South. The global south is not a specific place but expressive of a geopolitical relation. It is often used to describe areas or places that were remade by geopolitical inequality. How and when did this idea emerge? How did it circulate? How are the understandings of the global south kept in play? Our exploration of this term will open up a world of solidarity and circulation of ideas shaped by grass-roots social movements in different parts of the world

Same as GASC73H3
Africa and Asia Area

A survey of human mobility from the era when humans first populated the earth to the global migrations of our own time. An introduction to the main categories of human movement and to historical and modern arguments for fostering or restricting migration.

Transnational Area

Soccer (“football” to most of the world) is the world’s game and serves as a powerful lens through which to examine major questions in modern world history. How did a game that emerged in industrial Britain spread so quickly throughout the globe? How has the sport been appropriated politically and become a venue for contests over class, ethnic and national identity? Why have wars been fought over the outcome of matches? In short, how does soccer explain the modern world?

Transnational Area

The Qur'an retells many narratives of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. This course compares the Qur'anic renditions with those of the earlier scriptures, focusing on the unique features of the Qur'anic versions. It will also introduce the students to the history of ancient and late antique textual production, transmission of texts and religious contact. The course will also delve into the historical context in which these texts were produced and commented upon in later generations.
Same as CLAC94H3

An examination of the relationship between language, society and identity in North Africa and the Arabic-speaking Middle East from the dawn of Islam to the contemporary period. Topics include processes of Arabization and Islamization, the role of Arabic in pan-Arab identity; language conflict in the colonial and postcolonial periods; ideologies of gender and language among others.
Same as AFSC30H3

Asia and Africa Area

This course examines women in Sub-Saharan Africa in the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial periods. It covers a range of topics including slavery, colonialism, prostitution, nationalism and anti-colonial resistance, citizenship, processes of production and reproduction, market and household relations, and development.
Same as AFSC97H3

Asia and Africa Area

This option is available in rare and exceptional circumstances to students who have demonstrated a high level of academic maturity and competence. Qualified students will have the opportunity to investigate a historical field which is of common interest to both student and supervisor. Only standing faculty may serve as supervisors, please see the HCS website for a list of eligible faculty.

This option is available in rare and exceptional circumstances to students who have demonstrated a high level of academic maturity and competence. Qualified students will have the opportunity to investigate an historical field which is of common interest to both student and supervisor. Only standing faculty may serve as supervisors, please see the HCS website for a list of eligible faculty.

This seminar will expose students to advanced subject matter and research methods in history. Each seminar will explore a selected topic.

A seminar exploring the social history of translators, interpreters, and the texts they produce. Through several case studies from Ireland and Istanbul to Québec, Mexico City, and Goa, we will ask how translators shaped public understandings of "self" and "other," "civilization" and "barbarity" in the wake of European colonization.
Transnational Area

An exploration of the global problem of crime and punishment. The course investigates how the global processes of colonialism, industrialization, capitalism and liberalization affected modern criminal justice and thus the state-society relationship and modern citizenry in different cultures across time and space.
Same as GASD06H3
Transnational Area

A comparative analysis of transnationational histories, and cultural and gendered ideologies of children and childhood through case studies of foundlings in Italy, factory children in England, orphans and adoption in the American West, labouring children in Canada and Australia, and mixed-race children in British India.
Same as WSTD07H3

Transnational Area

An examination of approaches to historical analysis that take us beyond the national narrative beginning with the study of borderlands between the United States and Mexico, comparing that approach with the study of Canada/United States borderlands and finishing with themes of a North American continental or transnational nature.
United States and Latin America Area

This course offers an in-depth and historicized study of important issues in historical and contemporary Asian, diasporic, and borderland societies such as migration, mobility, and circulation. It is conducted in seminar format with emphasis on discussion, critical reading and writing, digital skills, and primary research.

Same as GASD01H3

Asia and Africa Area

This seminar type course addresses issues related to the relationships between ancient Mediterranean and West Asian societies and their hydric environments from 5000 BC to 600 AD.
Same as CLAD05H3
0.5 pre-1800 credit
Ancient World Area

The course will focus on major developments in art and ideas in early twentieth century Europe. We will study experimental forms of art and philosophy that fall under the broad category of Modernism, including painting, music, literature, and film, as well as philosophical essays, theoretical manifestos, and creative scholarly works.

European Area

This is a seminar-style course organized around a selected topic in Modern European History.

European Area

A comparative exploration of socialist feminism, encompassing its diverse histories in different locations, particularly China, Russia, Germany and Canada. Primary documents, including literary texts, magazines, political pamphlets and group manifestos that constitute socialist feminist ideas, practices and imaginaries in different times and places will be central. We will also seek to understand socialist feminism and its legacies in relation to other contemporary stands of feminism.
Same as WSTD16H3
Transnational Area

This seminar/lab introduces students to the exploding field of digital history. Through a combination of readings and hands-on digital projects, students explore how the Web radically transforms how both professional historians and others envision the past and express these visions in various media. Technical background welcome but not required.

An applied research methods course that introduces students to the methods and practice of Oral history, the history of Scarborough, the field of public history and community-based research. A critical part of the class will be to engage in fieldwork related to designing and conducting oral history interviews.
Canadian Area

A seminar exploring the evolution of American thinking about diversity -- ethnic, religious, and regional -- from colonial-era defenses of religious toleration to today's multiculturalism. Participants will consider pluralist thought in relation to competing ideologies, such as nativism, and compare American pluralisms to formulations arrived at elsewhere, including Canada.
Transnational Area

This course explores the origins, growth, and demise of slavery in the United States. It focuses on slavery as an economic, social, and political system that shaped and defined early America. There will be an emphasis on developing historical interpretations from primary sources.

United States and Latin America Area

This fourth-year seminar is funded by the Canada Research Chair in Urban History and is taught by an advanced graduate student in American history. The course, with topics varying from year to year will focus on major themes in American social and cultural history, such as, women's history, labour history, and/or the history of slavery and emancipation.
United States and Latin America Area

A seminar that puts contemporary U.S. debates over immigration in historical context, tracing the roots of such longstanding controversies as those over immigration restriction, naturalization and citizenship, immigrant political activism, bilingual education and "English-only" movements, and assimilation and multiculturalism. Extensive reading and student presentations are required.
United States and Latin America Area

The most striking development in U.S. politics in the last half century has been the rebirth and rise to dominance of conservatism. This seminar examines the roots of today's conservative ascendancy, tracing the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism and the subsequent rise of the New Right.
United States and Latin America Area

This course introduces students to the methods and practice of the study of local history, in this case the history of Scarborough. This is a service learning course that will require a commitment to working and studying in the classroom and the community as we explore forms of public history.
Canadian Area

A seminar on Canadian settler colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries that draws comparisons from the United States and elsewhere in the British Empire. Students will discuss colonialism and the state, struggles over land and labour, the role of race, gender, and geography in ideologies and practices of colonial rule, residential schools, reconciliation and decolonization.

Canadian Area

Weekly discussions of assigned readings. The course covers a broad chronological sweep but also highlights certain themes, including race and gender relations, working women and family economies, sexuality, and women and the courts. We will also explore topics in gender history, including masculinity studies and gay history.
Same as WSTD46H3
Transnational Area

A seminar on Cold War Canada that focuses on the early post-war era and examines Canadian events, developments, experience within a comparative North American context. Weekly readings are organized around a particular theme or themes, including the national insecurity state; reds, spies, and civil liberties; suburbia; and sexuality.
Canadian Area

How have Canadians historically experienced, and written about, the world? In what ways have nationalism, imperialism, and ideas about gender and race given meaning to Canadian understandings of the world? Students will consider these questions by exploring the work of Canadian travel writers, missionaries, educators, diplomats, trade officials, and intellectuals.
Canadian Area

A seminar study of the history of the peoples of southern Africa, beginning with the hunter-gatherers but concentrating on farming and industrializing societies. Students will consider pre-colonial civilizations, colonialism and white settlement, violence, slavery, the frontier, and the mineral revolution. Extensive reading and student presentations are required.
Africa and Asia Area

A seminar study of southern African history from 1900 to the present. Students will consider industrialization in South Africa, segregation, apartheid, colonial rule, liberation movements, and the impact of the Cold War. Historiography and questions of race, class and gender will be important. Extensive reading and student presentations are required.
Same as AFSD51H3
Africa and Asia Area

A seminar study of East African peoples from late pre-colonial times to the 1990's, emphasizing their rapid although uneven adaptation to integration of the region into the wider world. Transitions associated with migrations, commercialization, religious change, colonial conquest, nationalism, economic development and conflict, will be investigated. Student presentations are required.
Same as AFSD52H3
Africa and Asia Area

This seminar course examines the First World War in its imperial and colonial context in Africa and Asia. Topics include forgotten fronts in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, colonial armies and civilians, imperial economies and resources, the collapse of empires and the remaking of the colonial world.

Same as AFSD53H3 and GASD53H3

Africa and Asia Area

This upper-level seminar will explore how water has shaped human experience. It will explore water landscapes, the representation of water in legal and political thought, slave narratives, and water management in urban development from the 16th century. Using case studies from South Asia and North America we will understand how affective, political and social relations to water bodies are made and remade over time.

Same as GASD54H3

This course explores the transnational connections and contexts that shaped ideas in modern Asia such as secularism, modernity, and pan Asianism. Through the intensive study of secondary sources and primary sources in translation, the course will introduce Asian thought during the long nineteenth-century in relation to the social, political, cultural, and technological changes. Using the methods of studying transnational history the course will explore inter-Asian connections in the world of ideas and their relation to the new connectivity afforded by steamships and the printing press. We will also explore how this method can help understand the history of modern Asia as a region of intellectual ferment rather than a passive recipient of European modernity.

Same as HISD55H3
Transnational Area

Coolie' labourers formed an imperial diaspora linking South Asia and China to the Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, South-east Asia, and North America. The long-lasting results of this history are evident in the cultural and ethnic diversity of today's Caribbean nations and Commonwealth countries such as Great Britain and Canada.
Africa and Asia Area
Same as GASD56H3

This course will consider the long history of conflicts that have rippled across the Horn of Africa and Sudan. In particular, it will explore the ethnically and religiously motivated civil wars that have engulfed the region in recent decades. Particular attention will be given to Ethiopia and its historic provinces where warfare is experienced on a generational basis.

Africa and Asia Area

A study of major cultural trends, political practices, social customs, and economic developments in late imperial China (1400-1911) as well as their relevance to modern and contemporary China. Students will read the most recent literature and write a substantive research paper.
Same as GASD58H3

0.5 pre-1800 credit
Africa and Asia area

A seminar course on Chinese legal tradition and its role in shaping social, political, economic, and cultural developments, especially in late imperial and modern China. Topics include the foundations of legal culture, regulations on sexuality, women's property rights, crime fictions, private/state violence, laws of ethnicities, prison reforms and modernization.
Same as GASD59H3
0.5 pre-1800 credit

Africa and Asia Area

The development of travel and travel narratives before 1800, and their relationship to trade and colonization in the Mediterranean and beyond. Topics include: Marco Polo, pilgrimage and crusading, the history of geography and ethnography. Extensive reading, oral presentations, and a final paper based on research in primary documents are required.
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Transnational Area

Modern interpretations of the Crusades will be investigated in the broad context of Western expansion into the Middle East (1099-1204), Spain and southern Europe, and, North-Eastern Europe. Also considered will be the Christian Military Orders, the Mongols and political crusades within Europe itself.
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Medieval Area

An intensive study of the primary sources of the First through Fourth Crusades, including works by Eastern and Western Christian, Arab and Jewish authors. The crusading period will be considered in terms of Western Christian expansion into the Middle East, Spain and Northern Europe in the 11th through 13th centuries.
0.50 pre-1800 credit
Medieval Area

What is good and evil? Are they known by human reason or revelation? How is happiness achieved? How is the human self-cultivated? This course will explore the diverse approaches that Muslim thinkers took to answering these perennial questions. Beginning with early Islam (the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad), we will examine ethical thought in various intellectual traditions (e.g.: Islamic law, philosophy, mysticism, literature). Finally, we will analyze contemporary ethical dilemmas (e.g.; Muslim political, sexual, and environmental ethics).

Transnational area

A transnational history of how the rise of modern, global empires reshaped how the world produced and consumed food. This course, through cooking practicums, offers a hands-on approach to imperial and culinary histories with emphasis on plantation economies, famine, the tropical commodity trade, and the rise of national cuisines.
Transnational Area

This research seminar uses our immediate community of Scarborough to explore continuity and change within diasporic foodways. Students will develop and practise ethnographic and other qualitative research skills to better understand the many intersections of food, culture, and community. This course culminates with a major project based on original research.

Same as ANTD71H3

This research seminar examines the history of beer, including production techniques, gender roles, and drinking cultures, from ancient times to contemporary microbrewing. Students will produce a major paper or digital project on a chosen case study. Class will include a practicum on historical technologies of malting, mashing, and fermenting.

Transnational Area

This course explores Canada's diverse food cultures and the varied relationships that Canadians have had historically with food practices in the context of family, community, region, and nation and with reference to transnational connections and identities. It examines Canada's foodways - the practices and traditions associated with food and food preparation - through the gendered lens of Indigenous-colonial relations, migration and diaspora, family, politics, nutrition, and popular culture. The course is organized around two central principles. One is that just as Canada's rich past resists any singular narrative, there is no such thing as a singular Canadian food tradition. The other is that a focus on questions related to women and gender further illuminate the complex relationship between food and cultural politics, variously defined. The course covers a broad time-span, from early contact between European settlers and First Nations through the end of the twentieth century.

Canadian Area

This course introduces students to creative ways of telling/conveying stories about historical moments, events, figures and the social context in which these have occurred.  The course will enable students to narrate the past in ways, from film to fiction, accessible to contemporary audiences.