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Undergraduate
Fall/Winter 2009-2010 Course Descriptions - 200 Level

Course Designators

Below are descriptions of courses with the following 'designators' (the 3 letter code in front of the course number):

HIS History
HUM Humanities
(199Y First Year Seminars - see "First Year Seminar Courses Booklet")
JHP Joint History and Political Science
(administered by Political Science Department, Room 3018, Sidney Smith Hall)
NMC Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
(administered by the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Avenue)

NOTE: All courses shown in this Handbook are accepted towards a History program (except HUM199Y courses). However, as shown above, they are not all administered by the Department of History.

Course Nomenclature

  • Y1-Y is a full course, both terms.
  • Y1-F is a full course, first term (fall session)
  • Y1-S is a full course, second term (winter session)
  • H1-F is a half course, first term (fall session)
  • H1-S is a half course, second term (winter session)

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200 Level Courses

200-level HIS courses are surveys that introduce in broad outlines the history of a particular country, region, continent, or theme. Most are essential background for further upper-level study in the area. Students will generally attend two lectures and participate in one tutorial each week. The 200-level courses are open to first year students as well as those in higher years.

The Department regularly offers a number of HIS299Y1 Research Opportunity Programs, which are open only to students in their second year. In this course, you work as a Research Assistant to a professor on a particular subject. In past years, students in HIS299Y1 courses have done oral history interviews, sought out manuscripts in provincial archives, and gathered primary source documents in the university libraries. Students in their first year should check with the Faculty Registrar in February for the list of ROPs that will be offered in the following academic year.

HIS 202H1-S Gender, Race and Science

This course examines scientific ideas about human difference from the 18th-century to the present.  It explores how scientists and their critics portrayed the nature of race, sex difference, and masculinity/femininity in light of debates over nation, citizenship, colonialism, emancipation, knowledge and capitalism.  The course will also introduce students to the uses of gender and race as analytic categories within the practice of history.  While the course draws much of its subject matter from the history of the United States, it also explores selective issues in European and colonial contexts.

Instructor:  B. Beaton
Lecture:  M 3-5
Tutorial:  TBA
Division:  II/III

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HIS 208Y1-Y History of the Jewish People

This course surveys the history of the Jews throughout the world from c. 300 Ce to the present.  The first half will examine interactions between Jews and Christian and Muslim cultures, the evolution of Jewish social organization, and the development of Judaism and Jewish thought up to approximately 1700.  The second half will examine how modernity generated radically new varieties of Jewish religious and political life but also transformed traditional anti-Judaism into a virulent anti-Semitism.

Textbook(s):  TBA

Tentative Course Requirements:  Tutorial work (20%), fall document analysis (10%), take-home midyear exam (20%), winter term essay (20%), final examination (30%).

Recommended Preparation:  HIS103Y1/108Y1/109Y1

Instructor: Meyerson/Hollander
Lecture:  W 10-12
Tutorial:  TBA
Division:  I/III

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HIS 220Y1-Y The Shape of Medieval Society

This is an introductory course covering Western Europe from the late Roman period to the fifteenth century. This course is a topical survey of economic, political, religious, and educational ideas and institutions. To enable students to approach the ideas and institutions of the Middle Ages in a direct fashion and to acquaint them with the nature and variety of sources from the period, emphasis in tutorials is placed upon discussion and interpretation of original sources. These tutorial readings will be sold in class. Attendance at tutorials is obligatory.

Required Background ReadingJohn W. Baldwin, The Scholastic Culture of the Middle Ages; Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages

Tentative Course Requirements:  two 2000-2500-word essays examining a primary source from the period (total of 30%), a mid-term test (15%), a final examination (35%) and tutorial participation (20%).

Instructor:  Goering/Cochelin/Silano
Lecture: TR 11
Tutorials: TBA
Division:  III
Pre-Modern:  1 credit

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HIS 241H1-F Europe in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914

This course gives an introduction to major themes in European history over the ‘long’ nineteenth century. The geographical focus will be on the countries of Western Continental Europe, especially France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, though at times developments in Great Britain and Russia will be discussed; the themes covered will be quite wide ranging. Political developments to be covered include the establishment of Restoration Europe, the revolutions of 1848, the unifications of Italy and Germany, imperialism and the coming of the First World War. We will also discuss industrialization and its manifold effects, a variety of intellectual and social movements, and changes in cultural life over the course of the century. The course explores the history of everyday life as well as the history of high politics and culture, and emphasizes the importance of multiple approaches to historical problems. Attendance at lectures, tutorial participation, reading, research, and writing are all essential components of this course. In the tutorials, students will discuss a variety of primary sources, including novels, essays, and public speeches. Students will also work closely with tutors on the preparation of essays.

Textbook(s): TBA

Recommended Preparation: HIS103Y1/109Y1

Instructor: V. Dimitriadis
Lecture: TR 1
Tutorials: TBA
Division: III

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HIS 242H1-S Europe in the Twentieth Century

This course surveys the history of European politics, culture and society from 1914 to the present day.  Lectures will cover an array of events and themes, from the two world wars, to the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism, the Holocaust, the onset of decolonization, and the creation of the European Union.  Special attention will be paid throughout to a number of themes relating to democracy, nationalism, culture, gender, and difference in twentieth-century Europe.

Textbook(s):  Robert Paxton Europe in the Twentieth Century, Marvin Perry et al., Sources of Twentieth Century Europe, as well as several historical novels.

Instructor:  E. Jennings
Lecture:  TR 1
Tutorials:  TBA
Division:  III

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HIS 243H1-F Early Modern Europe, 1450- 1648

The shape of modern European society is set in the early modern period. Expansion overseas sets some European nations on a path of imperial and colonial development, which shapes international relations into the twentieth century. The revival of classical forms revolutionizes art and architecture, and provides new models for education, politics, law, science, and gender relations. The split of Christendom into Protestant and Catholic churches inspires intellectual and artistic creativity and sparks violent wars that still resonate today. Modern states and our continuing fascination with determining ‘national identity’ take shape out of the competition between dynasties, social classes, faiths and territories. A drive for order and obedience makes Europeans more concerned with identifying and policing the poor, women, children, and even themselves.

Instructor:  N. Terpstra
Lecture:  TR 11
Tutorials: TBA
Division:  III
Pre-Modern:  ½ credit

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HIS 244H1-S Early Modern Europe, 1648-1815

This course is a general survey of Western European history from the Thirty Years War to the defeat of Napoleon. We will explore how in two fascinating and eventful centuries, the economic, social, and cultural foundations of Western modernity took shape in Europe. Topics we will discuss include the development of the capitalist economy and the politics of mercantilism, absolutism and the rise of republicanism, emancipation of European Jewry, gender relations, the family and the state, the scientific and cultural revolution of the European Enlightenment, the beginnings of the industrial revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic rule in Europe.

Tentative Course Requirements: Two brief written assignments, final exam, and participation.

Instructor:  K. Macfarlane
Lecture:  TR 11
Tutorials:  TBA
Division:  III
Pre-Modern:  ½ credit

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HIS 245Y1-Y Women in European History: From the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century

What does European history look like if considered from women’s perspective? This course interprets the great movements and events of the European past in terms of their implications for women and relations between the sexes. We will also consider continuity and change in the “great events” of ordinary lives - marriage, birth, death, work, establishing a home and the like. The course provides an introduction to using gender as a category of analysis in courses in other periods, cultures and disciplines, and a background for understanding women’s lives in the late twentieth century.

Textbook(s): Merry Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe; Bonnie Smith, Changing Lives; Lisa DeCaprio Lives and Voices.

Tentative Course Requirements:  essays (45%), mid-year exam (10%), final exam (25%), and tutorial participation (20%).

Recommended Preparation:  HIS109Y1 or other European History course/NEW160Y1/260Y1

Instructor:  F. Timbers
Lecture:  T 6-8
Tutorials:  TBA
Division:  III
Pre-Modern:  ½ credit

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HIS 250Y1-Y History of Russia, 860-1991

This course surveys the broad span of Russian history, from the formation of the first “Russian” state to the resurrection of Russia as the Soviet Union fell apart.  The first term moves from the earliest Kievan state, through the rise of Moscow and Russia first locally, then on the world stage, and culminates with the Russian victory over Napoleon.  The second term traces the difficulties facing autocratic Imperial Russia in the changing world of the nineteenth century, moves on to the Revolution that brought that state to an end, and finally focuses on the history of the Soviet Union.  Throughout the class, interactions between individuals and the political, cultural, and social structures that surround them will be particularly important.  Many of the readings for the course are tales of individual lives, and they will be discussed in the context of larger political or social changes.

Textbook(s):  Riasanovsky, A History of Russia; course reader and others.

Tentative Course Requirements:  1st term essay (20%), 1st term exam (20%), 2nd term essay (20%), 2nd term exam (20%) and tutorial participation (20%).

Instructor:  N. Young
Lecture:  MW 11
Tutorials:  TBA
Division:  III
Pre-Modern:  ½ credit

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HIS 251Y1-Y East Central Europe

The course aims at surveying major historical developments in the area between the German-speaking lands and the former Soviet Union, beginning with the late Middle Ages.  Most attention will be paid to the Poles, Czechs and Slovaks, Hungarians, and the Balkan peoples.  Though the history of East Central Europe is often omitted from university curricula, the peoples of this area, situated in the heart of Europe, deserve serious study.  As the course attempts to show, they have made throughout the centuries an important contribution to world history.  The tutorials discuss a number of themes related to though not identical with the subjects of the lectures -- on the basis of assigned readings for each week.

Background readings:  P.S. Wandycz, The Price of Freedom; A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present, and L.S. Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453.

Textbook(s):  Robin Okey, Eastern Europe 1740-1985. Feudalism to Communism, Hutchinson, 2nd ed., 1986.

Tentative Course Requirements:  first term paper (20%), second term paper (25%), a final examination (35%) and tutorial participation (20%)

Instructor:  A. Rossos
Lecture: MW 10
Tutorials:  TBA
Division:  III
Pre-Modern:  ½ credit

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HIS 263Y1-Y Introduction to Canadian History

This is an introductory survey of Canadian history designed for students with no previous background in the subject. It is intended to introduce students through lectures, readings and tutorial discussion to the major events and trends that have shaped the political, economic and social history of Canada, including the challenges of indigenous-newcomer and French-English relations over more than 4 centuries of interactions. Major themes include 1) Canadian history as a colonial project; 2) Canadian history in the context of global histories; 3) the influences of imperialism and continentalism; 4) the changing relationships between political power and the people of Canada; and 5) environmental change: "changes in the land." Participation in tutorial is mandatory.

Textbook(s): Francis, Jones, Smith, Origins/Destinies (2 VOLS), 6th edition.

Tentative Course Requirements: 2 written assignments and an essay (45%), tutorial participation (25%), and a final examination (30%)

EXCLUSION: HIS262Y1

Instructor: Bohaker/McKim
Lecture: TR 1
Tutorials: TBA
Division: II

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HIS 271Y1-Y American History Since 1607

This course is a survey of the economic, social, political, and cultural history of the United States from first contact between Europeans and native peoples to recent times. Some of the issues the course will deal with are: the contested character of democracy and equality; the evolution of race, gender, and class identities; the relationship between business and government; the relationship between church and state.

Instructor: A. Taylor/G. Stewart
Lecture: W 6-8
Tutorials: TBA
Division: II

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HIS 280Y1-Y History of China

This course aims to provide a broad overview of the history of China from earliest times to the present. Reading for the course will rely heavily on primary sources, and considerable attention will be devoted to the questions of how these sources are used in the writing of history. We will also consider some of the most interesting approaches which are currently being pursued in the study of Chinese history, the discussions and disagreements which historians of China are now working through, and questions and methods from the study of history of other places which might fruitfully be applied to the study of China. Throughout the course, we will consider how both Western images of China and Chinese cultural self-perceptions have subtly affected our understanding of its civilization.

Textbook(s): TBA

Tentative Course Requirements: TBA

Instructor: Y. Zhang
Lecture: R 6-8
Tutorials: TBA
Division: I
Pre-Modern: ½ credit

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HIS 282Y1-Y History of South Asia

This year-long course addresses major themes in the history of South Asia, examining South Asian political economy, social history, colonial power relations and forms of knowledge, and the production of culture. The course emphasizes the period after 1750, particularly the study of colonialism, nationalism, and postcolonial citizenship and modernity. The analysis of the modern period is informed and preceded by an overview of ancient, medieval and early modern/Mughal history. Themes include the diversity of South Asian regional, political, religious, and cultural communities; law and sovereignty; women and gender in South Asian history; subaltern resistance and rebellion; capitalism in South Asia; and major questions in recent South Asian historiography.

Tentative Course Requirements:  two short essays, take-home test, in class test, final exam, tutorial and class participation.

Instructor:  R. Birla
Lecture:  MW 2
Tutorials:  TBA
Division:  I
Pre-Modern:  ½ credit

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HIS 283Y1-Y Southeast Asian Crossroads

The course surveys the historical experiences of the states that constitute present-day Southeast Asia: Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.  Throughout the course, you will be expected to examine critically the various aspects that scholars have used to define Southeast Asia as a region, such as shared environmental and cultural patterns, gender relations, and religious traditions.

During the course, you will be asked to analyze and respond to weekly readings and lectures in sections and written assignments.  The assigned readings will require careful analysis and comparison with primary source materials.  These documents will be made available in English translation in the course bulk-pack.  In addition to the required readings, you will be expected to consult the web pages of several archival sites to examine maps, documents and images relevant to each period in the history of Southeast Asia.

Textbook(s):  Mary Heidhues, Southeast Asia: a Concise History.  New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000.  Course Reader.

Instructor:  N. Tran
Lecture:  M 7-9
Tutorial:  TBA
Division:  I

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HIS 291Y1-Y Latin America:  The Colonial Period

This course introduces the early period of Latin American history, following it from the heights of the last Amerindian civilizations (the Maya, Aztecs and Incas), through the years of Iberian consolidation and expansion, to the emergence of colonial societies, ending with the independence struggles of the early nineteenth century.  While examining the central institutions that secured Spanish and Portuguese domination of the region, we shall also explore the ways in which these institutions were transformed in their new settings.  Other emphases include the political administration and economic underpinnings of the respective colonial systems, religious and cultural interaction within multi-ethnic societies and the formation of “American “ identities that proved vital in expressions of discontent and rebellion.

Textbook(s):  include Mills, Taylor, and Lauderdale Graham, eds. Colonial Latin America

Tentative Course Requirements:  Two essays (50%), a final exam (30%), and tutorial participation (20%).

Instructor:  P. Blanchard
Lecture:  MW 10
Tutorial:  TBA
Division:  II
Pre-Modern:  1 credit

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HIS 294Y1-Y Caribbean History and Culture: Indigenous Era to 1886

This course is an exploration of changes in the structure of Caribbean society from earliest human settlement to the final abolition of slavery in 1886.  It examines the indigenous Caribbean, the conquest of the Caribbean in the 15th-18th centuries, the emergence of plantation societies, the impact of slavery and patterns of resistance and revolt and the process of emancipation and post-emancipation development.

Instructor:  M. Newton
Lecture:  T 10-12
Tutorials:  TBA
Division:  II
Pre-Modern:  ½ credit

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HIS 297Y1-Y History of Africa from a Gender Perspective

This survey of African history is analytical rather than narrative in its approach.  It rethinks the way that “African” history has hitherto been conceptualized and taught by placing the question of gender at the center of the story of Africa.

Instructor:  N. Musisi
Lecture:  W 2-4
Tutorial:  TBA
Division:  I

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