Fall Semester - September 2011

History 209A - Imagining Canada
"Imagining Canada" examines the creation of the Canadian identity, paying particular attention to the myths, symbols and stories that have led Canada to be imagined in the ways it has.  The 2011 offering of this course contains up to five units of study:  the invented wilderness; peace, kindness and rude Canadians; the imaginary Indian; two solitudes/two countries, the myths of multiculturalism; and northward bound.  Students can expect to encounter a variety of topics within each unit, including log cabins and blackflies, The Group of Seven, tourism and environmentalism (unit I), the Mountie of history, films, television and recent controversy (unit II), selling and buying images of the Canadian "Indian," from totem poles to the missing aboriginal women of Vancouver's downtown eastside (unit III),  Quebec within (and without) Canada, the Rocket Richard Riot, the FLQ Manifesto, and the meaning of french immersion (unit IV),  internment camps, Chinatown(s), the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and "curry in a hurry" (unit V) and Stan Rogers' "Northwest Passage," a few words for snow, strange men in white uniforms, and finally, hockey.  The course is interdisciplinary, drawing on institutional, political, economic, historical, sociological, artistic, linguistic, literary and cultural perspectives.  Students will write a mid-term and final examination, and complete a series of short writing assignments
Area designation:  Canadian

 

History 209B - Introduction to Folklore
Folklore is the study of the traditional, unofficial forms of culture, that is, the behaviours, beliefs, and superstitions, handed down by word of mouth and customary example, which all cultures possess.  This course begins with a survey of the history of folklore research and approaches to its study.  The course emphasis will be on Atlantic Canada (particularly Prince Edward Island).  Students will analyse folklore with emphasis on function, genre, and cultural context.  Initially, the course will focus on the breadth of folklore and its connection with other disciplines - anthropology and literature for example.  The bulk of the course work will concentrate on two areas of folklore - oral, and customary lore.  Study of local material will be required.
Area Designation:  Canadian

 

Winter Semester January 2012

History 209C - Foreign Food:  Eating in the Age of  Empires
Spices for rotting meats; sugar, chocolate and raisins as cure-alls; cocoa as a hallucinogen; potatoes as a plot to kill off surplus peasants; porridge as a middle-class conspiracy to undermine working-class culture.  This course explores important themes in the history of food discovery, distribution, and consumption in a period of aggressive European imperialism.  The aim of this course is to use intrinsically interesting case studies to explore more serious themes such as the use of unfree labour, the expansion of a capitalist economic system, the growth and evolution of European imperialism, and negotiations in social relations along class, gender, and racial/ethnic lines.
Area Designation:  Global

 

History 309A - World War I from the Canadian Perspective
This course examines the major military, political, social, economic and religious themes that characterized Canada's participation and experience of the First World War.  Topics will include:  the causes leading to war, and overview of the military battles, the experience of war in the army, navy and air force, the home front, the role of women in industry, nurses, military chaplains, the Imperial Munitions Board, the conscription crisis, tensions between English and French Canada, and the Versailles Treaty.  Letters, diaries and film clips from the First World War will augment the readings for this course.  To provide a deeper emphasis of the war's global impact, lectures will not only refer to the Canadian experience of the war but also address the pertinent events on the Western Front.
Area Designation:  Canadian

Summer Session 2012

History 309A - Picturing Places - Maps, Culture & Power

Cartography is a science and an art, and in this course students will learn how to construct and deconstruct maps for historical research.  The course introduces practical mapping techniques in computer labs and fieldtrips and covers the use and development of historical maps at key points in World history.  Map making and empire building have evolved symbiotically, and this course traces the relationship between maps and culture with an emphasis on the Atlantic World since the Renaissance.  From Medieval mappa mundi to Canadian forest inventories maps ranged from religious expression to precise records of land use; cartography has always been about power and the way people order their own places and impose order on others.

Area Designation:  Global

History 309B - Scientific Revolutions from Newton to Darwin

The period from 1640 to 1860 is often seen as sone of "Scientific Revolution."  But what was this revolution all about?  Why did people begin to approach questions about the nature of the universe in new and innovative ways?  And when they did how did these ideas change society? 

Area Designation:  European

History 309C - Canada and the Second World War

Area Designation:  Canadian