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HIS391H5 • Mexico from Aztec to Zapatista

This course examines the origins and evolution of Mexican society, from its prehispanic empires to the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940). Drawing on primary sources, literature, films and secondary texts, the course will track a set of historical themes, including ethnic identity, Catholicism, economic development and migration.

Prerequisites: HIS290H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24L
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS392H5 • Topics in Global History

An examination of global historical issues. Content in any given year depends on the instructor. Visit the Departmental web site at History for further information.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24L
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS393H5 • Slavery and the American South

An examination of the role of slavery in the development of the American South from the early colonial period through the Civil War. Among the topics to be dealt with are: the origins of slavery, the emergence of a plantation economy, the rise of a slaveholding elite, the structure of the slave community, and the origins of the war.

Prerequisites: HIS271H5 or HIS272H5 or HIS272Y5
Recommended Preparation: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24L
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS395H5 • Topics in History

An in-depth examination of historical issues. Content in any given year depends on the instructor. Visit the Departmental web site at History for further information.

Recommended Preparation: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24L
Mode of Delivery: Online, In Class

HIS396H5 • Modernity and Islam

The aim of this course is to engage students in the ongoing historiographical debates on modernity and Islam. Students will critically explore recent public discussions concerning "Islamic Fundamentalism," "Islamic Feminism," and "What Went Wrong" in the Islamic world.

Prerequisites: ( HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5) and HIS201H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS282H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24L
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS397H5 • Iran's Islamic Revolution

This course explores the making of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 and the subsequent establishment of the Islamic Republic. Framed in a comparative perspective, it explains the cultural and political peculiarities that shaped the Islamist outcome of the Revolution. It examines the staging of the hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq War, and the secularization of private lives.

Prerequisites: HIS201H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24L
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS398H5 • South Asia in Motion: Circulation, Mobility, Histories

This course examines how the movement of peoples, goods and ideas across land and sea has shaped South Asia’s history. In particular it analyses how far-reaching networks based on trade, pilgrimage, patronage, politics and labour that passed through the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal, and the Himalayas connected South Asia to Southeast Asia, and East Asia, amongst other spaces. It also foregrounds how these histories of mobility changed under colonial rule and its aftermath. The course focuses on the period from 1200 until the present.

Prerequisites: HIS282H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS382H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24L
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS399Y5 • Research Opportunity Program

For senior undergraduate students who have developed some knowledge of a discipline and its research methods, this course offers an opportunity to work on the research project of a professor. Students enrolled have an opportunity to become involved in original research, develop their research skills and share in the excitement and discovery of acquiring new knowledge. Project descriptions for the following fall-winter session are posted on the ROP website in mid-February and students are invited to apply at that time. See Experiential and International Opportunities for more details.

Prerequisites: Minimum 8.0 credits or permission of the instructor.

Course Experience: University-Based Experience
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS401H5 • Missionaries and Colonization in New France

The relationship between missionaries and colonization in New France was complicated and contested. This course will explore the links between missionary activities and colonial designs through late medieval and early modern European ideas of religion and expansion; early encounters between Indigenous peoples and Europeans; French attempts at settlement; cooperation and conflict between missionaries and the Crown; similarities and differences among different missionary groups; and Indigenous responses to missionary efforts.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5 and HIS230H5 or HIS261H5 or HIS262H5 or HIS263Y5.

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS402H5 • Topics in the History of French Canada

An in-depth examination of historical issues in French Canadian history. Content in any given year depends on the instructor. Visit the Departmental web site at History for further information.

Prerequisites: ( HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5) and ( HIS261H5 or HIS262H5 or HIS263Y5)

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS405H5 • Microhistory

Microhistory focuses on a small part of the past to address big questions. By encouraging us to examine evidence up close, it provides a powerful way to investigate the rich texture of earlier societies and think about connections with our own time. This course considers classic microhistorical studies as well as more recent works, balancing theories with examples of the approach.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Exclusions: HIS420H5 (Fall 2020)

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS407H5 • Imperial Germany 1871-1918

This course will explore Germany's history beginning with its unification and trace the events that led to the First World War and the end of the Imperial era. We will examine the Imperial period through various different focal points including unification and the legacy of Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Sonderweg debate, gender, nationalism, German Jews and the birth of modern antisemitism, German's brief colonial era, the path to war and the revolution of 1918. By reading historical texts, articles, and novels, and by addressing numerous historiographical debates, we will attempt to understand Germany's foundational period in the context of this country's troubled history.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: A course in modern European history

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS409H5 • The Life Cycle in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

This course examines the daily lives of medieval and early modern Europeans as they moved through birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, marriage, adulthood, old age and death. Special attention is given to the ways in which gender, social status and local custom shaped thoughts and experiences throughout the life cycle.

Prerequisites: ( HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5) and 0.5 credit in medieval or early modern Europe.

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS410H5 • Doing Digital History

How have Web 2.0 technologies changed the practice of history? Students learn by doing in this course: researching and writing for the digital medium; learning about the theory and practice of digital history; experimenting with new technologies; and creating a digital history project.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS210H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS420H5 • Topics in Medieval History

Critical evaluation of selected legal, literary and narrative sources. Thematic content will vary from year to year, but there will be an emphasis on social history. Visit the Departmental web site at History for further information.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS431H5 • Global China

A critical examination of the making and remaking of China from the eighteenth century to the present. Emphasis will be given to historical literature on colonialism, nationalism, revolution, and global connections.

Prerequisites: ( HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5) and HIS284H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS435H5 • The Viking Age

A seminar on the history of Europe from the eighth to the eleventh centuries with emphasis upon the Scandinavians and their relations with western European civilization. Readings will be in both primary and secondary sources.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS438H5 • Remembering Atrocity: The Holocaust and Historical Memory in Europe and North America

This course will examine how Europe and North America confronts the Holocaust through the law, literature, left wing agitation, film, memorials and museums, and political debates. Among the focal points: the Nuremberg and postwar West German trials of Nazis, the fascination with Anne Frank, anti-fascist terror in 1970s Germany, The Berlin Memorial and the US Holocaust Museum, and films such as The Pianist and Schindler's List.

Prerequisites: ( HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5) and ( HIS242H5 or HIS338H5 or HIS339H5)

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS448H5 • Memory, History and South Asia's Contested Pasts

This course focuses on the relationship between memory and the "traditions" of historical writing and remembering in the sub continent from 1200 to the present. It also focuses on the role of politics in mediating the region's multiple, often contesting histories in our period of study.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS382H5 or HIS386H5 or HIS394H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS453H5 • The Klondike Gold Rush

This course investigates the Klondike Gold Rush (Alaska-Yukon, 1896-1900) through the lenses of North American borderlands, environmental, and indigenous history. By viewing the gold rush in the context of growing national and imperial expansion, we will see it was an essential component of a much larger historical process centering on settlement, development, and dispossession.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS262H5 or HIS263Y5 or HIS272H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS454H5 • Race, Gender and Nation in Modern Latin America

This seminar examines the interconnected histories of race, gender and nation in Latin America. It studies the significance of race/racism and gender/patriarchy in the construction of national societies in Latin America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Subtopics include: slavery and Indian servitude; acculturation and eugenics; immigration and urbanization; machismo and marianismo; and current Indian and women's movements.

Prerequisites: ( HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5) and HIS290H5
Exclusions: HIS441H1

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS462H5 • Indigenous North America

This reading and research-based course focuses on the history of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States, while also considering Mexico and the Caribbean. It explores a wide variety of methodologies and topics, examining Indigenous social structures, cultures, and economies alongside the influence of colonialism, capitalism, and nation states.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS262H5 or HIS263Y5 or HIS271H5 or HIS272H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS463H5 • Memory and Memorialization in South African History

This course examines the histories of South Africa through the lens of memory and memorialization. Major themes include gender and sexuality, race and nationalisms, youth and resistance, violence and trauma, the intersections and disconnections between different forms of memory (historical, collective, social) and their relationship to historical methodology and practice.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS295H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS464H5 • Decolonizing Africa

This research-intensive seminar looks at alternative histories of decolonization in Africa, including revolutionary nationalisms, secessionist movements, and pan-Africanism– as well as ongoing debates over boundaries, citizenship, and sovereignty in postcolonial Africa.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Exclusions: HIS493H5 (Winter 2020)
Recommended Preparation: HIS295H5 or HIS325H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS475H5 • The French Revolution

A topical survey of the French Revolution dealing with the uprising in France and its repercussions elsewhere by examining such subjects as its causes, its effect on nations, classes and gender, and its relation to nationalism, socialism and democracy.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: A course in European history

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS479H5 • Cold War America

An examination of significant political, economic, social and intellectual developments, including Cold War Foreign policies, economic and social reforms, McCarthyism, the Civil Rights movement, women's liberation, the "counter-culture,"and the Indochina Wars.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS480H5 • Partition and its Aftermath in South Asia

This course examines the everyday effects of the partition of 1947, and its aftermath, when British India gained independence and was also crafted into new nation states. Amongst other issues, it engages with sexual violence, nation-making, territoriality, rehabilitation, citizenship, and spatiality. More broadly it connects these issues to space, place and historical memory.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5 and HIS282H5.
Recommended Preparation: HIS382H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS483H5 • Colonialism in East Asia

This course examines the ideologies and practices of colonialisms, both internal and external, in modern East Asia.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS284H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS484H5 • Religion and Public Culture in South Asian History

The course examines the role played by religion in shaping public culture and everyday practice in South Asian history. It studies key themes on the subject against a longue-duree perspective.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 and HIS282H5
Recommended Preparation: HIS382H5 or HIS386H5 or HIS394H5

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class

HIS487H5 • Biography: Reading and Writing about the Individual in History

From biopics to memoirs, biography plays an important role in contemporary culture. This seminar asks why, taking up the age-old question about the relationship between the individual and society. The instructor teaches each step in the process of conducting historical research. Students read outstanding biographies, and write an original biography.

Prerequisites: HIS101H5 or HIS102H5 or HIS103H5 or HIS104H5 or HIS105H5 or HIS106H5 or HIS107H5 or HIS108H5
Exclusions: HIS494H5 (Fall 2024)
Recommended Preparation: 0.5 HIS credit at the 200-level; and 0.5 HIS credit at the 300-level

Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Total Instructional Hours: 24S
Mode of Delivery: In Class