History | Special topics courses

classroom — Faculty of Arts

Department of History

Special topics courses

Each year, the department offers unique courses with changing content. This is your opportunity to explore specialized topics with our experts!

Undergraduate

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 1100	3 units	History Labs: African Canadian History in Global Context	Saje Mathieu	People of African descent have been in Canada since the early 1600s and have remained an uninterrupted constitutive presence in Canadian life. This course explores the history of Black people in Canada while also tracing their connections to the broader Black Diaspora. Topics examined include slavery, immigration, law, the Civil Rights era, and Cold War racial politics.
HIS 3150A	3 units	Selected Topics in American History: US Foreign Policy, 1776-1910	Lotfi Ben Rejeb	The long 19th century is fundamental to understand the origins of U.S. foreign policy, its evolution, and its growing influence in the world. The course examines the main actors and events that shaped the history of U.S. foreign relations from their birth to their international breakthrough in the 20th century, and their key approaches (neutralism, isolationism, exceptionalism, paternalism, messianism, imperialism, hegemonism). Students must write two papers (a primary source analysis and a research paper) and take a final exam on the course content.
HIS 3110B	3 units	Topics in Ancient History I: Early Medieval Spain 400-1000: Romans, Visigoths, and Muslims	Part time professor	This course shall present a contextualization for the Reconquista and examine the origins of Islamic extremist claims regarding al-Andalus. It will also analyze the transformation of late Roman society as well as Visigothic church councils and the complexity of post-Arab conquest religion in the peninsula with Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
HIS 3150B	3 units	Selected Topics in American History: History of Childhood	Heather Murray	Children have long been a major preoccupation in American society, whether of religious thinkers and other moral observers, psychologists, or politicians. This course places this attention paid to children’s lives in historical perspective from early America until the present day, with an emphasis on the 20th century. We will pay particular attention to how children have been perceived in American thought and culture, as well as how and why children have become sites of American “culture wars” over time. And we will historicize a central animating image of childhood as a time of complete innocence on the one hand to childhood as a time of cruelty and violence on the other.
HIS 3510	3 crédits	Thèmes choisis en histoire ancienne I : Une histoire du sport antique	Professeur à temps partiel	Ce cours est une histoire de la poussière, de la sueur et du sang. C’est aussi une histoire de la paresse, de la mollesse et de la tricherie. De la Grèce à Rome, la culture physique (ex. : l’entraînement, l’hygiène, l’épreuve, le spectacle) interroge notre appréciation de l’excellence. Notre démarche historique est axée sur l’esthétique et la morale. Nu, huilé, bronzé, qu’est-ce que le corps de l’athlète peut nous apprendre du désir d’exceller et du désir de voir l’excellence à l’œuvre ?
HIS 3505 / MDV 3500	3 crédits	De la source au texte : Jeanne d’Arc, de l’hérétique à la sainte	Kouky Fianu	Active sur la scène politique pendant deux ans seulement (1429-1431), Jeanne d’Arc est l’une des figures marquantes de l’histoire occidentale. Présentée tour à tour comme prophète, hérétique, sainte ou folle, son mythe a traversé les siècles, porté par différents mouvements religieux, culturels ou politiques. Ce cours a pour objectif de comprendre comment et pourquoi ont été créées ces différentes facettes de Jeanne (textes, images, représentations, films), quels usages on en a fait au cours des siècles et comment les analyser. Ensemble, nous étudierons la façon dont différentes périodes et divers lieux ont exploité la figure de Jeanne d’Arc, ou comment l’on est passé tout au long des siècles de la « source » au « texte ».
HIS 3775	3 crédits	Thèmes choisis en histoire du Canada : La culture matérielle	Sarah Templier	Ce cours explore l’histoire de la colonisation du Canada au travers de divers objets tels que les fourrures, mocassins, manteaux-couvertures, canots, raquettes de neige, ceintures de wampums, ainsi que des pratiques décoratives et ornementales. Nous étudierons les origines autochtones et européennes de plusieurs de ces objets et de comment, leur signification dans l’histoire et l’identité canadienne évolue au fil du temps au travers de divers processus d’appropriation, d’industrialisaiton, de commercialisation et de décontextualisation auxquels participent plusieurs groupes (marchands, chercheurs, soldats et officiers, artistes) et institutions (gouvernement, université, musée).

These seminars are reserved for students in history (majors, honours specialisation, and joint honours). You are limited to the number of seminars required to graduate, unless you receive special permission from the department.

If you register without permission for more seminars than you need, we will have to remove you from the extra seminar.

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 4100	3 units	History Across Borders: History of Modern Palestine and Arab-Israeli Conflict	Ryme Seferdjeli	This seminar explores the history of modern Palestine and of the Arab Israeli conflict from the Ottoman period to the present. Selected themes will include Palestine during the Ottoman rule, World War I and the Palestine question, the British mandate in Palestine, the 1948 war and the creation of the state of Israel, the 1967 and 1973 wars, life under occupation, the Intifada and the Oslo peace process. The course will also explore debates and competing narratives in the historiography on specific historical events such as the 1948 and 1967 wars. The seminar will end with a discussion of current events connecting the past to the present with a large focus on Gaza, from the 16-year blockade of Gaza to the ongoing near-total destruction of Gaza.
HIS 4150	3 units	Ancient History Seminar: Slavery in the Ancient World	Jitse Dijkstra	In this advanced undergraduate course, we will focus on slavery in the ancient world. While modern slave societies, such as the southern United States before the Civil War have received much attention, what do we know about the slave societies of ancient Greece and Rome? In this course, we will gain insights into what life as an enslaved person was like in Antiquity and how enslaved persons functioned within society, as well as the limitations of our sources in studying them. Parallels with modern examples will occasionally be discussed, but the difficulties of drawing such parallels will also be demonstrated. In the second part of the course, the emphasis will shift to your own research on an aspect of ancient slavery of your choice.
HIS 4151	3 units	Seminar in American History: American Revolution and Society	Lotfi Ben Rejeb	In this seminar we look at the construction of the American nation-state during the revolutionary and early national period, 1776-1830, in the political, economic, social, and cultural arenas. We examine the importance of the Enlightenment in that process, the nature of the American revolution, the emergence of new republican institutions, the development of a post-mercantilist economy, the place of minorities in society, the transformation of religion, the reorganization of education and culture, and the rise of a national identity discourse. To conclude, we look at the impressions that the new and complex American experience left on contemporary foreign observers. The seminar is based on intensive readings of primary and secondary sources. Students must give two oral presentations about the readings and are expected to actively participate in all class discussions. They must also produce a 20-page research paper on a subject of their choice. Presence at every class is mandatory.
HIS 4184	3 units	Seminar in Asian History: Khmer Rouge Rule in Cambodia	Micheline Lessard	This course examines the political factors that led the Khmer Rouge to power in Cambodia in 1975 and the ways in which Khmer Rouge rule evolved. Over the course of the term we will also engage in reading and analysis of Khmer Rouge economic, social, cultural, and political policies. We will trace the factors (internal and external) that led to a genocidal turn between 1975 and 1979. Finally we will dissect the findings of the International Tribunal and the trials of high level Khmer Rouge leaders. Our discussions and analyses will rest upon the use of primary and secondary sources. These will include testimonies, writings, interviews, reports, and scholarly studies.
HIS 4192	3 units	Seminar in the History of the Middle East and North Africa: History of Women, Gender and Sexuality in Islam	Ryme Seferdjeli	This seminar examines the status and position of women in Islam from the rise of Islam to the present. Themes will include women during the time of the prophet; women during the medieval period; women, sexuality and gender in the Qur’an, the Sunnah and Islamic law; historical and contemporary debates about women and the construction of gender in Islam; women’s participation in the interpretation of religion and law, and LGBTQ+ in Islam. Generally, the course will strike a balance between chronological and thematical approaches.
HIS 4582	3 crédits	Séminaire en histoire des femmes : Femmes et révolutions	Sylvie Perrier	Ce séminaire va explorer les rôles occupés par les femmes dans le cadre de révolutions politiques, analyser le type d’actions qu’elles ont posé et évaluer l’impact de leur participation dans un contexte politique agité. Nous développerons l’exemple de la Révolution française (1789-1799) par le biais de sources et d’études ciblées pour en tirer un cadre théorique et comparatif général. Les participant.e.s pourront travailler sur l’événement révolutionnaire de leur choix et présenter le fruit de leur recherche en classe.

These courses are reserved for students in history (majors, honours specialisation, and joint honours). You are therefore limited to the number required to graduate, unless you receive special permission from the department.

If you register without permission for more 4000 courses or seminars than you need, we will have to remove you from the extra seminar.

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 4301B	3 units	Selected Topics in History Across Borders: Immigration in North America	Saje Mathieu	This course analyses the history of immigration patterns, experiences, and politics across North America. The course explores the ways in which migrants from across the globe made new lives in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean basin from the 1600s to the Twenty-First Century.
HIS 4361	3 units	Selected Topics in American History: The 1950’s	François Lalonde	This course analyses the evolution of American society and culture in the 1950s. We will be looking at the impact of race, culture, gender and politics in shaping American society in this pivotal decade of the early Cold War.

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 2351B	3 units	Selected Topics in Contemporary History: Global 1930s: Fascism and Problem of Evil	Thomas Boogaart	The Great Depression represented not only a shock for the world economy but also an existential crisis for liberal democracy, Western culture, and laissez-faire capitalism. Global depression generated mass unemployment, extremism eroded civil society, and aggressive ‘bandit states’ knocked the Versailles international system off its moorings. The ‘Devil’s Decade’ highlights the zeitgeist of the 1930s; how economic malaise, cultural anxieties, and political dysfunction came into convergence to spur various forms of ideological radicalism and political extremism from fascism to New Deal socialism, murderous Stalinism, and Japanese ultra-nationalism. Novels, poems, and film provide a lens for digging deeper into this era of darkness and despair, enabling us to excavate the mentalité of contemporaries coping with this decade’s many calamities: The Dust Bowl, Ukraine’s Holodomor, the Nanking Massacre, Spanish Civil War, and Kristallnacht.
HIS 3105B	3 units	Primary Source Lab through Case Studies in the History of the Holocaust	Jan Grabowski	This course will provide students with the tools needed to handle specific types of sources and introduce specific methods and approaches. The course is styled as a “lab” for its exploratory and participatory nature. It involves hands-on, exercise-based historical practice. We will study particular moments in the history of the Holocaust through close examination of primary sources. The sources will include government and private archival records, newspapers, court documents, memoirs, maps, material culture, films, oral history, as well as secondary sources. Students are expected to be present and active participants in every class.
HIS 3110C	3 units	Topics in Ancient History I: The Punic Wars	Part-time professor	Spanning over a century, the wars between Roman and Carthage marked a significant shift in the history of the ancient world. The Punic wars saw Rome go from an Italian power to the foremost hegemonic state in the Mediterranean. Carthage, on the other hand, although once the head of a large empire, was completely destroyed. Beforehand, the Carthaginian general Hannibal staged a fabled crossing of the Alps, invaded Italy, and brought the Roman Republic almost to its knees. This existential threat ushered in an era of fundamental military, economic, and societal change at Rome, and give birth to a class of professional generals, the foremost of whom being Scipio Africanus. Along with examining the causes and major events of the Punic Wars, this course will analyse how these conflicts created long-term changes in society, politics, as well as the concept of gender at Rome. We will also look at how the reception of the conflicts was shaped by the histories of Polybios and Livy, so that the the Hannibalic War would come to be seen as the high point of Roman history, with those who lived in the period being viewed by their descendants as Rome’s ‘greatest generation’.
HIS 3150	3 units	Selected Topics in American History: African American History since 1865	Saje Mathieu	This course explores African American history from 1865 to the present. It analyzes the social, political, legal, and cultural dimensions of the African American experience in the United States throughout critical historical moments such as Reconstruction, segregation, suffrage, the Great Migration, World War One, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement, and contemporary racial politics.
HIS 3180	3 units	Selected Topics in Asian History: Human Trafficking in Asia	Micheline Lessard	This course will examine the history of trafficking in East and Southeast Asia from the 18th century to the present. We will explore the concept of piracy and trafficking by linking these phenomena to their economic, cultural, social, racial, and colonial contexts. Over the course of the term we will explore the definitions of piracy and human traficking. We will begin by exploring how they have evolved over time, in a quite "longue durée." In order to understand the perpetual nature of trafficking we will focus on the key historical (and contemporary) conditions that lend themselves to this illicit trade.
HIS 3301D	3 units	History Across Borders: The Age of Revolutions	Sarah Templier	A string of political revolutions spanning the Atlantic world started with the American Revolution. The French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Spanish-American Revolution(s), and the Patriots’ Revolt. As these revolutions transformed Western societies, so was the Industrial Revolution. The course tackles all these revolutionary moments to understand how these events are interconnected and why together they form an “Age of Revolutions.”
HIS 3510B	3 crédits	Thèmes choisis en histoire ancienne I : Hérodote	Geoffrey Greatrex	Le cours se basera sur « Les Histoires » (ou plutôt, « L’enquête ») d’Hérodote: au fil du trimestre on lira l’ouvrage entier (en traduction française). On se penchera non seulement sur l’auteur et son œuvre, mais aussi sur le monde qu’il décrit et la manière dont il en traite.
HIS 3550	3 crédits	Thèmes choisis en histoire américaine : Politique étrangère des Etats-Unis, 1776-1910	Lotfi Ben Rejeb	Le long 19e siècle est fondamental pour comprendre les origines de la politique étrangère des États-Unis, son évolution, et son influence grandissante dans le monde. Ce cours examine les évènements et personnages principaux qui ont façonné l’histoire des relations extérieures des États-Unis depuis leur naissance jusqu’à leur percée sur la scène mondiale au 20e siècle, et qui ont marqué leurs grandes orientations (neutralisme, isolationnisme, exceptionnalisme, paternalisme, messianisme, impérialisme, hégémonisme). Les étudiants feront deux travaux (analyse de sources primaires et dissertation), et un examen final portant sur le contenu du cours est prévu à la fin de la session. Ce cours est basé sur des lectures en français et en anglais.

These seminars are reserved for students in history (majors, honours specialisation, and joint honours). You are limited to the number of seminars required to graduate, unless you receive special permission from the department.

If you register without permission for more seminars than you need, we will have to remove you from the extra seminar.

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 4135D	3 units	Seminar in Canadian History: From pewter dishes to chamber pots and washing machines: Where there ever “consumer revolutions” in Canada?	Béatrice Craig	Post-industrial economies are driven by consumption, and Canada is no exception. Built-in obsolescence insures that we constantly want new consumer goods, and we take their diversity and availability for granted. This, of course, has not always been the case. Our relationship with the “world of goods” has significantly changed over the centuries, and historians of consumption have even identified several “consumer revolutions” which have occurred in the western world and Japan since the seventeenth century. In this seminar, we will try to find out whether there were such “consumer revolutions” in Canada, and how typical or not they were? In particular, we will address the following questions: Does it matter to know consumption has a history and why? What do we know about the history of consumption in Canada (starting with New France). How has consumption evolved over time? Any turning points? Were there revolutions or merely evolutions? More specifically, who purchased what, when and where? How did this change over time? What do consumption patterns tell us about the meaning(s) people gave to goods? What this shaped by gender, age, occupation, class, race/ethnicity, migrant status, religion or place of residence? What goods were distributed where, when and how? How fast did new ones appear on various markets and how quickly were they adopted? How have Canadian historians approached the subject? What aspects of consumption have attracted their attention? Why those rather than others?
HIS 4135 E / EAS 4364	3 units	Seminar in Canadian History: The Indian Act	Daniel Rück	The Canadian government first passed the consolidated Indian Act 1876 as the principal statute through which it governs First Nations communities. This seminar course considers how the Indian Act came to be, how it evolved over time, how First Nations attempted to shape it, and how they have been impacted by it. Students will read different iterations of the Indian Act itself, as well as a variety of texts that situate the Indian Act in Canadian history and in the global history of Indigenous dispossession and settler colonialism. Students will take an active part in leading discussions and will do a major research project.
HIS 4151B	3 units	Seminar in American History: US Foreign Policy History since Wilson	Gallen Roger Perras	A regional power in 1914, America did not enter World War I until 1917. Despite Woodrow Wilson’s efforts, the Allies inflicted a punitive peace while isolationist Americans rejected a global US role. Thus, while America was involved economically with other nations, it declined diplomatic or military commitments to combat Italy, Japan, and Germany in the interwar period. In 1939, America declared neutrality, though by 1941 it was aiding Britain, fighting an undeclared naval war with Germany, and confronting Japan. Once America went to war in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt, powered by his nation’s immense economic and military might, sought to control the Allied war effort and decisively shape the postwar world. After 1945, America faced a Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union that led to wars in Korea and Vietnam, a confrontation that ended with the Soviet collapse in 1991.
HIS 4397	3 units	Seminar in European History: Perpetrators, Victims and Bystanders	Jan Grabowski	The seminar will focus on various aspects of the Shoah, or the extermination of European Jews. You will examine the historiographical debates surrounding this topic and will thoroughly familiarize yourselves with the pertinent historical literature. In our work we will pay particular attention to the relationships between the Jews and the local non-Jewish populations before, during and after the Holocaust.
HIS 4535	3 crédits	Séminaire en histoire du Canada : Francophonies canadiennes et révolutions tranquilles	Michel Bock	Depuis les années 1960, les francophonies canadiennes ont vécu, comme le Québec, leurs propres « révolutions tranquilles ». D’une part, elles ont connu de profonds bouleversements attribuables, notamment, à la mutation de leurs valeurs culturelles, à l’apparition d’une grande variété de mouvements sociaux contestataires en leur sein, à la transformation de leurs structures sociales, ainsi qu’aux exigences éthiques de la décolonisation et du pluralisme ethnoculturel. D’autre part, les luttes qu’elles ont menées historiquement contre l’inégalité culturelle, socio-économique et politique les ont conduites à adopter de nouvelles formes de mobilisation collective, sans toutefois écarter complètement de leur univers mental des référents intellectuels plus anciens. Dans le cadre de ce séminaire, nous tâcherons de comprendre la manière dont les francophonies canadiennes (Ontario français, Acadie, francophonies de l’Ouest) ont cherché à assurer leur pérennité dans un contexte où l’assimilation linguistique et l’acculturation ont souvent été appréhendées comme des défis à caractère existentiel. Parmi les thèmes à l’étude, mentionnons les suivants : action politique ; refondations identitaires ; complexité du rapport au Québec, à la majorité anglo-canadienne et à l’autochtonie ; mémoire des luttes historiques (Déportation des Acadiens, interdiction de l’enseignement français à l’extérieur du Québec) ; etc.
HIS 4550	3 crédits	Séminaire en histoire ancienne : L’Âge Axial : les changements sociaux en Grèce archaïque	Professeur à temps partiel	Le séminaire portera sur les changements en Grèce ancienne durant la période archaïque (VIIIe-VIe siècle avant notre ère), ce qu’on appelle l’Âge Axial. Nous étudierons ces changements à différents niveaux de la culture : sociaux, économiques, politiques, religieux, intellectuels, artistiques, à partir de différents documents et en nous appuyant sur les analyses classiques ou modernes. Le but sera de découvrir et/ou explorer quelques enjeux de la période et de la méthode historique
HIS 4551	3 crédits	Séminaire en histoire des États-Unis : La culture de la Guerre Froide	François Lalonde	Ce séminaire vise à explorer l’influence de la Guerre froide sur le peuple américain. Nous étudierons l’impact de ce conflit mondial sur de nombreux aspects de la vie quotidienne, notamment les médias, la littérature, le sport, la politique, la religion et l’éducation. Ce faisant, nous explorerons comment la Guerre froide a façonné la société américaine de 1945 à 1990.
HIS 4720 / MDV 4500	3 crédits	Séminaire en histoire médiévale : La sorcellerie en Europe, 14e–17e siècle	Kouky Fianu	Ce séminaire a pour objectif d’étudier le développement de la sorcellerie en Europe entre le XIVe et le XVIIe siècle. La figure du sorcier et de la sorcière se développe à partir de celle de l’hérétique, caractérisé par la désobéissance aux normes dictées par l’Église. La sorcellerie telle qu’elle se manifeste au XVe siècle associe des pratiques occultes, magiques, à la présence du Diable, pour élaborer un personnage menaçant la société tout entière et que les autorités laïques ou religieuses ont pourchassé. Le séminaire est fondé sur l’analyse de documents produits entre XIVe et XVIIe siècles (traités, procès, récits, images) pour comprendre la manière dont les sorciers et les sorcières ont été décrit.e.s et perçu.e.s, mais aussi comment leur description a évolué au cours des siècles. Nous tenterons de saisir qui étaient ces agents diaboliques qui terrorisèrent les Européens.

These courses are reserved for students in history (majors, honours specialisation, and joint honours). You are therefore limited to the number required to graduate, unless you receive special permission from the department.

If you register without permission for more 4000 courses or seminars than you need, we will have to remove you from the extra seminar.

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 4301C / THE 4101	3 units	Selected Topics in History Across Borders: History of Trauma	Heather Murray	Trauma, as a psychiatric concept, tends to consider the experiences of former combat soldiers or people who have experienced physical, emotional, and sexual violence; there is a vast literature on individuals who have been traumatized in both wartime and domestic contexts. As scholars were digesting the traumas of the twentieth century at the turn of the millennium, an array of theoretical works emerged about the idea of what it means to have experiences and memories that are not diminished by time and refuse to ebb into the past. This course will offer you a history of the concept of trauma as a psychiatric diagnosis and a more philosophical phenomenon, while exploring an array of experiences that have produced trauma over time, such as wars, genocides, slavery, environmental devastation and natural disasters, and domestic forms of violence and how these have been imagined and represented. We will also explore critiques of the concept of trauma, from those who find it implicated in “victimology” and an overly “psychiatrized” society wherein we are all circumscribed in “states of injury”, to those who find it a frame of analysis that does not work in the face of the deep past, to those who simply find it an overused, even trivializing, term and idea, as well as those who feel that the “trauma model” of human experience too easily under-acknowledges and displaces human resilience. We will then explore how trauma has been represented in the arts, and the ethical ramifications of portraying it, particularly on the stage. Our readings will include theoretical, psychiatric and philosophical works on the concept of trauma, primary sources (particularly film, literature, and testimony), as well as historiography that are both transnational and transhistorical.
HIS 4361B	3 units	Selected Topics in American History: Media and Politics from Andrew Jackson to Donald Trump	François Lalonde	This course will look at the role played by media in American politics from the early republic until today. We will follow a thematic approach centered on different types of media and technologies to explore the evolution of communications between American politicians and the electorate. We will look at how the printing press, radio, television, cinema, 24-hour news networks, the internet and social media impacted the relationship between the American people and their elected officials.

Graduate

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 6103	3 units	Seminar in American History: US Foreign Policy History	Gallen Roger Perras	This course studies 20th Century US foreign policy using many interpretive schools. Various subjects will be discussed, notably: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Dollar Diplomacy, Isolationism, Franklin Roosevelt & Road to War, World War Two, Atomic Diplomacy, Cold War, Korea, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, & Nixon-Kissinger Years.
HIS 7103	3 units	Seminar in European History : Central Europe and the Crisis of Europe	Roman Krakovsky	Since the 19th century, Europe has faced a succession of profound crises—from the rise of ideologies that fueled modern authoritarianism and the extreme violence of the two World Wars, to the questioning of the social contract since the 1970s and the illiberal turn of today. Many of these crises began in Central and Eastern Europe, where their impact was particularly intense. In this course, we will closely examine these pivotal moments to uncover the underlying dyna-mics that have shaped European societies. By analyzing how these crises emerged and evolved across different regions, you will gain a deeper understanding of their transformative effects on the continent. Explore Europe’s turbulent past and develop the skills to critically analyze contemporary challenges by examining historical crises.
HIS 7330	3 units	Seminar on Comparative History: Environmental History	Daniel Rück	This graduate seminar in Environmental History critically examines the reciprocal relationships between human societies and the environment across diverse temporal and geographic contexts. Emphasizing historiographical debates and methodolo-gical approaches, the course engages with key themes such as colonialism, resource extraction, environmental justice, and global ecological change. Students will analyze primary and secondary sources to explore how environmental narratives have shaped, and been shaped by, power dynamics, scientific knowledge, and cultural perceptions. The seminar fosters advanced research and discussion, preparing students to contribute original scholarship to the evolving field of environmental history.
HIS 7503	3 crédits	Séminaire en histoire européenne : La mémoire et la commémoration de l’Holocauste en Europe et au-delà	Jan Grabowski	L’Holocauste est devenu une référence universelle du mal et l’un des rares événements historiques qui suscitent l’attention et les réactions du monde entier. Malgré le temps qui passe, les discussions et les controverses autour de l’histoire et de la signification de l’Holocauste ne diminuent pas. Bien au contraire, plus nous nous éloignons chronologiquement de l’événe-ment, plus il occupe une place prépondé-rante dans le discours public. Le séminaire examinera de près les « batailles de mémoire » qui entourent la commémoration et la compréhension de la Shoah dans certains pays européens et au Canada.
HIS 7733	3 crédits	Séminaire en relations internationales : Étude critique du droit dans un monde post-impérial	Meredith Terretta	L’ambition du présent séminaire est de concilier à la fois une perspective juridique et de sciences sociales sur la compréhension du regard de la Critical Race Theory (CRT) et des Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) quant à l’étude du Droit en langue française. La Critical Race Theory trouve son émergence dans le champ juridique étatsunien dans les années 1980. On date la naissance de la seconde génération des TWAIL au milieu des années 1990. Or, s’agissant précisément des TWAIL, il est aujourd’hui admis que ses auteurs pionniers proviennent des espaces anciennement colonisés (francophones et anglophones) ; de même, les CRT ont admis à la même période la nécessité de sortir d’une approche américano-centrée visant à étudier les hiérarchies raciales et leurs variantes, à l’échelle mondiale. Aussi, ce projet de séminaire poursuit-il un double objectif : 1) décentrer le regard habituel des travaux nord-américains consacrés à l’étude juridique comparée des discriminations raciales ; 2) identifier les généalogies intellectuelles de l’antiracisme ayant conduit à la constitution des TWAIL à partir des années 1970.

Course Code	Course units	Course Name	Professor	Course topic
HIS 6732	3 crédits	Séminaire en histoire numérique et publique : L’Amérique du Nord numérique	Sarah Templier	Par l’étude de projets et travaux en histoire numérique portant sur l’Amérique du Nord, nous explorerons l’impact des humanités numériques, de ses techniques et technologies sur les pratiques en histoire publique.
HIS 7103	3 units	Seminar on Comparative History	Part time professor
HIS 7338	3 units	Seminar on the History of Colonialism and Post Colonialism: History of Modern Palestine and Arab-Israeli Conflict	Ryme Seferdjeli	This seminar explores the history of modern Palestine and of the Arab Israeli conflict from the Ottoman period to the present. Selected themes will include Palestine during Ottoman rule, World War I and the Palestine question, the British mandate in Palestine, the 1948 war and the creation of the state of Israel, the 1967 and 1973 wars, life under occupation, the Intifada and the Oslo peace process. The course will also explore debates and competing narratives in the historiography on specific historical events such as the 1948 and 1967 wars. The seminar will end with a discussion of current events connecting the past to the present with a large focus on Gaza - from the 16-year blockade of Gaza to the ongoing near-total destruction of Gaza.

Contact us

Department of History

Desmarais Building
55 Laurier Avenue East, 9th Floor
Ottawa ON Canada K1N 6N5
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Tel.: 613-562-5735
Fax: 613-562-5995
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Office hours

Monday to Friday
From 8:45 a.m. to 12 p.m.
From 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
(June to August: closes at 3:30 p.m.)

Special topics courses