43-503. Modes of Historical Interpretation
This course introduces students to a variety of methods and theories currently used to advance historical explanation. Particular attention will be paid to the role of narrative, the place of the social sciences, and the complexities of race, gender, ethnicity, and class in historical writing. Readings will also address the problem of synthesis, postmodernism and the relationship between history and public policy. This course also stresses the development of skills in critical reading and analytical writing.
43-504. Research Methods
This course introduces students to the range of methods and approaches to historical research, and to the problems associated with interpreting various kinds of sources. Students will identify and establish a research problem, in which they define the questions to be posed, and begin to move from broad to narrow approaches to their topic. They will discover and evaluate accessible sources of evidence, and at the same time develop an appropriate methodological and interpretive framework for a specific research project.
43-505. Studies in Culture and the Self
This course will provide a critical approach to one of the most basic issues in Western intellectual culture. Recent scholarship has problematised the old narrative that people in early modern Europe were unique in "discovering" an inner private subject, or self. The course readings will introduce critiques relating to the way people in other times and cultures defined self in relation to culture; we will examine the influence of perceptions of gender, class and race upon modern representations of self, and also the question of whether a sense of the self continues to be meaningful at the turn of the twenty-first century.
43-506. Studies in the History of Sexuality
This course will provide a thematic approach to the foundations of Western attitudes towards sexuality, especially as they developed in premodern Europe. The complex interweaving of ancient ideas, medicine, Christian law and theology, and popular practices and beliefs will be explored. This course is problem oriented and will explore some of the theoretical issues pertaining to the historical study of human sexuality.
43-507. Studies in the History of Women and Gender
This course examines the historiography and theory of these two interrelated fields since 1970. It explores the themes and approaches in early studies of women's organizations, labour, and sexuality; the later growth of attention to differences of culture and power among women; and the more recent emergence of poststructuralism and the study of the interrelation of gender, class, and race. Readings will range across time periods and national boundaries but with an emphasis on the U.S. literature.
43-508. Studies in the History of the Book and the Culture of the Written Word
This course will provide an introduction to the historical problems encountered and interpretive possibilities revealed when books (both artefacts and texts) become the focus of inquiry. Ranging broadly through a variety of disciplinary approaches to manuscript and print cultures on both sides of the Atlantic, we will consider such questions as the complex uses of literacy, and the extent to which technological transformations such as the printing press or the computer have determined literary and cultural change. Studies of the book trades (printing, bookselling, journalism, publishing of all kinds) will be used to illuminate changes in religious, scientific, scholarly, literary and other aspects of the cultures (from medieval to postmodern) in which they flourish.
43-509. Studies in Canadian Social History
The course discusses approaches, methods, and debates in the writing of social history in English Canada since 1970. Topics discussed include historiographical debates over the writing of a “national” history, the writing of labour and working class history, women's history, ethnic and immigration history, the history of sexuality, regional history, and family history. How the categories of class, gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality have been incorporated into the writing of Canadian social history is a focus of consideration.
43-510. Studies in Postcolonial History
This course evaluates important works of history and theory written from a postcolonial perspective. It focuses on novel approaches to studying people whose modern experience began as subordinate subjects of the West’s colonizing projects. The course will also consider the influence of postcolonial scholarship on contemporary historiography in general. (2 lecture hours a week)
43-597. Selected Topics in History
43-598. Selected Topics in History
43-796. Major Paper
A sophisticated scholarly essay, normally amounting to some 40-60 pages, incorporating research on primary sources (in most cases), and written under the supervision of two members of the graduate faculty, a supervisor and a second reader. There will be a public oral examination. Students are advised that they may be required to have proficiency in a language other than English in order to do their research.