HIST3015Inventing Race: A Global History to 1804 (O)3 ch (3C) (W)

Explores the history of race and racism from a global perspective from the Crusades to the end of the Haitian Revolution. Some topics of discussion include the creation of religious ‘others,’ anti-Judaism and early conspiracy theories, the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ and European Empires, the legitimation of racism by the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, the system of racialized chattel slavery, and the Haitian Revolution.

HIST3016Inventing Race: A Global History Since 1804 (O)3 ch (3C) (W)

Explores the history of race and racism from a global perspective from the end of the Haitian Revolution to our contemporary moment. Some topics of discussion include the shift from anti-Judaism to anti-Semitism, the creation of race as a scientific category, the rise of nationalism, eugenics, the Holocaust, punk as a grassroots anti-racism movement, and race and the global pandemic.

HIST3615A History of Slavery through Film and Literature (O)3 ch (3C) (W)

Explores the history of race, slavery, and freedom in the Atlantic World through autobiography, literature, and film. Central themes include the emergence of race as a justification for slavery, the Middle Passage, the construction of slave narratives and the developing genre of autobiography, the politics of abolition, and the changing depictions of slavery in the modern world. 

HIST3616Caribbean History to 1886 (O)3 ch (3C) (W)
This course is a survey of the history of the Caribbean region from the indigenous era, beginning around 6000BC, to the final abolition of slavery in Cuba in 1886. Topics include the society, politics, and culture of the indigenous Caribbean; European trade and settlement; indigenous responses and resistance to conquest; variations in European imperial systems; the transatlantic slave trade; slave law; creolization, plantation slavery and slave society; the politics and culture of the enslaved; enslaved resistance; the Haitian Revolution; agriculture and society beyond the plantation; and slave emancipation.
HIST3624A History of Climate Movement (On-Line Course) (O)3 ch (W)
Examines the origins and evolution of the global climate movement from its beginnings during the 1970s until the present day. The focus will be on the agency of climate activists (both as individuals and within nongovernmental organizations), how the climate movement fits within the history of social movements, the various tactics utilized by activists – e.g., fossil fuel divestment, climate strikes, and “distributed action” – and the success and shortcomings of such efforts, how grassroots climate action has evolved over time and within specific countries, and the factors that have contributed to the recent rapid expansion of the climate movement (e.g., the clear scientific consensus on the looming catastrophe, “climate anxiety” among particularly the young, and the differential impact of climate change on the Global South and the Global North).
HIST3625 Disability History (A) 3ch (3C) (W)
This course uncovers a history of disability on North America from pre-conquest to the twentieth century. Its traces the experiences of individuals and communities of people with a wide range of visible and invisible conditions now understood as "disabilities". Rather than treating disability as merely a medical impairment, we will explore the historical and cultural variability of disability. Topics covered include: indigenous notions of ability and disability; disability and colonialism; education and institutions; gender, sexuality, and race; eugenics; freak shows; social welfare and charitable programs; disability and war; the Deaf community; and the disability rights and/independent living movement.
HIST3662Black Diasporas (O)3 ch (3C) (W)
Explores Africans and their descendants in various geographic spaces, including Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America, from the16th Century to the present. Lectures, readings, discussions, and assignments emphasize several key themes: the indispensability of slavery to the colonial development of the Americas and Europe; the entrenchment of race as a mode of categorical belonging and discrimination; the continuity of multivalent struggles for dignity, freedom, and equality; and the role of gender, geography, and imperial warfare in the shaping of the black diasporas.
HIST4606Gender, Race, and Disability in Colonial Contexts (O)3 ch (3C) (W)
Explores the historical intersections between gender, race, and disability in colonial contexts from 1492 to the present, with a focus on the British Empire. Examines the connections between imperial power and ideas and practices of the body, the role of colonial science in the formulation of ideas about race, sex, and difference, and the role of the penal state in producing disability. We will consider a wide range of themes including conflict and displacement, colonial medicine and health, disability and poverty, slavery and the slave trade, forced migration, state violence and incarceration, resistance and resurgence, and Indigenous, Black, and decolonizing methodologies.
HIST4608Beastly Histories: Humans and Other Animals (O)3 ch (3C) (W)
What defines a human? What defines an animal? Throughout the course of human history, people have interacted with other animals, not only using them for food, clothing, labour and entertainment, but also associating with them as pets and companions, and even appreciating their behaviours intrinsically. Non-human animals have been our symbols and models, and they have even channeled the sacred for us. This course will explore the interactions of humans with other animals from roughly the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. A key theme of this course is the use of animality as a trope to justify the subjugation and dispossession of certain groups of peoples.
HIST4625Gender and Slavery in the Atlantic World (O)3 ch (3C) (W)
The course examines the relationship between gender and the experience of slavery, abolition, and post emancipation in different societies in the Atlantic World from the early 17th century to the late 19th century. Geographic regions covered include Brazil, the Caribbean, Spanish America, the U.S. South, West Africanism and Western Europe. The course discusses themes relating to the impact of slavery and emancipation on the social construction of race, gender identities, class relations, and political authority, in several slaveholding and slavery-based Atlantic world societies. Gender's impact on labour and familial experiences in slaveholding and slavery-based societies is also a major focus. The course is designed to give the students transnational, trans-imperial, and comparative insight into how slavery and gender have shaped relations within and between communications in the Atlantic region.
HIST3675Abolition: From the Slave Trade to Mass Incarceration (O)3 ch (3C) (W)
Explores the history of abolition in the Americas from the slave trade and slavery to the emergence of the modern prison abolition movement and recent developments concerning policing, immigration detention, and carceral spaces of containment. Considers the Atlantic origins of mass incarceration, the resistnaces it spawned, and the consequences of abolition in West Africa, Latin America, North America, and the Caribbean.