Plans de cours

HIS 241 – Canada and the World in the Twentieth Century

Fall 2020, online

Instructor: Dr. David Webster

Class meeting times: Mondays 9-10, plus asynchronous online discussion and work. Meetings take place using Microsoft Teams, discussion and other work is done using the class site on moodle but may also use Teams for some purposes.

Hours: Open office hours Mondays 10-11 (immediately after class). Multiple other times will be available through the online office hours scheduler on moodle.

E-mail: dwebster@ubishops.ca

Course Description

Topics include Canada and imperialism, the two world wars, the development of Canadian foreign policy, the golden age of Canadian diplomacy, Canada and the League of Nations, and the United Nations.

Required Readings

·         Asa McKercher, Canada and the World since 1867 (London: Bloomsbury, 2019)

·         Selected articles and primary sources available via moodle/library catalogue.

Course Requirements and Evaluation

·         Reading responses: 15%

·         Primary source worksheets: 15%

·         Discussion forum contributions: 20%

·         Primary source analysis: 15%

·         Research essay: 35%

As a primarily online course that meets for one hour per week, you will have to do a significant amount of work online, and submit work each week. Assignments are based on an estimate that in addition to one hour in a virtual classroom, you will spend roughly two hours each per week on the moodle discussion forum and simulations of debates in Canadian foreign policy history.

The assignments expected every week use contract grading, meaning you know in advance what mark you will receive based on the guidelines spelled out below. IN effect, this is a contract that you will respond each week and I will assign the mark promised. You may safely miss 2 of the 10 weeks for illness or emergencies with no penalty. If you respond to all 12, then you 2 lowest marks will be dropped. These weekly assignments are:

·         Reading response: each week you will be given a worksheet with assigned questions about the reading. You should complete your answers to those questions and upload them to moodle as a pdf or using the quiz function. You will have 12 opportunities to complete a reading response. The two lowest responses will be dropped (meaning you can safely miss two, if this is necessary, without losing marks). Possible marks: 1.5 (excellent response to all questions); 1 (satisfactory response to all questions); 0.5 (assignment handed in, but responses not satisfactory); or 0 (no response). Aim at 50-100 words per question on these assignments.

·         Primary source analysis: This course spends a substantial amount of time dealing with primary sources in the history of Canadian foreign relations. There will be a self-study primary source workshop on moodle each week that relates to the time period covered by that week. The Department of History and Global Studies uses this definition: “Primary sources are sources produced in the time period under study. Primary sources can vary from written documents to material sources and even oral sources for those who have access to interviews.” Each week, you will be asked to complete a one-page primary document analysis worksheet that asks you to analyse a document. As with the reading responses, you will have 12 opportunities to complete a reading response. The two lowest responses will be dropped (meaning you can safely miss two, if this is necessary, without losing marks). Possible marks: 1.5 (excellent response to all questions); 1 (satisfactory response to all questions); 0.5 (assignment handed in, but responses not satisfactory); or 0 (no response).

·         Discussion forum: Each week we will spend time discussing assigned readings, lectures and primary sources using the discussion forum on moodle. You should plan to make at least three posts each week. One of these should be an original comment on some aspect of the reading, lecture, or assigned primary sources. This may respond to a discussion question from the instructor or another relevant topic of your choice. In these cases, please open a new thread. Two of these responses may be replies to threads opened by others. You may open more than one thread if you wish, and you may post more than three times if you wish. The marks available for this assignment are: 2 (an excellent, thoughtful response to the week’s themes); 1.5 (a good response that meets all expectations); 1 (a partial response that is mostly satisfactory) 0.5 (an unsatisfactory response); or 0 (no response).

 Major assignments:

·         Your primary source analysis will ask you to describe and analyse the key features and messages of one primary source document, selected from the Documents on Canadian External Relations series (or another source, if you obtain instructor permission in advance. This paper should identify the creator, audience, purpose, significance, unanswered questions and any other important elements of the source, and set it in its historical context. In other words, it should answer the five questions/levels of analysis in the departmental research guide at https://www.ubishops.ca/academic-programs/faculty-of-arts-and-science/humanities/history-global-studies/research-guide/. Aim at 700-1,000 words or 2-4 pages double-spaced, but you will not be penalized for going longer.

·         Your research essay is a key component of the course and must show evidence of additional research beyond assigned readings. It requires a research question, a thesis statement (eg “this essay will argue that…”), research using both primary and secondary sources, and a clear conclusion. Alternatively, with instructor permission, you may choose to present your findings visually in the form of a research poster, or as an online project showcasing your research. Please discuss your choice with me in advance.

There is no final exam in this course.

Learning during a pandemic

None of us chose the current conditions. We are all doing this type of course for the first time. The word “unprecedented” is thrown around a lot, but for a reason: we are in uncharted territory. I appreciate that this is tough on everyone. I’ll make mistakes. Your life situation may change. Therefore, I’ve tried to design this course to minimize additional stress. There is no final exam. I am not imposing late penalties for essays, and the idea of contract grading is intended to maximize clarity and certainty as much as possible at a time when the future seems uncertain in too many ways. Please do tell me if at any time it all seems like too much. Your health is more important than any course. If you run into troubles, we will find a solution.

COVID-specific statements/reminders

All faculty, librarians, staff, students, and administrators will be expected to do a basic health assessment each day before coming to campus which will be available online and via the SAFEGAITER app. https://working.ubishops.ca/covid-19/. 

Everyone must stay away from class if ill. Contact the COVID-19 telephone line (1-877-644-4545) if you have any symptoms of the coronavirus. Do not go the University’s Health Clinic.

Communications

Questions are welcome before, after and during class. Apart from office hours, I am happy to arrange to meet with you at other times. You are welcome to send e-mails or contact me via Teams or the course web site. You are also welcome to use the Q&A forum on moodle at any time. I will respond to questions either with an answer or a time when I will be able to answer. If you have not heard back within 48 hours, please re-send, in case the message has gone astray.

As per University regulation, your “ubishops.ca” address is deemed to be the official e-mail between the University and its students. Therefore, you will be e-mailed at your university address as needed. To minimize e-mail volume, I will post most course updates and expectations via moodle. When you visit the moodle page, start with the “Communications Log” at the top of the page.

Submission of written work

All work should be submitted using the course moodle page. If uploading essays, please upload as a pdf, to facilitate online marking. Deadlines for weekly assignments will not be extended, in order to allow the course to move. If you require an extension on one of your other essays, please try to let me know in advance, rather than at the last minute.

Language of instruction

In accordance with the University’s policy on Language of instruction, students have the option to submit individual written work in English or French.

Academic integrity

Plagiarism (a form of academic dishonesty in which one person submits or presents the work of another person as their own), self-plagiarism (submitting the same work in different courses) and cheating (dishonest behaviour, usually in tests or examinations) are not acceptable.

Plagiarism is a kind of academic dishonesty in which an individual uses the work of another without appropriate acknowledgement. Plagiarism includes but is not limited to the following practices:

• Using another’s work without acknowledgement

• Copying material without quotation marks

• Paraphrasing too closely the exact words of the originating author

• Submitting as one’s own work written in whole or in part by another individual

• Submitting in whole or in part work for which the student has received credit in another course, unless the permission of the instructor has been obtained

• Submitting any statement of fact known to be false or providing a fabricated reference to a source

For details, see the university calendar section on plagiarism, available online.

Supporting your Success

Your academic performance is closely tied to your personal well-being and mental health. It is understood that university students encounter setbacks from time to time that can impact their academics. If you encounter difficulties and need assistance, it is important to reach out and take advantage of the resources available to you. For help and information addressing mental or physical health concerns, including meeting with a Bishop’s counsellor or nurse, visit: www.ubishops.ca/student-services/. If you are experiencing any personal difficulties that make it hard for you to meet your course requirements, please talk with your professor(s) or academic Dean. You should also connect with our professionals in student support services for your specific physical or mental health needs.

Accessibility & Accommodation Services

The Student Accessibility & Accommodation Services helps ensure that all students with disabilities have equal access to programs at Bishop’s University. They arrange for reasonable accommodations in accordance with Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the new Act Respecting Equal Access to Employment in Public Bodies and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. For more information: http://www.ubishops.ca/future-current-students/student-campus-life/student-services/student-accessibility-accommodation-services/.

Mental Health

The University values the mental health and wellbeing of its students. Professional counsellors are available to help students deal with personal concerns related to adapting to University life, family problems, relationships, difficulties with drugs & alcohol, depression, anxiety and other matters, all of which are handled in complete confidentiality. To book an appointment with one of these counsellors, contact Ms. Francine Hamel by email (Francine.hamel@ubishops.ca) or by phone at (819) 822-9600 ext. 2695.

Access to library resources

The Library Learning Commons has been expanding use of online sources and now has a new catalogue system. A video on how to sue the new catalogue will be available this term. Many books are available in e-book format. You can also consult google books and JSTOR for access to some book previews. Articles are generally available online. If they are not, you may request a pdf of an article, using the Inter-Library Loan system available for free through the library.

An increasing number of primary sources are available online. I will provide a guide to finding primary sources online in advance of essay due dates.

Access to help centres

Essays at university are expected to be of high quality. The Writing Centre offers free help with planning, organizing, outlining, sentence structure, grammar, referencing and citations. For details and to make an online appointment, visit https://www.ubishops.ca/academic-programs/bu-liberal-education-model/english-writing-proficiency/online-appointment-instructions/.

The Bishop’s University History Association University (BUHA) offers students free help through the Help Centre staffed with upper year students. For details, contact the instructor or BUHA.

Bishop’s University is located on the Traditional and Unceded Territory of the Abenaki People.

Class schedule and readings

The readings should be completed before our class meetings on Mondays. Class topics are subject to change.

Week 1:

Class meeting on Monday, September 14. Topic focus: colonial Canada

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 1, “Dominion-building and empire-building” (to be completed before the first class)

Primary source: Canadian stamp, 1898

Week 2:

Class meeting on Monday, September 21. Topic focus: Imperialism, nationalism and wars

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 2

Primary source: Gordon Sinclair, Footloose in India, excerpts

Simulation: The naval debate

Week 3:

Class meeting on Monday, September 28. Topic focus: Merchants and missionaries

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 3, “Canada and the first age of globalization”

Primary source: House of Commons Debates on Japanese migration, 1908, https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/gentlemens-agreement-1908

Week 4:

Class meeting on Monday, October 5. Topic focus: the war, autonomy and conscription

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 4, “Canada’s Great War”

Primary source: Letter on Canada and the West Indies from Documents on Canadian External Relations

Week 5:

Week of Monday, October 12. Since Monday is Thanksgiving, there is no class meeting this week. Normal assignments will still be posted and expected.

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 5, “North Americanism and the search for peace”

Primary source: Armenia documents

Simulation: Next for Duty? Canada and the Armenia question

Week 6:

Class meeting on Monday, October 19. Topic focus: Canada, intervention and the League of Nations

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 6, “Canada and the Descent to War”

Primary source: Allies not subjects? The Six Nations appeal to the League of Nations, http://historybeyondborders.ca/?p=189

Week 7:

Class meeting on Monday, October 26. Topic focus: A new role in the world?

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 7, “The North Atlantic Triangle from World War to Cold War”

Primary source: Louis St. Laurent, Grey lecture, 1948

Primary source analysis essay due by October 30 at midnight. If you require extra time, please speak with me in advance and let me know what due date you would like.

Week 8:

Class meeting on Monday, November 2. Topic focus: Canada and decolonization

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 8, “The Middle power and the end of empire”

Primary source: letter of instructions to first Canadian ambassador in Indonesia

Week 9:

Class meeting on Monday, November 9. Topic focus: Trade and Vietnam

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 9, “From colony to nation to colony?”

Primary source: Lester Pearson, Temple University speech

Simulation: Sleeping with the elephant: Canada-US relations in crisis

Week 10:

Class meeting on Monday, November 16. Topic focus: Development aid and human rights

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 10, “Canada and the emerging global village”

Primary source: Hugh Keenleyside letter to Lester Pearson

Week 11:

Class meeting on Monday, November 23. Topic focus: Canada vs Quebec; peacekeeping

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 11, “War and peace in the new world order”

Primary source: Canada and peacekeeping speech

Week 12:

Class meeting on Monday, November 30 and Wednesday, December 2 (make-up class for Thanksgiving). Topic focus: environmental and Indigenous diplomacy

Reading: Canada and the World chapter 12, “Globalization redux”

Primary source: Canada accepts UNDRIP speech

The final research essay is due before the exam period starts on Dec. 7: therefore, by Dec. 6 by midnight. If you require extra time, please speak with me in advance and let me know what due date you would like.

This course will explore Canada’s history using material history methods and material culture research.  Using inter-disciplinary approaches including, but not limited to archaeology, art history, Indigenous studies and museum studies, students will examine and contextualize artifacts and objects to learn about Canada’s past using a diversity of digital tools available. Students will evaluate, interpret and create history through their course work throughout the session.

What happens when the study of the past is presented in the digital realm? How does research and writing in a time when millions of significant primary and secondary source texts, photographs, videos, audio sources, artifacts, maps and much more have been made available via academic and public realms? What can/will/should we do to manage big data?

Students will be introduced to a range of works on evaluating, interpreting and creating history using digital tools. Beyond course readings we will also critically engage a range of digital tools and resources as students will also learn how to construct, post, maintain and implement new media in their course work.  This course will explore the current and potential impact of the use of digital media on historical analysis, practice, research and presentation.

This course will explore the history of archives in Canada from the earliest collections to the digital era.  What roles have historians had with archives and how have their roles changed?  Students will explore the challenges and opportunities digitally born sources, digital archives and cloud computing offer historians in the 21st century.

Students will be introduced to a range of works on archives in Canada, the professionalization of archivists and the growth of professional associations within the landscape of galleries, libraries, archives and museums in Canada. Beyond course readings, we will also critically engage a range of digital tools and resources as students will also learn how to construct, post, maintain and implement new media in their course work. This course will explore the current and potential impact of the use of digital media on historical analysis, practice, research and presentation.

When cholera swept around the world in 1832, people struggled to make sense of the experience: medically, morally, and politically. A new, free, and progressive country like Canada should, in theory, have been exempt from such old-world calamities associated with backwardness, filth, poverty, and fatalism. Cholera initiated a century of urgent, practical soul-searching about how processes of human history should be scrutinized and managed. Typhus in 1847, smallpox in 1885 and influenza in 1918 were no less politically and intellectually confounding. When authorities tried to quarantine or hospitalize people, or destroy their property in an effort to clean up local environments, they found their (often very new and fragile) legitimacy tested. Tuberculosis had its own perplexities as the disease, commonly attributed to overcrowding, spread through Indigenous populations in defiance of that precept.

Epidemics and public health unraveled nineteenth-century laissez-faire government. Liberal states had minimal mandates to manage private life; they saw themselves as facilitators of market forces. But what if the market brought death? Adam Smith had made airy promises that such a thing could never be—but there it was, spectacularly on display wherever epidemics were imported. To what extent did epidemics indict market forces or the state—whether liberal or authoritarian? To what extent did they unbind people from ordinary constraints of civil behaviour? What changed first: the medical profession’s ability to give good advice or the state’s administrative abilities? How did a long term shift from epidemic to endemic disease change things? These are some of the scholarly questions we will be addressing in this seminar.

This is a full year, first-year level survey of World History from the 4th century CE to the present. Course description:  This course examines the growth of global connections over the last sixteen hundred years, from about 400 CE to the present. We will begin by looking at how people, ideas, and things travelled over vast distances throughout the Pacific, American, Mediterranean, African and Eurasians worlds, stimulating commodity trades, religious innovation, and the intermingling of populations. This increase in traffic supported many far-flung empires, including those in Scandinavia, West Africa, the Middle East, Central America, and northern Asia. The first semester of the course will be devoted to tracing connections and analyzing the hybrid political and cultural formations that were engendered as people promoted, resisted, and negotiated their way through growing translocal networks. The second half of the course will be focused on the last three hundred years, the so-called modern era. We will discuss the systems and effects of the past few centuries of globalization in terms of mass migrations, industrialization, environmental change, global communications infrastructure, universalist ideas, the international system, multinational corporations, consumer culture, world war, and transnational activism. In addition to learning the content of global history, students will also develop the skills necessary to write history: identifying the difference between primary and secondary sources, analyzing and interpreting evidence, engaging in research, crafting historical arguments, and evaluating historical claims in today’s popular culture.

This is the 2nd half of a first-year survey on World History. This half uses Donald Wright’s book The World and a Very Small Place in Africa as its main textbook.  Course description: The Winter term will continue to expose students to historically informed, critical analyses that frame contemporary discussions about globalization but we’ll do so by focusing on three interrelated lines of inquiry:
·      How have relationships between the “local” and the “global” changed over time and why is this important? Who and what are local and who and what are global?
·      What can the histories of hybridity and appropriation tell us about world history?
·      How can we study the relationship between globalization and power inequality and how it has changed over time? Why should we?
We’ll be examining historical case studies from about 1250 CE to the present.  These will include discussions about the Mongol Empire, the Indian Ocean World, the histories of various global commodity chains, European empires in the nineteenth century, the rise of fascism as an anti-globalization stance, transnationalism, transnational resistance movements, and the digital revolution.

This is a third year course in European imperial/colonial histories. Course description: “Globalization” and “imperialism” are both terms fraught with ambiguity and overuse.  Some, believing in visions of inevitable progress, argue that as populations have grown and technologies have become more sophisticated, the world has naturally become more “globalized” or more integrated in political, social, economic, and even cultural ways.  Others argue that this interconnectivity has come about not because of natural growth but through projects designed to exploit peoples around the world.  They read the term “globalization” as a kinder, gentler way of describing Western imperialism in its present day incarnation. By examining various empires in world history and with particular emphasis on modern European imperialism, this course will explore the relationship between empire and globalization. Four themes will be: difference; intermediaries; resistance; the global. Specific content to be discussed will include: mercantilism, the Atlantic slave trade, science and medicine, time, religion and civilizing missions, the colonial archive, racialized and gendered categories of difference, reproduction and sexuality, métissage, technology, bureaucracy, nationalism and citizenship, decolonization, Commonwealth, postcoloniality, and indigenous resistance movements.

This is the winter half of a first-year survey course on « The Making of Europe. »  Course description:  This course surveys the origins, development and continuities of the dominant European societies from Antiquity through to the present day.  The Fall term of the course explored the development of the physical, cultural, and political space that would become known as Europe from Antiquity to the Renaissance.  The Winter term will follow these themes from the seventeenth century to the present, considering the rise of new social and intellectual communities, the development of nation-states and modern empires, and how European culture both shaped and was shaped by substantial interaction with the wider world.  This course provides a general overview of European history by focusing on key themes:
·       forms and uses of power
·       the creation and control of religious belief and worship
·       social and cultural exchange
·       transformation of communication structures and forms of cultural representation
·       gender/sex/sexuality/class/race
In addition to providing an overview of the history of Europe, this course teaches students the basic tools of academic historical inquiry.  Lectures will offer an outline of major historical currents and ask the student to engage with many different ways of doing history.  In discussion groups, students will read, analyze, and discuss primary sources under the direction of a Teaching Assistant. Students will be asked to adopt a critical attitude towards the past and to understand what sorts of questions can be answered by different types of sources.

Course Description: In this course we will examine the History of the Body in two interrelated ways: as a topic and as a methodology. As a topic, we will talk about how ideas about physical attributes, body parts, and bodies in general have developed over time, space, and cultural context. What does hair or scars or height or skin colour say about us, to whom, and how does this change from context to context? How have people worked within or resisted these ideas? Who has had the power to make pronouncements about the body and how have these pronouncements shaped the world we live in?  Thinking about the histories of bodies and body parts will lead us to examine health, science, religion, and ideas about sex, gender, sexuality, race, class, and many more “categories of difference” that some argue are biologically “true” and others contend are cultural assumptions. Who decides “the Truth” about bodies, now or in the past?  Modules within the course will be based on the histories of certain body parts or bodily processes: bones, eyes, stomachs, penises, legs, and so on. As a methodology,we can think of the body as a perspective from which we can analyze any historical topic, not just ones that are pointedly about bodies. We will study how ideas about the abled versus the disabled body changed over time and how they offer us unparalleled insight into power structures of the past. We will also study how people worked within and fought against various kinds of ableism.
tl;dr This course is about three things: 1) how ideas about bodies and body parts have changed over time; 2) how we can better understand all historical contexts by thinking about them from the perspective of the body; and 3) how ableism and the concepts of the abled versus disabled body have been fundamental to societies in the past and present.   Most – but not all — case studies we will look at will be from European history.

This is a full year course taught to a small group of 25 incoming first-years of any major. Course Description: From Sherlock Holmes to Ripper Street, Dracula to Queen Victoria, we continue to be fascinated by nineteenth-century London as the “city of dreadful delight.”  This course will examine the causes and consequences of the city’s « modernization » between the 1830s and early 1900s as it was shaped by new technologies, the politics of reform, mass migration, industrialization, environmental crises, cholera, the threat of rebellion, hunger, population pressure, and crime.  We will look at topics such as the Thames river, sewage, and clean water infrastructure; the East End versus the West End; overlapping administrative jurisdictions; the rise of department stores and shopping culture; museums, cemeteries and parks as places of leisure; London as a port-city-center of a vast empire; immigration and racism; the flâneur and the flâneuse, so-called urban wanderers; class and fashion; the Great Exhibition; Chartism and Anglo-African activist William Cuffay; ideas about crime and criminality; the politics of housing, public transport, and mobility; newspapers and print culture; photography and the city; and ideas about gender and sexuality.  In addition to exploring the history of Victorian London, this course will also be an introduction to the methodologies of historical research, writing, and thinking.