First-year courses

We’re debuting a new first-year experience with five innovative courses for 2020-21. All of our courses will give you a chance to connect virtually with your professor and classmates, while providing all course materials and assignments online.

Questions? Contact Dr. Nina Reid-Maroney nreidmar@uwo.ca

History at Huron Fall 2020 video!

HISTORY 1800F The People’s Histories (0.5 course)

This course offers a hands-on introduction to the study and the practice of History, using “the People’s histories” as our unifying theme. Taking in a range of topics across time and geographies, the course focuses on histories of ordinary people and seeks to look at the world through the lens of their experience. We find “the People’s History” where ordinary people lived and shaped their own History, from ancient Rome to modern protest movements.

HISTORY 1816F Histories of Violence (0.5 course)

What defines an action as violence? How have these definitions of violence in past societies changed over time? How do we interpret violent acts in the past without either condemning them or acting as passive observers? This course will explore these questions using the historiographical tools from broader political and social histories. Beginning with the broad debates in the histories of violence, we will then examine examples of violence from various historical periods, looking at everyday violence, duels, infanticide, paramilitary violence, warfare, assassination, and terrorism.

HISTORY 1818 Treasure: Objects of Desire in Global History (0.5 course)

This course explores how precious objects such as religious relics, ancient artifacts, luxury goods, and commodities have shaped global history. Using the lens of comparative material culture, students will investigate how diverse cultures have interpreted, competed over, and used objects of desire in religion, diplomacy, trade, war, imperialism, and migration.

HISTORY 1815G Histories of Love (0.5 course)

What is love? How do we know? How have concepts and expressions of love changed over time? This course will explore these questions using historiographical tools from the broader field of the history of the emotions. Beginning with the debates over how historians can find evidence of emotions in history, the course will examine some of the primary sources associated with the histories of different kinds of love: love letters, films, sentimental jewelry, opinion surveys, folklore, literature, newspapers, political speeches, sermons and medical treatises. Each will reveal an aspect of the history of love, how it was understood by people in the past and how it can be interpreted by historians today.

HISTORY 1817F History in the Headlines (0.5 course)

Knowledge of the past is necessary to understand the political crises of our present. This class will teach you how to curate knowledgeably the flood of news in the modern global media, by asking you to research and assess six historical claims in contemporary headlines.