Historians study what people have thought, said, and done in the past, and they help students think critically about how historical processes shape the present. Courses in our department blend thematic and geographic approaches to the study of history.
History departments have been a core part of universities for a long time, and history has long been a popular discipline. Understanding history can help you understand today's society and today's world. A number of processes, ideas, and people shaped the past and gave rise to the present. Yet the study of history also gives students a number of skills necessary for success in the twenty-first century. Our courses will strengthen your critical thinking and analysis, help you carry out your own research, and foster writing and other communicative skills.
Our courses focus on a wide range of themes and continents, and will help you make sense of current events. How can we understand issues facing the Middle East, Latin America, the European Union, or Canada without knowing how those societies developed? And how can we understand questions of nationalism, inequality, or climate change without learning about how humans have created or confronted these issues over time? The skills and the knowledge learned through the study of history makes us better citizens of democratic societies and informed members of a global community.
Our teaching objectives
- Develop critical skills required to full and active citizenship.
- Foster independent learning through a variety of research and study techniques.
- Include students in faculty’s research through research assistantships.
- Encourage the application of skills in community involvement and employment.
- Increase students’ understanding of the emergence of the modern world, with particular emphasis on themes related to UNBC’s mandate.
Course topics ranging from local to global:
- Indigenous peoples (Hamon, Holler)
- Law and Legal History (Farhan, Hamon, Wessell Lightfoot)
- Medicine and Health (Farhan, Blatchford)
- Science and Technology
- Gender and Sexuality (Wessell Lightfoot, Holler, Farhan)
- Borderlands (Blatchford, Hamon, Holler)
- Religion (Holler, Wessell Lightfoot)
- Medieval and Early Modern (Wessell Lightfoot, Holler)
- Local and public history (Holler, Hamon)
- Environment (Blatchford, Holler)
- Colonialism and Imperialism (Farhan, Hamon, Holler)
- Historiography and Historical Methods (Blatchford, Holler, Lightfoot)
Faculty covering a broad geographic area:
- North America (Blatchford, Hamon Holler)
- Europe (Wessell Lightfoot)
- Latin America (Holler)
- Middle East (Farhan)
- World (Blatchford, Farhan, Wessell Lightfoot, Holler)
- Visit our faculty's research profiles
Why you should take HIST 190 and HIST 191
The courses HIST 190: World History to 1550 and HIST 191: World History Since 1550 are designed as introductions to the discipline of history. They focus on teaching students the foundational tools that historians use; how to read, think about, orally discuss, and write about primary and secondary sources; how to research specific topics using article databases, the web, and the library catalogue; and how to develop research questions. HIST 190 and HIST 191 cover broad time periods and geographical spaces, providing students with an overview of important issues, debates, events, and people in the past. The aim of these courses is to give students the necessary tools to succeed in more specialized history courses in their second, third, and fourth years. At the same time, these two courses provide students who plan on majoring in another discipline with important writing and research skills and general knowledge about human societies. We encourage students to take HIST 190 and HIST 191 in their first year to develop these important tools right at the beginning of their university careers.