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First Year Courses

These courses do not count for credit toward a LACS major or minor but are strongly recommended to students with Latin American or Caribbean interests. Please consult Divisional First Year Calendars and the Founders College Calendar for further details.

AS/HIST 1035 6.0 Impact of Europeans on the North American Environment

The arrival of Christopher Columbus on the shores of America in 1492 is usually described as the discovery of America . It was for the Europeans, but it was also something else. For the peoples who had lived in America for centuries, discovery turned out to be a conquest, as the newcomers gradually imposed themselves and their laws, religion, economic order, and biological and ecological conditions on the indigenous peoples and environments. The purpose of this course is to study discovery and conquest in the widest sense of those terms.

The focus is on the anthropological and ecological aspects of cultural contact: the land, people, flora, fauna, and resources of America and what happened to them after the arrival of European explorers, traders, missionaries, settlers, and representatives of European states.

The course follows a lecture-tutorial format. A weekly lecture introduces students to the indigenous worlds before 1492 and to the variety of issues that were raised by European-American contact. The tutorials are designed to introduce students both to the discipline of history, how history is written and interpreted and to the subject matter of European discovery. Readings include interpretive accounts based on the writings of early explorers, imperial officials, settlers, and Native peoples. Written work includes two short essays in the Fall term, which aim to introduce students to critical reading of historical writing, and a research essay in the Winter term.

AS/HIST 1050 6.0 Life Love and Labour: An Introduction to Social and Cultural History

From the late eighteenth century to the twentieth century, the societies of Western Europe and North America underwent radical change. The industrial revolution, the rise and fall of slavery, massive migration and urbanization, European conquest of the Americas, two World Wars, and the advent of mass media (including newspapers, radio, and motion pictures) transformed not only politics and the economy, but also how 'ordinary people' lived and saw their world.

This course focuses on the histories of men, women, and children, of families and communities, of work and leisure to see how ordinary people experienced this changing world and helped shape it.

AS/SOSC 1430 9.0 Introduction to International Development Studies

This course introduces students to the field of Development Studies, which has emerged as a result of efforts to bring about "development" in Third World countries. It uses a critical and historical approach, drawing on concrete case studies, to examine the assumptions, practices, and consequences of development. It also examines various approaches to development and explores both their theoretical and cultural assumptions, and their concrete application in diverse historical and social contexts.

These approaches are discussed in light of recent developments in the social sciences and changes in the global order, such as the feminist and the environmentalist critique of development models, the end of the cold war, the emergence of newly industrializing countries (NICs), globalization, and the weakening of nation-states. This course introduces students to the field of Development Studies, which has emerged as a result of efforts to bring about "development" in Third World countries. It uses a critical and historical approach, drawing on concrete case studies, to examine the assumptions, practices, and consequences of development.

It also examines various approaches to development and explores both their theoretical and cultural assumptions, and their concrete application in diverse historical and social contexts. These approaches are discussed in light of recent developments in the social sciences and changes in the global order, such as the feminist and the environmentalist critique of development models, the end of the cold war, the emergence of newly industrializing countries (NICs), globalization, and the weakening of nation states.