Home » Program Details

Program Details

Passionate about sharing history with the wider world? Choose to add the Certificate in Public History to your undergrad degree to gain the skills that support work in historical, heritage and cultural institutions. You’ll find courses on a range of practical topics, from museum exhibits to digital history. You’ll also complete a 12-week part-time placement, with a wide variety of projects to choose from at museums, archives, galleries and historical organizations across the Greater Toronto Area and beyond. You can also choose to use the certificate as a stepping stone toward graduate work in public history, museum studies, arts and cultural management, and library, archives and information studies.



Certificate Requirements

To qualify for the Cross-Disciplinary Certificate in Public History, students must complete 24 credits, at least 18 of which must be at the 2000 level or above, including 6 credits at the 3000- or 4000-level from a list of approved courses as listed below.

Nine of those credits are mandatory. They include:

  • Three credits from one of the following two courses:

FA/ARTH 3610 3.0 Art Institutions/Art Networks: Introduction to Museums, Galleries and Visual Art Organizations

FA/ARTH 3611 3.0 Curatorial Studies: Practices of Display

  • Six credits from the capstone course in Public History:

GL/HIST 4310 6.0 Histoire Vivante: créer l’histoire du Grand Toronto

AP/HIST 4840 6.00 Public History

This course includes a 12-week mandatory placement in a historical, cultural or heritage institution during the Winter term. Students choose from a wide variety of placement projects at museums, archives, galleries, and historical organizations across the Greater Toronto Area. They complete a total of 120 hours (10 hours/week for 12 weeks) at their placement sites, producing a range of public history products including walking tours, small case exhibitions, documentary videos, audio tours, and research reports. Placement hours are usually flexible to accommodate student schedules.

The remaining fifteen credits must be chosen from a list of designated courses.

How To Apply

To apply, complete the application form and required letter of application. Applicants must receive confirmation of acceptance in the Certificate before they can enroll.

For additional information, contact Professor Audrey Pyée, apyee@yorku.ca, or the Department of History

Courses


Throughout your degree, you’ll find a curriculum that offers an in-depth and balanced approach to Public History. Required courses include Art Institutions/Art Networks: Introduction to Museums, Galleries & Visual Art Organizations and Curatorial Studies: Practices of Display.

The Public History course includes a 12-week mandatory placement in a historical, cultural or heritage institution, such as a museum, archive or gallery, in the Greater Toronto Area during the Winter term. You’ll produce a range of public history products, including walking tours, small case exhibitions, documentary videos, audio tours and research reports.

View course timetables on York University's site

Courses in the Department of History, Glendon College

GL/HIST 3150 3.0 FR Travail individuel : Muséologie

Langue d'instruction : français

Ce cours examine l’exposition dans le contexte muséal. Les pratiques des conservateurs muséologues sont étudiées par l’interprétation de collection, les différentes formes d’exposition, les trames narratives, le devoir du conservateur, le rôle de la communauté, et le rôle social de l’exposition.
Cours incompatibles : GL/FA/ARTH 3610 3.00, FA/ARTH 3611 3.00.

GL/HIST 3242 3.0 EN Memory and Public History

Language of instruction: English

This course explores memory of the past and public history. It examines the construction of collective identities through historical events and processes and the conflicts that emerge with different interpretations of past. Students analyse the mechanisms of production and consumption of the past.

GL/HIST 3242 3.0 FR Memoire et histoire publique

Langue d'instruction : français

Ce cours explore le phénomène de la mémoire et l'histoire publique et explique la construction d'identités collectives autour d'évènements historiques, les conflits qui entourent différentes versions de l'histoire, les mécanismes de production et de consommation de l'histoire publique.

GL/HIST 3450 3.0 EN Oral History Workshop

Cross-listing: CDNS

Language of instruction: English

This course examines the methodology, theory, and ethics of gathering, preserving, and interpreting the voices and memories of people and communities from the past. Students develop the skills to research, design, carry out, and write about an oral history project.

GL/HIST 3628 6.0 Food: A Social and Cultural Journey

General Education: HUMA, SOSC

Cross-listings: HUMA, SOSC

Language of instruction: English

This course explores the cultural history of food. The scope is global, covering African, American, Asian and European civilizations and focusing on the relationship between foodstuffs, culture, and technology. Students will actively analyse their modern consumption habits via historical pathways. Prerequisite: six credits in HIST or permission of the Department.

GL/HIST 3601 3.0 FR Cinéma et photographie en histoire du 20e Siècle

Éducation générale : HUMA

Co-inscription : HUMA

Langue d'instruction : français

Ce cours explore la contribution des sources cinématographiques et photographiques en histoire du 20e siècle. Leur étude développe une méthode d'analyse critique de ce patrimoine visuel, documentaire et historique, dans ses composantes technologiques, sociales, politiques et culturelles.

GL/HIST 3700 3.0 EN World War I

Language of instruction: English

This course examines the cataclysmic events of World War I, assessing the political, economic, social, and cultural responses to the fighting. Topics covered include: the theatres of war and home fronts, the global conflict, and the memory of the war.

GL/HIST 4200 3.0 EN Work Placement: community-engaged public history project

Language of instruction: English

Work placements provide students with the opportunity to gain professional experience and develop valuable competencies for the workplace. Students create or contribute to a public history project for a cultural and heritage institution or community group.
Prerequisite: permission of the department.

GL/HIST 4200 3.0 FR Stage en milieu de travail : projet d'histoire publique pour la communauté

Langue d'instruction : français

Les stages en milieu de travail offrent aux étudiant.e.s l’opportunité de bénéficier d’une expérience professionnelle et de développer des compétences indispensables au monde professionnel. Les étudiant.e.s créent ou contribuent à un projet d’histoire publique pour une institution culturelle et patrimoniale, ou pour un groupe communautaire.
Condition préalable : la permission du département.

GL/HIST 4310 6.0 EN Living History: Creating History in the Greater Toronto Area

Language of instruction: English

This course explores the approaches and practices of public history in Canada. Students learn about historical memory and commemorations, visit museums, meet experts, and students spend 12-weeks in a work placement during the Winter term in a heritage or cultural institution.
Prerequisite: Permission from the Department.
Course credit exclusion: AP/HIST 4840 6.00.

GL/HIST 4310 6.0 FR Histoire vivante : créer l’histoire du Grand Toronto

Langue d'instruction : français

Ce cours explore les approches et pratiques de l'histoire publique au Canada. La classe étudie la mémoire du passé et les commémorations, visite des musées, reçoit des experts. Remarque : Les étudiants passent douze semaines en stage pendant le semestre d'hiver. Condition préalable : Permission du département. Cours incompatible : AP/HIST 4840 6.00.

GL/HIST 4410 3.0 EN Society, Human Rights and the Archives

Cross-listing: CDNS

Language of instruction: English

Through field trips and in-class activities, this course analyses the role of archives in facilitating or impeding human rights activism, movements for redress, and documenting the experience of historically marginalized groups. It considers questions of access, preservation, and memory.

Courses in the Drama Studies Program, Glendon College

GL/DRCA 3210 3.0 EN Theatre Performance Outdoors

Language of instruction: English

This summer course explores the specific needs of open-air performance. It has an academic component that focuses on various outdoor performance traditions. It culminates in a performance on the Glendon campus.

GL/DRCA 3633 3.0 EN Indigenous Drama on Turtle Island

General Education: HUMA

Cross-listings: CDNS, DRST, EN, HUMA

Language of instruction: English

This course looks at the many ways Indigenous Nations on Turtle Island have told their own stories through songs, dances, stories, and plays. Working with an Indigenous lens, students experience the power of
performance to sustain the people and to decolonize.

Courses in the Department of Hispanic Studies, Glendon College

 GL/SP 4701 3.0 SP Hispanic Community Narratives in the GTA (to be confirmed)

Languages of Instruction: Spanish/English

This project-based course collects and explores community narratives of Hispanic and Latin people in the GTA. Switching between in-class preparation/analysis sessions and community field work, it focuses on how participants construct themselves narratively and negotiate differences across languages and cultures.
Prerequisite: GL/SP 2000 6.00 or equivalent or permission of the department.

Courses in the Department of History, LAPS

AP/HIST 1025 6.0 Ancient North America from the Last Ice Age to European Contact

Cross-listing: AP/INDG

Language of instruction: English

This course studies the history of Indigenous people in North America from “time immemorial” to the regular settlement of Europeans in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Using a wide variety of sources it ranges from Meso-America to the High Arctic, and examines theories of the peopling of the continent; hunting, fishing and gathering; and the rise of corn civilizations.

AP/HIST 1040 6.0A  Popular Uses of History:  An Introduction to Public History

Language of instruction: English

This course introduces students to the practice of public history, the ways in which history is produced for and understood by public audiences. It examines the ways the past has been brought to bear upon the present through monuments, museum exhibitions, parks and historical sites, film, historical fiction, and other locations constituting access points to history for the general public.

AP/HIST 2150 6.0A Classical Greek and Roman Archaeology: An Introduction

Cross-listing: AP/CLST

The course provides an introduction to the history, theory and methodology of Classical Greek and Roman Archaeology. It examines key archaeological excavations in the Graeco-Roman world to explore the history of Greek and Roman archaeology, circa 1700 to the present. Introducing students to the formation processes of the archaeological record, it also examines modern archaeological methodology, theory and recording techniques.

AP/HIST 3356 3.0M  Greeks in the World.  A History of Greek Migration and Diaspora in the 20th Century

Language of instruction: English

Examines the history of migration from Greece to North America, Australia and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries and combines a detailed historical narrative on the development of Greek diaspora with a more in-depth examination of specific communities. It also introduces students to the field of Diaspora and migration studies. Previously offered as: AP/HIST 3356 6.00.

AP/HIST 3392 3.0 The Spanish Civil War

Language of instruction: English

While examining the causes and nature of the Spanish Civil War, this course also considers the place of the conflict in European politics and culture.

AP/HIST 3535 6.0 African Canadian History

Language of instruction: English

Examines the history of African-Canadians from colonial contact in the 17th century through to the post-Second World War migrations from Africa and the Caribbean.

AP/HIST 3546 6.0 History of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada

Language of instruction: English

Examines the history of Indigenous peoples within the area known today as Canada, from "time immemorial" to the postwar period. Topics may include origin stories; oral traditions; interactions with colonial empires; participation in the fur trade; epidemic diseases and health strategies; indigenous spirituality and Christian missionaries; treaties; the Indian Act; residential schooling; reserve life; political resistance; and land claims.

AP/HIST 3622 3.0 The U.S. Civil War in American History and Public Memory

Language of instruction: English

This course, which focuses on the years from 1840 to 1877, explores the causes of the American Civil War, military strategy, and the aftermath of this conflict. Topics examined include slavery, politics, military history and the era of Reconstruction.
Prior TO FALL 2014: AP/HIST 3622 3.00.

AP/HIST 3840 6.0 The History of Global Cities in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

This course introduces students to urban and public history through the comparative study of major centers such as Paris, London, New York, Johannesburg, Tokyo and Shanghai. Cities are the social, political and economic engines of their countries, and are ideal sites for studying the development of modern architecture, sanitation, culture, community structures, politics, and industrial development.

Prerequisites: None
Course credit exclusions: None

AP/HIST 3874 3.0 History of Food in the Americas, 1500-2000

Language of instruction: English

Examines the history of the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of foods such as pizza, donuts, pineapples, tacos, coffee and graham crackers as a way to understand historical patterns such as the European conquest of the Americas, African slavery, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Asian and European migrations, the growth of cities, the development of nation-states, and shifting gender roles.

AP/HIST 4054 6.0A Slavery, the Underground Railroad and Resistance: Ontario's African Canadian Past before 1918

Language of instruction: English

Explores the many ways people of African descent contributed to building the Province of Ontario. By piecing together clues from such sources as archival documents, archaeological site reports and material culture, coupled with critical analysis of secondary sources, students learn to identify, analyze, interpret and share through on-line publication previously undiscovered evidence for Ontario's rich African-Canadian heritage.
Course credit exclusions: None. Note: Field trips to locations accessible by local public transit are required.

AP/HIST 4065 6.0 Indigenous Histories: Culture, Genocide, and Survival in the American West

Language of instruction: English

U.S. Indigenous peoples share fascinating stories of cultural survival despite histories of violence and genocide. This course explores recent historiographical debates in the field of U.S. Indigenous history with special focus on the American West. It situates Indigenous peoples within the broader context of U.S. cultural, social, and political history. It also analyzes ethnohistorical methodologies and research ethics.

Open to: History and Multicultural and Indigenous Studies Majors and Minors
Note: This course is restricted to History and Multicultural and Indigenous Studies Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits.

Prerequisites: AP/MIST 1050 6.00 or AP/HIST 2600 6.00 or AP/HIST 3601 6.00 or AP/HIST 3602 6.00 or AP/HIST 3610 6.00 or AP/HIST 3622 3.00 or AP/HIST 3625 3.00 or AP/HIST 3645 3.00 or AP/HIST 3692 6.00 or AP/HUMA 2325 6.00 or AP/MIST/CDNS/HUMA 3538 6.00 or departmental permission.

AP/HIST 4082 6.0 Re-Framing the Past: Films as History

Language of instruction: English

How do film-makers handle the past? How does their treatment differ from that of the historian, whether by presentation, inspiration or interpretation? This course explores these issues within the time-frame of the ancient world to the present.

AP/HIST 4085 6.0 Digital History

Language of instruction: English

Introduces students to both the theoretical and practical effects of digital technologies on historical scholarship and public history. Digital technologies have transformed the ways that historians conduct their research, access sources, analyze documents, and communicate research findings. Students gain practical knowledge of how to take advantage of such digital tools for historical scholarship and public history. Note: This course is restricted to History Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits.

AP/HIST 4230 6.0A Technologies of Communication: A History of Reading from the Codex to the Kindle

Cross-listing: AP/EN 4480 6.0

Language of instruction: English

This research seminar explores the history of books and their readers from antiquity to the present. Class is held in York's Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections, and includes trips to other area libraries. By studying books as material objects and communication technologies, we will investigate questions of intellectual property, literacy, author and audience, and "the future of the book." Priority is given to Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits. Course credit exclusions: AP/WRIT 4720 6.00, AP/HIST 4260 6.00 (FW14 & FW15 only).

AP/HIST 4470 6.0 War, Sex and Drink: Modern Britain in the Archives

Language of instruction: English

This course uses digital archives to analyze the historical experience of Britain from the 1880s to the 1980s. Topics covered include popular culture in late Victorian London, urban poverty, the First World War, working-class culture between the wars, sexual attitudes in the 1940s, the Second World War, the British empire, youth and popular culture in the 1960s, women’s liberation and the Thatcher years. Prerequisites: Students need 84 credits to apply and must have fulfilled a 1000-level
requirement. Priority is given to History Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits and fulfilled a 1000-level requirement.

AP/HIST4508 6.0A Cultures and Colonialism: Canada, 1600-1900

Language of instruction: English

Explores issues of contact and colonialism in Canadian history from 1600 - 1900. Themes may include the shifting practices of European imperialism; new cultural forms created by First Nations-European contact; changing economic systems; and patterns of state formation.
Prerequisites: AP/HIST 1035 6.00 or AP/HIST 1050 6.00 or AP/HIST 1086 6.00 or AP/HIST 2500 6.00 or AP/CDNS 2200 6.00 or AP/HIST 3546 6.00 or AP/HIST 3550 6.00 or AP/HIST 3581 6.00 or AP/MIST 1050 6.00 or by departmental permission.
Open to: This course is restricted to History or Canadian Studies Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits.

AP/HIST4520 6.0 Metis History

Language of instruction: English

This course studies the history of Metis in North America from the meeting of Indigenous women and European fur traders in 1630 to court cases of Metis rights in the 21st century. It examines the emergence of distinct ethnic groups that blended European and indigenous traditions, and the transformation of Metis into a political collectivity recognized in the Canadian constitution.

Open to: History and Multicultural and Indigenous Studies Majors and Minors

AP/HIST4530 6.0 The Development of Toronto

Language of instruction: English

Toronto from its earliest beginnings to recent times, population increase, social change, economic development, metropolitan dominance, religion, and political life of the city. Note: Priority is given to History, Canadian Studies or Urban Studies Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits.

Prior to FW2014: Prerequisites: AP/HIST 2500 6.00 or AP/CDNS 2200 6.00 or AP/SOSC 2710 6.00 or AP/SOSC 2730 6.00 and AP/HIST 3531 6.00 or AP/HIST 3533 6.00 or AP/HIST 3535 6.00 or AP/HIST 3546 6.00 or AP/HIST 3555 6.00 or AP/HIST 3580 6.00 or AP/HIST 3581 6.00 or AP/HIST 3582 6.00 or AP/HIST 3591 6.00 or AP/HIST 3850 6.00 or AP/SOSC 3210 6.00 or AP/SOSC 3745 3.00 or AP/SOSC 3746 3.00 or AP/SOSC 3760 3.00/6.00 or AP/SOSC 3770 3.00 or AP/SOSC 3791 3.00 or departmental permission.

AP/HIST4581 6.0A Worry and Wonder:  Jewish Politics, Society and Religion in Canada

Language of instruction: English

This public history seminar explores the origins, development and paradoxes of the Canadian Jewish community from its inception in the 18th century to the present. It pays particular attention to the complexities of immigration, relationships between Jews and non-Jews, inspiration and anxiety about religious change, the Holocaust, Zionism & the State of Israel in public consciousness, and the puzzles and tensions of balancing tradition and modernity. Students will learn to conduct original archival research on topics of their own choosing, and their final papers, podcasts, videos or exhibitions will be published on the Ontario Jewish Archives website.
No prior knowledge of Jewish history or Canadian history required.

Course credit exclusions: AP/HIST 3555 6.00
Prior TO FALL 2009: Course credit exclusion: AS/HIST 3555 6.00.
Note: Priority is given to History Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits.

AP/HIST 4800 6.0 The Science of Society: Social Thought in North America, 1890-1940

Language of instruction: English

This course presents an analysis of the intellectual, cultural and social changes which contributed to the rise of the social sciences and re-organization of the liberal arts in North America during the period 1890-1940. By focusing on this context as well as major theories and trends in several disciplines, this course will provide insight into modern North American culture.

Priority is given to History, Humanities and Social & Political Thought Honours majors and minors who have successfully completed at least 84 credits.

AP/HIST 4840 6.00 Public History

Language of instruction: English

This course examines the forms, goals, and practices of making history in museums, archives, historic sites, and other institutions of public history. It enables students to learn the meaning and methods in the production of memory and introduces them to the practical skills for the public presentation of historical knowledge. The course combines analytical study with a part-time placement in a public-history site. 

AP/HIST 4840 6.0 or GL/HIST 4310 6.0 are mandatory.

AP/HIST 4850 6.0 History of Me: The Genealogy Workshop

We have been shaped by our families' histories. This hands-on workshop explores the choices, limitations and opportunities of one or more person from each student's past - a parent, grandparent, or anyone else the student deemed worthy of researching - through genealogical research, and links these intimate realities with the global and Canadian histories of which they are necessarily a part.
Students need 84 credits to apply and must have fulfilled a 1000-level requirement.

Courses in Visual Arts and Art History, AMPD

FA/ARTH 2800 B/3800B 6.0 Rome: Open City/Roma: città aperta

Language of instruction: English

Introduces students to the urban history, structure, and multi-faceted culture of Rome, Italy through the fine, performing, and popular arts, architecture, literature, and related cultural initiatives. Students live in Rome during this four-week intensive study abroad course. Prerequisite: Second-year standing or permission of the course director. Open to Non-Majors. Exclusion: FA/FACS 2800B 6.00

FA/ARTH 3345 3.0 Visual Culture in Modern Asia

Language of instruction: English

Examines visual culture throughout modern Asia, building a framework for understanding artistic and cultural activities in the 20th century in their historical and social context. Explores visual and built environments including art works, exhibitions, literature, popular culture and events. Open to non-majors.

FA/ARTH 3400 3.0 Cabinets of Curiosities: Collecting, Display, Systems of Knowledge

Language of instruction: English

Considers the Cabinet of Curiosities, a Renaissance invention designed to classify and preserve collections of "precious" objects, and its more recent manifestations (including museums, artists' installations, and Web sites) to explore a wide range of issues associated with Cultural Studies. Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of the Instructor. Course credit exclusion: FA/FACS 3400 3.00.

FA/ARTH 3610 3.0 Art Institutions/Art Networks: Introduction to Museums, Galleries and Visual Art Organizations

Language of instruction: English

Considers the participation of art institutions and organizations - including the modern museum and art gallery - in cultural networks engaged in arts education, promotion, and support, now subject to post-modern and post-colonial critiques. Open to non-majors.

OR

FA/ARTH 3611 3.0 Curatorial Studies: Practices of Display

Language of instruction: English

Examines the medium of exhibition, particularly how the placement of artifacts creates specific aesthetic, semiotic and ideological contexts. Topics explore the display practices of curators, artists, interpreters, designers, collectors, and dealers. Consideration is given to how the arrangement of exhibitions determines the conceptual and ontological experience of art. Analysis includes a wide range of display forms including museums, galleries, artist-run centres, virtual exhibitions, as well as site specific installations by artists and curators. Readings drawn from the burgeoning interdisciplinary literature centred on exhibitions. Participants are invited to undertake research on particular exhibition sites and present their findings to the class. The objectives of this course is to give a comprehensive overview of how exhibitions are formulated and presented, to develop a critical understanding of the specificities of exhibition discourse, and to introduce a range of methodologies used in developing exhibitions.

(FA/ARTH 3610 3 Art Institutions/Art Networks: Introduction to Museums, Galleries and Visual Art Organizations

OR

FA/ARTH 3611 3.0 Curatorial Studies: Practices of Display are mandatory).

FA/ARTH 3650 3.0 Art in Crisis

Language of instruction: English

Examines art produced in times of crisis, social and personal extremes: imprisonment, totalitarianism, political occupation, illness, war. Focuses chiefly on the Holocaust of WW2, as well as Indigenous American Reserve cultures, contemporary Palestinian art, representation of atrocity. Prerequisites: FA/VISA 1110 6.00.

FA/ARTH 3680 3.0 Jewish Museums, Identity and Public Memory

Language of instruction: English

Explores the theory and practice of the exhibition experience in contemporary Jewish museums. Examines how these cultural institutions shape public memory, social identity, and collective history. Addresses issues of representation, space and architecture. Prerequisite: 3rd or 4th year standing. Open to non-majors. Cross-lisated to : AP/HUMA 3405 3.00.

FA/ARTH 3680E 3.0 1960s Art in the U.S.A. and Europe

Language of instruction: English

Examines the work, processes and context of artists who emerged in Europe and the United States immediately after the Abstract Expressionists and their European counterparts. These may include: Post-painterly Abstraction, proto-Pop, Pop Art, Cubist-Constructivist sculpture, Minimalism, photo-realism, earth art, kinetic art, the El Paso group in Madrid, Joseph Beuys, the beginning of post-modern architecture, and early performance art. Course requirements: Individually chosen mix of essays and tests.

FA/ARTH 3680N 3.0 Art, Politics and Society

Language of instruction: English

Clarifies the functions of art within society at key moments in the twentieth century which marked the relationship of art and ideology in both the western and Asian worlds. The course may focus on Western or Asian topics.

FA/ARTH 3710 6.0 Memory and Place

Language of instruction: English

How do places contribute to shaping memory? What is it about objects, art and architecture, for example, that seem to “capture” memory? Why are certain places meaningful and others less so? This course explores objects and ideas all the while embedded in history to better formulate a notion of the power of place and its relationship to memory.

FA/ARTH 4310 3.0 Art Criticism: Principles and Practice

Language of instruction: English

Examines the principles of art criticism and critical writing through exploration of questions asked and answered by critics, and assumptions they make, whether implicit or explicit. Critics' works inform students' own writings. Gallery visits in Toronto are an integral part of the course. Previously offered as: FA/VISA 4310 6.00.

FA/ARTH 4340 3.0 Monumentality and Community in Modern Asia

Language of instruction: English

FA/ARTH 4400 3.0 The Sensorium

Language of instruction: English

Considers the five senses (which give humans the potential to see, hear, smell, taste and touch) and their impact on the production and reception of the arts from a range of perspectives. Prerequisite: fourth-year standing or permission of the Instructor. Exclusion: FA/FACS 4400 3.00.

FA/ARTH 4610 3.0 Senses in Art

Language of instruction: English

Examines the senses in the experience and production of art, with an emphasis on the senses beyond vision -- taste, touch, smell, and hearing - in art and aesthetic experience. Explores how the senses are a prominent factor in contemporary artworks that involve spectators physically, focus on the body, and use new technologies to create distinct perceptual experiences. Considers the regime of visuality and the hierarchy of the senses, the allegorical representation of the senses in art history, and the emergent activation of the non-visual senses in contemporary art practice. Topics will focus on the cultural politics of the senses in art, with focused case studies on art and taste, art and touch, art and smell, audio art and synaesthetic art. The objectives of this course are 1) to introduce students to the impact of the senses in art practice with reference to specific works of art ; 2) to study the cultural politics of sensorial mediation; 3) to develop a critical understanding of non-visual aesthetics. Open to non-majors.

FA/ARTH 4631 3.0 Nazi-Art Crime, Theft, Recovery, and Restitution

Language of instruction: English

This seminar examines why, during the Nazi era, more than 5 million artworks illegally changed hands-a disproportionate number of them being works stolen from Jewish collectors-and why it has been so challenging to restitute these pieces to their rightful owners. This course is divided into two parts: a study of the complex history of Nazi art theft and its recovery from 1945 to the present, followed by classes that focus on six of history's most important cases of Third Reich looting and restitution.

FA/ARTH 4640A 3.0 Art, History, and the Archive

Language of instruction: English

Explores theoretical and historical use of archives as containers of memory, authorized histories, and secret passions. Truth and lies, fact and fiction - the archive has served as a source of evidence and historical authority in visual culture studies. Prerequisite: 3rd- or 4th-year standing.

FA/ARTH 4720F 3.0 Canadian Architechture, 1800-1870

Language of instruction: English

Offers an examination of the theory, structure, form, function, iconography and development of architecture in Canada circa 1800-1870. Chronological and thematic approaches are used. Emphasis is placed on architectural-historical research into specific buildings and/or architects. Student projects are designed to hone these research skills. Walking tours of Toronto and a visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake are an integral part of the course. Prerequisite: FA/VISA 2110 6.00 or FA/VISA 2620 6.00, or permission of the course director. Course credit exclusion: FA/VISA 4720E 3.00.

FA/ARTH 4720H 3.0 Canadian Architechture, 1870-1890

Language of instruction: English

Offers an examination of the theory, structure, form, function, iconography and development of architecture in Canada circa 1870-1900. Chronological and thematic approaches are used. Emphasis is placed on architectural-historical methodologies and on skills necessary for original research into specific buildings and/or architects. Student projects are designed to hone these research skills. Walking tours of Toronto and a visit to Guelph, Galt and Paris are an integral part of the course. Prerequisite: FA/VISA 2110 6.00 or FA/VISA 2620 6.00, or permission of the Instructor. Previously offered as: FA/VISA 4720E 3.00.

FA/ARTH 4800I 3.0 Art in the Arctic

Language of instruction: English

Examines various contemporary, modern and traditional Inuit and First Peoples' creative practices of the northern circumpolar region including video, new media and television, sculpture, printmaking, material culture and oral tradition.

Courses in the Department of Humanities, LAPS

HUMA 4156 6.0/3.0 Culture in Objects: The Humanities and Material Culture

Language of instruction: English

How do three-dimensional objects embody, transmit and transform intangible aspects of culture, such as values, knowledge, history? We use multi-disciplinary approaches to develop intensive case studies, gaining experience with both theories and practices of material culture studies. We consider the past, present and future of such approaches as these have flourished within the long tradition of the humanities.

Prerequisites: Any 3000 level HUMA course, or permission of the instructor.

Courses in the Department of Social Science, LAPS

SOSC 3115M 3.0 Special Topics in Health and Society: Mental Health Practice

Language of instruction: English

From time to time, depending on the availability of faculty, courses are offered dealing with topics of special interest to students in the Health and Society Program. Please consult the social science supplementary calendar for more details.

Students studying together.

Other Program Details

An exterior shot of Glendon Campus.

Join the Glendon Historical Society

Check out the Glendon Historical Society for opportunities to connect with other students who are interested in history, and to learn about film screenings, museum visits and other great activities outside the classroom. Find more information on Facebook and Instagram, or email glhistoricalsociete@gmail.com.


Meet Our Alumni

Discover the careers some of our alumni have excelled in, and find out how their experience at Glendon gave them an advantage in the job market.

Read More

Students on Glendon Campus.


Apply Now!