Join one of the top ranked history departments in the world.
With courses that cover the globe from antiquity to the fall of communism, our undergraduate and graduate programs allow you to choose a specialization from a vast selection of areas. Innovative courses include such topics as the history of money, gladiators in Roman society, and the history of animals, technology and science.
Our courses cover history from the ancient period to the recent past and focus on the thematic areas of indigeneity, culture, gender, social, political, environmental and sexuality.
The study of history imparts critical thinking, reading, research, writing and communication skills, all of which makes us better citizens in a democratic society and a global community.
Read our Land Acknowledgment, which recognizes the unique and enduring relationship of Indigenous people and their traditional territory.
Learn about the past so you can understand the challenges of the present. History is a versatile major that can lead to many careers. Our graduates have used the general skills and knowledge that they acquired while at York as a springboard to a number of rewarding careers in a variety of fields.
Commitment to Excellence
The Department has a strong international reputation for scholarship and a commitment to excellence and innovation in teaching.
Outstanding Faculty
Our professors are providing creative, dynamic and innovative teaching. You’ll study with award-winning professors, including Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada and Royal Historical Society.
Get Experience
Our focus on hands-on learning, such as the training offered in placements at museums, archives and galleries for our Public History Certificate, will translate into crucial in-demand skills.
Study Abroad
Students at York have benefited from international experiences. For example, in past years students have participated in courses in Greece and Spain.
Faculty Testimonials
My research engages questions of labour, gender and emotions in modern India. I am particularly interested in exploring these issues ‘from below’. In my courses students are introduced to methods and perspectives that allow them to trace diverse experiences and voices in Indian history. I regularly take my classes to visit museums where we explore South Asian art to analyse how they reflect broader historical processes. A new course that I’ve developed—History of India through Bollywood—similarly draws on popular Hindi cinema as a lens to understand how ideas of the nation and representations of the past have changed over time.
— Prof. Rukmini Barua
I am a cultural historian of Chinese print and knowledge. The questions that consume my research also inform my teaching. What did Chinese common readers know at the turn of the 20th century in the wake of a series of violent encounters with foreign powers? How did they know it? How did longstanding views adjust to new challenges? How did gender figure in these changes? My teaching includes a first year course on the Chinese body that explores these questions in relation to medicine, food, and footbinding; third year courses on Chinese revolutions; and graduate courses on various methodologies.
— Prof. Joan Judge
We have great historical resources here on campus – I love taking classes to the Map Library and the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections in our own Scott Library. There’s something wonderful about getting to handle a 300-year-old book or a handwritten medieval manuscript. Even if the book is in a language that you can’t read, you can write first-rate essays about the annotations in the margins!
— Prof. Margaret Schotte
I am a historian of Black Canada. My research and pedagogical approaches focus on amplifying the multifaceted historical experiences of African Canadians. In my courses, students have the opportunity to explore various archival collections in their study of Black life, Black voices, and Black thought in efforts to reconstruct Black experiences in the Canadian context and build skills as historians.
— Prof. Natasha Henry-Dixon
Photo credit: Archives of Ontario, Oct. 23, 2023
My research and teaching focuses on the economic and social history of Greece in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the history of Greeks in Canada. One of the highlights of my teaching is the summer-abroad course I teach in Greece. In this course, students visit research centres, museums, and historical sites, learning about history in a way that is memorable, fun, and interactive.
— Prof. Sakis Gekas
My work centres on the social, cultural and economic impact of Roman imperial rule on its three Hispanic provinces (Lusitania, Baetica, Hispania Citerior), and I also continue to pursue research on Roman public spectacles, especially gladiators. My interest in gladiators led me to develop a 3000-level course on Spectacle and Society in Ancient Rome (HIST 3135 3.0). I am also interested in digital humanities and co-direct two open-access web-based resources: ADOPIA, a digital atlas of personal names from Roman Spain, and a digital corpus of Roman inscriptions from the colony of Augusta Emerita, the capital of Lusitania.
— Prof. Jonathan Edmondson
Photo: Prof. Edmondson discussing a Roman inscription in the Plaza Mayor in Mérida.
Studying history allows students to explore the question, "how did things come to be the way they are today?" Courses in History apply that question to a wide range of topics, from social inequality and movements for social change, to political developments and military conflict, to concerns about the environment over time. All teach the significance of context in exploring the causes and consequences of past events and developments. In this way, a degree in History will shape how you think for the rest of your life.
— Prof. Jennifer Bonnell
