Dr Aitana Guia returns to York U as the inaugural MacKenzie-Papineau Memorial Chair in Modern Spanish History, July 2025

The Department of History is happy to announce that Dr Aitana Guia, presently Associate Professor, California State University, Fullerton, will be joining the department as the inaugural MacKenzie-Papineau Memorial Chair in Modern Spanish History on 1 July 2025.  Dr. Guia is an expert on 20th century Spanish History with extensive experience teaching the Spanish Civil […]

Prof Stephen Brooke Explores 1980s London in New Book

Professor Stephen Brooke presents a significant and revealing new view of London in the 1980s in his book London, 1984: Conflict and Change in the Radical City. Recently published by Oxford University Press, London, 1984 explores two conflicting cities during a tumultuous time in London. One side established on radical politics while the other side […]

Student Projects

A collection of podcasts and projects by students in the History Program including the Public History Certificate Program, these projects showcase the theory, methodologies and professional practices you would encounter among historians in a professional environment. Quick Links Projects and Initiatives Study Abroad Founders College Career Opportunities

Research Seminar Series

The Research Seminar Series features papers, discussion and works-in-progress by the department's faculty and graduate students, notably it foregrounds new research. Recently, these seminars have been held online and have featured research in progress by 24 faculty and graduate students. The Department Research Seminar Series is presented regularly during the academic year between September and […]

World War I Documentary Series

Published in 2014, this documentary series commemorating the 100th anniversary of World War One, the professors of the Department of History of York University examine various aspects of the war and the role Canada played in it. Did you know income tax in Canada is a direct result of the First World War? That we […]

Melville-Nelles-Hoffmann Lecture in Environmental History

The Melville-Nelles-Hoffmann Environmental History Lecture is an annual speaking event hosted by the Department of History at York University. It is generously supported by two of the History Department’s founding environmental history professors, H.V. Nelles and Richard Hoffmann and it honours the memory of the late Elinor Melville, our colleague and leading researcher in the […]

Travelling T-Shirt Contest

Where will your t-shirt take you? In 2019, we started the Travelling T-Shirt Contest after our own Professor and Associate Dean, Programs Sean Kheraj shared a photo of himself wearing the Department-branded attire in Machu Picchu, Peru. Knowing it would be difficult to outdo this epic image, he challenged his colleagues to snap their own […]

Projects & Initiatives

Catch up with our various projects and initiatives. We've always got some interesting research and events in the works. Stay tuned for more. Quick Links Department Events Faculty Publications Lectures & Video Series History Matters Newsletter News Travelling T-Shirt Contest York University's Department of History’s T-shirts have been spotted in several countries all over the […]

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Career Opportunities

History is an exciting and dynamic discipline that is always asking fascinating new questions about the past and answering important old questions in new ways. The study of history teaches us to think critically about how the past is fundamentally similar to the present, how the past is utterly different from the present, how the […]