Algoma University College, Laurentian University



Algoma University College, Laurentian University

Department of History

History 3196

Room: SH 400

20th Century Canada

Winter, 2008

Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:00-2:30

Dr. Robert Rutherdale

Office: Shingwauk Hall, Room 406

Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:30-1:00

rutherdale@auc.ca

Homepage: . Further course materials may be posted here.

Ph. 705-949-2301 ext. 4340

*Student e.mail Accounts

It is very important that each of you check regularly (at least twice a week) your AUC e.mail accounts. I will be using the class list server for regular announcements, and will maintain individual contact with you through this account for correspondence on class meeting, assignments and handouts, and your essay research. Please use only this account when contacting me during the week. And please take advantage of my office hours and availability on campus beyond those times!

Course Themes and Approaches

Patterns of governance, citizenship, and social life in 20th-century Canada cannot be approached as a distinct historical epoch, singular process, or simple core-periphery relationship between Ottawa and the country's varied populations and regions. We can, however, direct our readings, discussions, and writing projects to topics that consider period, process, and place in intersecting terms.

As a study of 20th century Canadian history this course will consider political events, macro-economic patterns, and shifting boundaries of social difference, from the end of Wilfrid Laurier's term as Prime Minister to the neo-conservative Mulroney years. The development of Canadian federalism, national and regional political cultures, immigration, world wars, the massive economic depression of the 1930s, and post-war demographic and economic booms in the 1950s will each be examined in our readings and discussions. Each student will also have an opportunity to present her or his research-in-progress for their major paper.

In your research, each of you will be encouraged to bring your unique perspectives and experience to these inquiries. With respect to your term writing project, your interests may, at this point, be more sharply defined than they were when you took your first university course. You may, on the other hand, choose to pursue an entirely new area. As well, the readings we examine each week are diverse, trans-disciplinary, and introduce possible topics across political, social, and cultural themes.

I will also introduce major processes and events through weekly lectures that afford contexts for our readings and discussions, among them: modernity at the turn-of-the century, Western immigration, Canada and the First World War, labour and class struggles in the post-WWI period, the political and social impacts of the Depression, Canada in the Second World War, Post-war diplomacy, the rise of the welfare state, federalism since 1945, and competing nationalisms since the Quiet Revolution. Throughout, I hope that all of you find a balance between useful knowledge and free inquiry: in lectures, in discussions, and in your writing assignments. Your choice of topic for your term essay is important, and should reflect your interest in a specific area. Above all, active, student-centred learning will be stressed. Activities have been designed to motivate thought, raise questions, and broaden our understanding of modern Canada’s particular diversities and its wider position with global histories as well.

Required Readings

Robert Rutherdale, Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to Canada’s Great War (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004)

Magda Fahrni and Robert Rutherdale, Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity, and Dissent, 1945- 1975 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2008)

Writing Projects and Final Examination

In all, there are four written assignments: a critical review, drawn from the course readings (any two chapters or articles from Hometown Horizons, Creating Postwar Canada or journal articles from our assigned readings), a term essay proposal, a term essay, and a final examination.

Critical Review (15%) Due end of Week 6 (13 Feb.)

You will prepare a critical review of and two chapters and/or articles read for this course, from the assigned readings, Hometown Horizons, or Creating Postwar Canada. A handout and discussion activities centred on academic reviewing will be an important part of the early weeks of this course to prepare you for this.

Course Paper (Proposal 5%; Paper, 40%) Proposal due end of Week 5 (6 Feb.); Term Essay due end of Week 12 (26 Mar.)

Your term essay will become integral part of the course and discussions that will engage you all term. From the beginning, your task will be to select materials and develop conceptual and methodological approaches for a project drawn from secondary and, if possible, primary source materials. A detailed course paper guide will be provided. The proposal (1-2 typed pgs.) must outline your central question, proposed sources, secondary and primary, and the proposed tools (key questions, methods, and concepts) that you will bring to your course paper (12-15 typed pgs.) Each of you will have an opportunity to present your research-in-progress to the class as a whole during the term.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious academic offence which students must be aware of in preparing essays and other assignments. We will review AUC’s definition of plagiarism as outlined in the University’s Academic Calendar, as well as the penalties that apply for ‘submitting or presenting work in a course as one’s own when in fact it is not.’ To avoid mistaken instances of plagiarism, you will also, as part of you class participation, report regularly on your work-in-progress and demonstrate ongoing progress in your writing projects, including proper citation procedures. See also the Humanities Division Grading Policy, immediately below.

ALGOMA UNIVERSITY -- HUMANITIES DIVISION

Grading policies for essay-writing courses in

English, Fine Arts, History, Modern Languages, Music, and Philosophy

The following regulations for grading provide students with a clear understanding of policies supported by all faculty in Humanities Division at Algoma University. This outline determines standards for all essay-writing courses and includes submission of essays and written projects (i.e. critical response journals, book reviews, final writing portfolios, seminar write-ups, etc.)

1) According to Algoma University regulations, students who miss more than 20% of classes will fail the course and will be excluded from participation in the course evaluation (at the instructor’s discretion). Class participation is particularly important in Humanities since much of the education concerning critical analysis and responses to texts is not contained in textbooks. Articulating critical responses to texts is considered part of the discipline.

2) All formal assignments must adhere to standard style formatting. Depending on the discipline, students will use the ‘Chicago Style’ for all endnotes/footnotes (a style guide will be provided by the instructor and must be used). Grades may be deducted from an assignment if the student fails to cite sources in precise and professional manner.

3) Plagiarism is unacceptable. Students caught cheating on a test or exam; stealing an essay from another student, internet, publication, or essay-service will be penalized by the division. Students must also give credit when taking ideas from lectures, others’ research and/or publications when they apply them to their essays. Please see the University calendar for penalties for plagiarism.

4) Students must make every effort to have assignments in on time. Adhering to deadlines shows respect for other students and for the professor who allots time for assessing each essay within the context of a class standard. Meeting deadlines is an important part of the discipline.

Late assignments are subject to deductions of 2% per day. Assignments will not be accepted two weeks after the deadline date, and will be awarded a grade of 0%.

Exceptions to this rule include students who i) have negotiated an extension with the professor at least one week prior to the essay’s due date; ii) provide evidence of an legitimate emergency within the 48 hour period prior to the essay’s due date; or iii) submit a medical note. In all of these cases, students must strive to notify the professor as soon as possible. Students must provide doctor’s note within two weeks of the essay’s due date.

5) Students must keep hard copies of all assignments (and be able to produce them upon request) until final course grade has been assigned.

Participation (15%)

Each class you will be responsible for preparing for discussions. In effect, this means completing an average of two readings per meeting. In each case, I will offer questions, perspectives, and other comments in the preceding seminar that should help focus your reading and note-taking. I will also mention any particular group exercise we might experiment with to facilitate discussion and active learning. Expect a varied learning environment, from individual presentations to film screenings and subsequent discussion. A certain amount of goodwill and a genuine desire to contribute to discussions invariably leads to an active seminar of critique, inquiry, and shared contribution.

Attendance

To engage sequentially in the accumulated experiences this course offers requires regular attendance. Students who miss a significant number of classes, more than 20 percent 5 classes, will not be eligible to write the final exam (unless there are extenuating circumstances I am informed of in advance). An attendance sheet will be circulated regularly.

Final Exam (25%)

A final examination will be held. You will be asked to prepare two exam-styled essays from a comprehensive list of questions. This final exercise, which the final week's discussions will visit periodically, will encourage you to integrate material from across the themes we have addressed.

Themes and Readings

Week 1 (7 Jan. and 9 Jan.)

Course Introduction & Lecture: Situating The Writing of 20th-Century Canadian History (incorporates discussion of course themes, requirements, and teaching approaches)

Organization of Readings: Presentations and Discussions

Canada’s New Century Dawns: Modernism and Colonialism

Wade Henry, ‘Imagining the Great White Mother and the Great King: Aboriginal Tradition and Royal Representation at the “Great Pow-wow” of 1901,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association /Revue de la Société historique du Canada New Series, Vol. 11 (2000): 87-108. [Available online through the webpage of the Canadian Historical Association/Société historique du Canada. Follow the ‘Publications’ link from the ‘English’ link at cha-shc.ca. Then click ‘Journal of the Canadian Historical Association.’ The follow the link that begins ‘Annual Reports. . . .’ I’d add the CHA/SHC site to your bookmarks, and explore it thoroughly for its other sources and links.]

Week 2 (14 Jan. and 16 Jan.)

A National Policy and Western Re-Settlement, 1885-1914

*Documents on Western Resettlement, 1885-1914

Hometown Horizons: ch. 1 ‘Places and Sites’ __________________________________

Week 3 (21 Jan. and 23 Jan.)

Social and Cultural Approaches to Canada's Great War: Part I

Hometown Horizons: ch. 2 ‘Dancing Before Death’ _____________________________

Hometown Horizons: ch. 3 ‘Hierarchies’______________________________________

Hometown Horizons, ch. 4 ‘Demonizations’ ___________________________________

Week 4 (29 Jan. and 30 Jan.)

Social and Cultural Approaches to Canada's Great War: Part II

Hometown Horizons, ch. 5 ‘Conscription Contested’_____________________________

Hometown Horizons, ch. 6 ‘Gendered Fields’___________________________________

Hometown Horizons, ch. 7 ‘Men Like Us’ _____________________________________

Hometown Horizons, ‘Conclusion’___________________________________________

Week 5 (4 Jan. and 6 Feb.)

Cultural Nationalism, the New Woman, and Urban Growth: Canada in the 1920s

Ross D. Cameron, ‘Tom Thomson, Antimodernism, and the Ideal of Manhood,’ Journal of the Canadian Historical Association /Revue de la Société historique du Canada New Series, Vol. 10 (1999): 185-208 [follow the same links indicated for Week 1 above]

Week 6 (11 Feb. and 13 Feb.)

Economic Collapse and Social Responses in the Great Depression

Todd McCallum, ‘The Great Depression’s First History? The Vancouver Archives of Major J.S. Matthews and the Writing of Hobo History,’ Canadian Historical Review, 87 (2006): 79-107 [Available online through the electronic database of the Arthur Wishhart Library. From AUC’s main page, click ‘library,’ then click ‘databases,’ then click ‘Algoma’s Electronic Journals,’ then type ‘Canadian Historical Review’ in the ‘Find’ box.

Reading Week

Week 7 (25 Feb. and 27 Feb.)

From Blocking Jewish Refugees to the End of the Second World War: Canada's War

Timothy Balzer, ‘”In Case the Raid is Unsuccessful. . .”: Selling Dieppe to Canadians,’ Canadian Historical Review 87 (2006): 409-430 [Available at our online journals. Follow the same steps as above, Week 6, for locating CHR articles].

Richard Harris and Tricia Shulist, ‘Canada’s Reluctant Housing Program: The Veteran’s Land Act,’ Canadian Historical Review 82 (2001): 253-82 [follow same steps as above].

Week 8 (3 Mar. and 5 Mar.)

Home Dreams: Domesticity, Gender, and Consumption from the Second World War years to the First Two Postwar Decades

Robert Rutherdale, ‘New “Faces” for Fathers: Memory, Life Writing, and Fathers as Providers in the Postwar Consumer Era’ in Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity, and Dissent, 1945-1975 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2008), 241-67

Karen Dubinsky, ‘”We Adopted a Negro”: Interracial Adoption and Hybrid Baby in 1960s Canada’ in Creating Postwar Canada, 268-88

Week 9 (10 Mar. and 12 Mar.)

Cold War Canada

Michael Dawson, ‘Leisure, Consumption, and the Public Sphere: Postwar Debates over Shopping Regulation in Vancouver and Victoria during the Cold War’ in Creating Postwar Canada, 193-216

Week 10 (17 Mar. and 19 Mar.)

Baby Boom, Youth, and Dissent: The Sixties and Early-Seventies

Marcel Martel, ‘Law Versus Medicine: The Debate Over Drug Use in the 1960’ in Creating Postwar Canada, 315-333

Christabelle Sethna, ‘”Chastity Outmoded!”: The Ubyssey, Sex, and the Single Girl, 1960-1970’ in Creating Postwar Canada, 289-314

Week 11 (24 Mar. and 26 Mar.)

The Revolution Tranquille

Éric Bédard, ‘The Intellectual Origins of the October Crisis’ in Creating Postwar Canada, 61-88

Joel Belliveau, ‘Acadian New Brunswick’s Ambivalent Leap in the Canadian Liberal Order’ in Creating Postwar Canada, 45-60

Week 12 (31 Mar. and 2 Apr.)

Canada’s Neo-Conservativsm in the 1980s and 90s’

Dimitry Anastakis, ‘Multilateralism, Nationalism, and Bilateral Free Trade: Competing Visions of Canadian Economic and Trade Policy, 1945-1970 in Creating Postwar Canada, 137-162

Robert Wright, ‘From Liberalism to Nationalism: Peter C. Newman’s Discovery of Canada’ in Creating Postwar Canada, 111-136

Research-in-Progress concluding reports and thematic course review

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