Looking at the HIST1120 course now, I have to say that I generally liked the course. It had very interesting topics which were new to me, a diversified format and an enriching learning outcome.
I chose the course because its content of “Pre-Confederation Canada” is nothing I could study at my home institution. I greatly enjoyed widened my historical understanding onto areas I had no knowledge of before at all.
What was new?
Basically everything.
In the Germany we do not learn anything about Canadian history except that Canada was a former British colony and maybe – with a far fetch – that people spoke and speak French, too.
Due to my research interest in Indigenous studies, the Native – settler contacts was the most interesting field for me, and is also the direction of my research paper, as well as the selected reading logs.
However, one topic that also struck me, was “Acadia”, or better, the dissolution of the very precise one. Besides the terrible violence against a prosperous community, it also nicely underlines the ongoing rivalry between Britain and France. A rivalry that can be traced back in its roots to William the Conqueror /Guillaume le Conquérant and his double stand as King of England but at the same time subject to the King of France in 1066. Troubles starting from an entwined family tree and questions of loyalty remain through history and found new grounds in Acadia. Additionally, the French’s primal fear of losing their national identity comes into play in the development of Quebec and during the US-American – Canadian confrontations.
What I also liked about the seminar, was its format, the combination of lecture and seminar. It gave variety to the topics and provided different approaches. The lecture would give you a framework, while the seminar discusses specific incidents in this framework. Interesting was also the creation of groups, in order to discuss the readings. However, it felt a bit unnecessary for the lectures and I would recommend reducing it to the seminar time. Additionally, I enjoyed watching parts of the movie/documentary in the lecture and would have liked to discuss these in more depth.
Another really good approach to the topics were the reading logs in my opinion. Although they were time-consuming besides the normal course work, they helped immensely in memorizing the content of the readings. Because they dealt with more specific incidents, they made it easier to gain a feeling for the context and the people. Additionally, the reading logs highlighted that “history” is a question of interpretation, and can – dependent on the author – easily be manipulated.
The most important thing I have learned?
…was the deeper understanding and access to primary sources. Their usage and analysis is the most crucial aspect of a historians work but has not properly been taught at my home university. Especially helpful, was the knowledge of databases for primary sources because they are not always available or not reachable out of economic purposes.
Here are the links to some databases that I thought especially interesting/helpful:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150214065615/http://www.canadiana.ca/citm/index_e.html
As a recommendation for future courses: a fieldtrip to the town’s archives might be further supportive of the content as it might provide first-hand experience with primary documents.
Also for the future: Since Indigenous voices have often been ignore although their contribution was and is so thrilling, it would be an idea to offer a course on Native – Settler contacts and relations or pre-European history from an Indigenous perspective.
All in all, the HIST1120 course was a success, and worked out for me.
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