Canada
 |
Fort Edmonton |
Graduate studies in Canadian History at the University of Alberta reflect the unique and diverse character of Edmonton, a city situated where the prairies, the boreal forest, and the foothills of the Rockies meet and which has also served as an important gateway to northern Canada. Our faculty members are active researching, writing, and teaching in Native Studies, immigration and social history, and environmental history. Our program offers options to complete a course or thesis-based MA and PhDs, as well as postdoctoral research opportunities. Western Canadian history is one of the Department's recognized areas of excellence.
Our fields of graduate study in Canadian history include the following:
Geographic:
- Western Canada (Carter, Ens, Munro, Piper, Swyripa, Voisey)
- North (MacLaren, Piper)
- Ontario and Quebec (Gouglas, Mills, Munro)
- Atlantic Canada (Muir)
Thematic:
- Native studies (Carter, Ens, Piper)
- British Empire, colonialism (Carter, Muir, Samson)
- Economic and social (Carter, Ens, Gouglas, Mills, Muir, Swyripa, Voisey)
- Environmental (Ens, Gouglas, Piper)
- Cultural and intellectual (MacLaren, Mills, Munro)
- Rural settlement and agriculture (Gouglas, Voisey)
- Ethnicity and immigration (Ens, Munro, Swyripa)
- Women and gender (Carter, Mills, Swyripa)
Linkages:
The Department of History and Classics has over 50 full-time faculty members with strengths in Eastern European history, material history, the history of medicine, science, and technology, American history and more. This breadth of faculty expertise offers important opportunities for students interested in comparative research. Several Canadianists are cross-appointed with other faculties and departments: Carter (Faculty of Native Studies), Gouglas (Humanities Computing), MacLaren (English and Film Studies), and Muir (Law). We have close links with colleagues in other departments, including Chris Fletcher and Ray LeBlanc in Anthropology, Dominique Clément in Sociology, Eric Adams and Bruce Ziff in Law, Jennifer Kelly in Education, Jeremy Mouat and Melanie Méthot at the Augustana campus of the University, and Frank Tough and Chris Andersen in Native Studies. These colleagues enable further opportunities for course offerings, supervision, and research expertise. Our faculty members also maintain close ties to researchers and departments at other Alberta institutions including in particular Grant MacEwan University, Athabasca University and the University of Calgary.
Research Infrastructure
Regularly ranked second among universities in Canada, and in the top twenty-five in North America, the University of Alberta Libraries offer impressive resources for students and faculty alike. The Libraries holdings include the extensive Canadian Circumpolar Collection, an essential resource for northern studies that additionally boasts one of the most comprehensive collections of mountain history and literature in Canada. The Bruce Peel Special Collections Library includes major resources for research in Aboriginal history; the Alberta Folklore and Local History Collection; and its most recent acquisition, the Sir Samuel Steele collection, containing the papers of the famous Canadian soldier and member of the North West Mounted Police. Edmonton is also home to the Provincial Archives of Alberta and the City of Edmonton Archives.
The Department maintains a regular Western Canadian research seminar organized by Sarah Carter. Research institutes that provide additional resources and networking opportunities for students include the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Peter and Doris Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian Folklore, the Canadian Circumpolar Institute, and the Prairie Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Integration.
Faculty members’ areas of graduate teaching and supervision:
Sarah Carter Henry Marshall Tory Chair in Canadian History (Ph.D. Manitoba)
Women and gender, borderlands, comparative colonial, Western Canada
Gerhard Ens (Ph.D. Alberta)
Environmental, Native, fur trade, North-West missions
Sean Gouglas (Ph.D. McMaster), Director of Humanities Computing
Humanities Computing
Ian MacLaren (Ph.D. University of Western Ontario)
Arctic before 1950, Circumpolar Arctic history, exploration in North America and elsewhere, national parks
David Mills (Ph.D. Carleton)
Sport , popular culture, Social history and gender
James Muir (Ph.D. York)
Legal history, labour history, Atlantic Canada, 18th century
Ken Munro (Ph.D. Ottawa)
Political history of French Canada (19th & 20th centuries), biography, Canadian Crown
Liza Piper (Ph.D. York), Core group member of NiCHE
Environmental, Western Canada, North, history of science
Frances Swyripa (Ph.D. Alberta)
Western Canada, immigration, ethnicity, women and gender, Ukrainian Canadians, religion, public history
Adjunct Professors:
Dominique Clément (Ph.D. Memorial)
Historical sociology, human rights, social movements, law and society, women, labour
Robert Irwin (Ph.D. Alberta)
Western Canada, North, Native, agriculture