COURSE AIM
This course is part I of a two-part course that examines Canadian rural history. Students who take part I are not necessarily required to take part II. Part I is a seminar course based on selected secondary readings from the historiography of Canadian rural history. It is designed to provide students with an introduction to Canadian rural history, its themes, debates and sources.
It is not intended to be a comprehensive reading list. Instead of exposing students to a wide range of topics and authors, they are invited to read some of the best literature in the field. As well as gaining a thorough understanding of each author's thesis and her/his contribution, we will examine how books are written, how arguments develop over several chapters and how authors make their work pertinent to the larger historical narrative. Students will also be given an opportunity to experience first hand the pleasures and challenges of working with primary documents. This focus on research and writing are designed to assist students in developing skills they can take with them into their own individual research projects in the future.
Part II
In this course a research project is carried out over one term on a historical or historiographical topic in Canadian rural history. The research paper is developed as part of the requirements of a seminar course, in this case Topics in Canadian History: Rural History, Part II. The aim of this project is for the student to acquire practise in the advanced research and writing skills necessary for independent research at the graduate level. It is designed so the student can explore a topic of her/his choice, demonstrate a thorough grasp of the secondary literature on the topic, work with a body of primary sources, and arrive at an independent conclusion.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Part I
Students are required to participate in weekly seminars, research and write a primary source assignment, and an historiographical essay.
Part II
Seminar Participation:
The semester will be dedicated to independent research, but four formal seminar classes will be held. They are:
week 1 - seminar to launch students into their projects,
week 4 - seminar to present proposals and get feedback from fellow students,
week 9 - seminar to present work-in-progress and get feedback.
week 13- seminar for the formal presentation and discussion of papers. Students are required to attend these seminars, be prepared with their presentations and participate in the discussion meant to assist and support other students with their work.
Independent Research Paper:
The research paper must demonstrate the advanced research, writing and analytical skills expected at the graduate level and be of publishable quality. It must demonstrate a clearly articulated and supported thesis, a thorough grasp of the secondary literature on the topic, and a critical and effective use of primary sources. It is to be 20-25 pages in length (a length suitable for journal publications), typed and double-spaced. Students are responsible for making copies of their paper available to all other seminar participants on an established date prior to the final presentation.
It is expected that students will spend at least ten hours each week working independently on their research paper. This is not an assignment that can be completed in a few weeks, let alone a few days.
Students are encouraged to contact the professor throughout the term in person or via-e-mail if they have any questions or concerns about their research and writing or the course.
Part I EVALUATION:
Seminar participation 35% (participation and presentations)
Primary Source Assignment 25%
Historiographical Essay 40%
Part II EVALUATION:
Seminar participation and presentations - 20%
Research Paper - 80%Part I ASSIGNMENTS:
SEMINARS:
We will meet weekly for a two hour discussion on assigned readings. To be successful in this aspect of the course and enjoy the process, students should do all the reading for each seminar in advance, take notes on the author's thesis, his/her contribution to the historiography, the author's methodology and approach, and make a general appraisal of the book/articles. Each week students should come to seminar with three thoughtful questions prepared about the main issues that the readings addressed that week. Students are then required to discuss the material in an intelligent manner in the seminar itself. Some weeks, instead of readings, students will present their assignments. Each student is required to present their primary source assignment and their historiographical paper to the seminar class.
Part I PRIMARY SOURCE ASSIGNMENT:
The University of Guelph Archives has probably the best collection on Canadian rural history available anywhere. Your semester kicks off with a class tour designed especially for this class. You will be given an overview of the various rural collections and an opportunity to actually look at various pertinent documents. Your aim is to choose a collection of documents from the archives and report on it. The report (10 pages) should include a description of the collection, its provenance, a suggested reading list, and a discussion of its reliability, its strengths and weaknesses, and its significance as a source for rural history. This exercise is designed to heighten your analytical skills and increase your understanding of the use and limitations of primary sources in the field. It is also designed to give you a rare opportunity to publish something. The Archives produces a publication entitled Collection Update which introduces and reviews archival holdings for the public. The archival staff and I are very excited about the possibility of this class contributing to Collection Update. The work of a previous class is now published in hard and web format and can be viewed in the library.
You are required to make a ten minute oral presentation in seminar class on the collection you have chosen. The written version that you submit later should incorporate the suggestions made during the class presentation, and will be due after the presentation.
With careful planning, it is possible to link your assignments in this class. For example, the archival collection you choose might relate to your historiographical essay, and this, in turn, might relate to a follow-up research paper on rural history that you would select for a Research Paper in your second term - i.e. Topics in Canadian History II .
This is only a suggestion. Students may wish to explore different topics in each assignment and this is also very acceptable.
Part I HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY:
Your aim is to write an essay that explores some aspect of Canadian rural historiography. Your essay should be 15 pages. It should examine a large question or issue central to the course and the readings we have done. It should discuss previous research on the topic ( the questions, analytical frameworks, methodology etc employed by historians), how and why these have changed over time, and suggest future directions. The paper should incorporate several readings from the course, and some additional ones. It must contain a clear thesis statement, a cogent argument, and proper referencing. Please submit two copies of the assignment. I will grade one copy and the other will be made available for fellow students to read. Your topic must have been approved by me before it is submitted.
The assignment is designed to encourage students to think broadly, and comprehensively about the field as a whole, to bring originality to the topic, and to help them tie together the themes and issues of the course. It is also a writing assignment that extends students = ability to express complex ideas in words.
You are required to present your paper, near the end of term, in a 10 minute presentation to the seminar class.
Due Dates: Historiographical Paper - in class
Class Presentation - week 11 or 12.
Some suggested essay topics for your historiographical paper.
(Your own topics are most welcome.)
- The seigneurial system Inheritance
- The wheat staple Family Strategies
- The Western Frontier Rural Community
- Maritime agriculture and underdevelopment Farm family and the market
- Family structure Technology
- Rural Women Rural class
- The family farm in the age of capitalism Ethnicity and agriculture
- Rural ideal Farm and town
AFTER TOPICS IN CANADIAN HISTORY: RURAL HISTORY, PART I:
If after finishing Part I of this course, students wish to write a Research Paper on Canadian rural history, that paper would be written to meet the requirements of a A Research Paper in the Tri-University MA program. It would be a research project carried out over one term on a historical or historiographical topic in Canadian rural history designed to explore a body of primary sources, demonstrate a thorough grasp of the secondary literature on the topic and permit the author to arrive at an independent conclusion. The research paper is developed as part of the requirements of a seminar course, in this case Topics in Canadian History: Rural History, Part II . It is approximately 20-25 pages in length, and will be handed out to other class members prior to your class presentation. The Part II semester will be dedicated to independent research, but four formal seminar classes will be held: 1) a class will be held at the beginning of the semester to launch students into their projects, 2) another class will be held to present proposals and get feedback from fellow students, 3) another class will present work-in-progress, and 4) a final class will be held to present papers.
WEEKLY SEMINAR SCHEDULE AND READING LIST
Week 1
Hour 1 - First Class Meeting to meet each other, discuss the course and assignments, and sign up for seminar leadership in future weeks.
Hour 2 - Archival Tour. This is a special opportunity to browse through some of the archival holdings pertaining to rural life, and select a potential source for your primary source assignment.
Week 2
The Primary Sources for Rural History:
Readings this week are a variety of articles that utilize and evaluate particular kinds of primary sources. Pay particular attention to the use and limitations of the primary sources used. These readings have been chosen, in part, to assist you in your primary source assignment. Our discussions will focus on the use and evaluation of primary sources more than on the particular historical topic being explored.
Readings:
- Wendy Cameron, Sheila Haines, and Mary McDougall Maude, eds, English Immigrant Voices: Labourers' Letters from Upper Canada in the 1830s (2000), A Introduction , xv to li.
- Royden Loewen, "Wonders and Drudgery: The Diaries of Mennonite Migrants, 1857-1879" in Hidden Worlds (2001): 10-31.
- Neil Sutherland, "When You Listen to the Winds of Childhood, How Much Can You Believe?" in Nancy Janovicek & Joy Parr, eds. Histories of Canadian Children and Youth (2003): 19-34
- Collection Update #19 (2002). The work of students from this class is featured in this volume dedicated to rural history. Browse the entire journal to see what is expected of you for the primary source assignment and read the article by Laura Quirk, "The William Sunter Papers ".
Week 3 - (Students are to come prepared with a brief oral description of the primary source they have chosen for examination. Your primary source project is launched and now we will get a start on the historiographical paper.)
The Secondary Sources for Rural History:
What is rural history and what are the main themes and issues in Canadian rural history?
- Daniel Samson, "Situating the Rural in Atlantic Canada," in Contested Countryside (1994), pp 1-33
- R. W. Sandwell, "Introduction: Finding Rural British Columbia," in Beyond the City Limits: Rural History in British Columbia (1999), 3-14.
- Kathryn McPherson, "Was the Frontier Good for Women?: Historical Approaches to Women and Agricultural Settlement in the Prairie West, 1870-1925," Atlantis 25:1 (Fall/Winter 2000): 75-86.
Please read these articles particularly carefully. We will refer back to the issues and questions raised in them again and again throughout the course. They will also be useful starting points for your historiographical essays, both in terms of the major themes you might explore in your historiographical paper and the references to other useful secondary sources you will need to consult.
Week 4
Students are to come prepared with a brief oral description of the historiographical issue they are planning to examine for their term paper.
Reading: Colin Coates, The Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec (2000).
Week 5
Presentations of Primary Source Assignments
Week 6
- Doug McCalla, "The Ontario Economy in the Long Run," Ontario History LXXXX, no 2 (Autumn 1998): 97-115.
- Allan Smith, "Farms, forests and Cities: The Image of the Land..." in David Keane and Colin Read eds., Old Ontario.
- Catharine Wilson, "Reciprocal Work Bees and the Meaning of Neighbourhood," Canadian Historical Review, (September 2001), 431-464.
- Catharine Wilson, "Tenancy as a Family Strategy in Mid-Nineteenth Century Ontario," Journal of Social History 31:4 (Summer 1998), 875-896 .
Week 7
Primary SourceAssignments due in class
Reading: Royden K Loewen, Family, Church and Market: A Mennonite Community in the Old and the New Worlds, 1850-1930 (1993).
Week 8
Reading: Margaret C, Kechnie, Organizing Rural Women (2003).
Week 9
Reading: Kenneth M. Sylvester, The Limits of Rural Capitalism: Family, Culture, and Markets in Montcalm, Manitoba 1870-1940 (2001).
Week 10
Historiographical Essays due in class
Reading: Gerald L Pocius, A Place to Belong: Community Order and Everyday Space in Calvert, Newfoundland (reprint 2000, original 1991).
Week 11
Presentations of Historiographical Papers.
Week 12
Presentations of Historiographical Papers.
