Invitation to History (Theme: Canada, Sports History, and the Case of Canadian Football) (HIST*1050) | College of Arts

Invitation to History (Theme: Canada, Sports History, and the Case of Canadian Football) (HIST*1050)

Code and section: HIST*1050*02

Term: Winter 2025

Details

UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH
COLLEGE OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

PRELIMINARY COURSE OUTLINE

COURSE TITLE: Invitation to History—Canada, Sports History, and the Case of Canadian Football
COURSE CODE: HIST*1050*02
SEMESTER: Winter 2026

INSTRUCTOR
Dr James Fraser
OFFICE: Mackinnon Extension 1002
PHONE: 1-519-824-4120  ext. 52871
EMAIL: jfrase08@uoguelph.ca

COURSE FORMAT: Two interactive lectures per week (1.5 hours each)

 

COURSE SYNOPSIS:

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of historical study as an academic discipline, including identifying and interpreting primary evidence, locating and critically analyzing secondary sources of information, and writing formally for the discipline of History.  Utilizing small classes of fifty students or less, it highlights and provides students with the tools needed for success in pursuing a History major, minor or area of concentration.

 

The specific topic studied in this section is the field of sports history, with a focus on Canada and the sport of Canadian football.  Students will reflect on what makes sports history “serious” history, by considering how the history of sport can both inform, and be informed by, more general understandings of the past in a country like Canada.  By way of illustration the course zeros in on Canadian football, and how its history speaks to wider themes in the country’s social and cultural history, including identity, race and racism, American cultural influence, and so on.

 

TEXTS AND OTHER RESOURCES:

D. Morrow and K. B. Wamsley, Sport in Canada: a history (fourth edition; Oxford University Press, 2016).

 

METHODS OF EVALUATION AND GRADE-WEIGHTINGS:

  • secondary sources project
  • primary sources project
  • research project
  • end-of-course exam

 

*PLEASE NOTE:

This is a preliminary web course description only. The Department reserves the right to change without notice any information in this description. The final, binding course outline is distributed in the first class of the semester.

 

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