Atlantic Canada Studies (ACST)

Students are introduced to the interdisciplinary study of the Atlantic Region through specific content areas such as culture, economy,environment, and peoples. Students will also explore the nature of interdisciplinary inquiry, research ethics, and community-based research.

Students use project development and management skills to critically think about the practical value of intellectual training to civil society. Individual responsibility as a means of building collective prosperity is emphasized, with the goal of helping students develop important outreach and public engagement skills. Students are challenged to think about the broad application of evidence-based Arts and Humanities research, communication, and critical-thinking skills through guest lectures, innovative learning materials and project creation. Classes 3 hrs. and lab 3 hrs. a week.

This seminar is an examination of health and medicine in contemporary Atlantic Canada through an interdisciplinary perspective. Emphasis is placed on the organization of health services, health policy, the role of voluntary groups and agencies, and the experiences of health and illness in a regional context.

This course introduces students to both the field of public history and to the application of history and historical methods in a variety of workplace settings. Public history, which involves the practices and presentation of history outside academia, is the domain of a wide variety of practitioners including historians, museologists, archivists, journalist, museum workers, genealogist, film makers and researchers. This course will examine the evolution of public history as a field of study since the 1960s and will focus on analysis of the presentation of history in a variety of films, presentations, and historic sites. The course content will be primarily Canadian and American, examining questions about ethics, standards and audience. The course will have both a classroom and an applied history or workplace component. Seminar three hours per week, plus successful completion of eight hours weekly of mentored volunteer work in a public history setting.

This course offers an in-depth study of Atlantic Canadian Literary Cultures. Topics to address may include: aboriginal writing and oral tradition, the rise of the colonial press, early canon formation, the role of the confederation poets, writings by women, the Acadian renaissance, the function and persistence of nostalgia, Africadian literature, and representations of contemporary culture. Students are encouraged to read Atlantic Canada as a cultural geography with a diverse literary inheritance, a place where many different ways of writing the region intersect and influence each other.

This course will use the study of physical objects as the means to explore the nature of the various colonial and indigenous cultures found in Atlantic Canada. Students will be introduced to various theoretical approaches to the study of material culture before turning to the study of specific objects drawn from a wide body of items that can range from domestic tools and furnishings to industrial machinery and public architecture.

This course focuses on the analyses of cultural commodities arising from a history of writing about culture, the means by which this writing about culture is produced, and the audience to which it is directed. The course covers both foundational texts in the history of cultural theories and specific topics of the study of culture (popular culture, media, urban studies, film, gender, sexuality and race studies), to illustrate methods by which culture is interpreted.

This seminar course examines the changing ways nature has been viewed and transformed in Atlantic Canada before and after European settlement, surveying environmental history up to the mid-20th century. Topics include the role of natural history in the struggle for empire; historic aboriginal resource use; ecological patterns of colonial land use and settlement; changing frontier ecology; historical issues in agriculture, fishing, forestry, mining, and urban development; the early conservation movement; local natural history and emerging science; early natural resources policy; and cultural perceptions of nature and the landscape.

Ecology provides the background for considering the many social, economic, political, and philosophical dimensions of environmental and resource use in Atlantic Canada today. Interdisciplinary in perspective, this environmental studies seminar focuses on contemporary practices, policies, and technological concerns in agriculture, forestry, the fishery, the energy sectors, and urban development. Also covered are the role of environmentalism, concepts of sustainability, environmental governance, and ecological literacy. This interdisciplinary exploration of ecology and culture emphasizes environmental perspectives from the humanities and social sciences and is open to students from all academic backgrounds.

Reading landscapes is an interdisciplinary investigation of the relationship between natural history, ecology, and human activity in regional landscapes. This course examines the ecology and environment of Atlantic Canada through seminar discussion, with an emphasis on field study trips to various sites, both urban and rural. Since direct immersion in landscape can nurture a better understanding of the diversity of life and one's own culture and environment, this course will accentuate interactive engagement with flora and fauna, as well as contact with individuals and communities concerned with ecological literacy and environmental issues. Interpretive hikes and projects will explore landscapes that include forests, marshlands, beaches, rivers, fields, and urban streets.

This course examines the economic development of Atlantic Canada in its local, national, and international contexts. Emphasis will be placed on issues of particular importance to the region as identified in historical debates and in contemporary scholarship. While specific topics will be selected by the instructor, the course content will explore aspects of the historical pattern of economic development, federal-provincial economic relations, trading relationships and labour market restructuring.

This course will explore multiple dimensions of politics and community in Atlantic Canada. It will include an examination of conventional political actors and processes, as well various forms of political mobilization in civil society. Thus, a wide range of political, economic, social and cultural issues, institutions, ideas and identities, relating specifically to Atlantic Canada, will be reviewed and assessed.

This seminar course focuses on issues facing Atlantic Canadian First Nations and Inuit communities. Organized thematically, each session will examine a different facet of Indigenous life in Atlantic Canada and conducting research and writing about the First Nations and Inuit. The course will provide an introduction to the challenges facing Indigenous Peoples in an age of increasing globalization, changes in the environment, a complex economy, and as they reassume self-government.

This course will focus on key areas in Atlantic Canada's past that have been re-evaluated by the scholarship of the Acadiensis era, from 1971 to the present. Examples of topics to be explored are: the significance of aboriginal-imperial treaties; the expulsion of the Acadians; women and political history; industrialization and deindustrialization; borderlands; environmental change.”

This seminar focuses on the Atlantic Region from 1720 to 1870. It will examine the interactions among the colonies in the region, as well as their relationship to other colonies in the New World and to imperial powers. The seminar will also consider the history of ethno-cultural communities within the region, including aboriginal peoples and European settlers. Topics to be covered will be chosen by the instructor. Seminars concentrate on group discussion and the presentation of substantive research papers that use primary sources.

This seminar focuses on the social and cultural history of the Atlantic Region from 1870 to the present. Topics to be covered will include approaches to social and cultural history as they apply to the study of region, regional identity, gender, ethnicty, cultural production, and a range of other topics. Seminars concentrate on group discussion and the presentation of substantive research papers that use primary sources.

Students will engage in the research and writing of a thesis under supervision of a thesis committee. The student must satisfy the supervisor that thesis research and all other methodological and disciplinary preparation for the successful handling of the thesis topic have been completed. Supervisors may require a demonstration of language competence or extra course work as preparation for the treatment of certain thesis topics. Students will publicly defend their thesis, following which a final grade will be determined by the thesis committee.