Online Degree Programs

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

Humanities (HUMN) 202
Western Culture II: Since the Reformation (Revision 2)

Delivery mode: Individualized study or grouped study with video component*.
*Overseas students, please contact the University Library before registering in a course that has an audio/visual component.

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: None. HUMN 201 or HIST 201 is strongly recommended. This course is intended as a foundation course for Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of General Studies students, and is designed for learners with little or no previous university experience. It provides a good starting place for new students intending to study history, literature, philosophy, or other aspects of the humanities.

Precluded course: HUMN 202 is a cross-listed course—a course listed under 2 different disciplines—with HIST 202. HUMN 202 may not be taken for credit by students who have obtained credit for HIST 202.

Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis

HUMN 202 has a Challenge for Credit option.

Overview

How did the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution change the intellectual and cultural climate of Europe? In what ways was Baroque Classicism a cultural expression of the political Age of Absolutism? What were the principal qualities and achievements of the Enlightenment? Was there a causal relationship between the American and French Revolutions and the Romantic Movement? What new forms of middle class and working-class culture resulted from the growth of industrial society in the nineteenth century? Which leading artists and intellectuals made fundamental attacks on the values and cultural forms of industrial society, and what were their most valuable contributions? How did Western cultural and intellectual life change as a result of the two world wars? What have been the most important artistic and scientific developments in the post-industrial age?

These are some of the questions examined in HUMN 202. It is the second of two, three-credit courses that together survey the development of Western civilization from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to the complicated and sophisticated world of the post-industrial era. Although the course employs a historical framework, its overall approach is interdisciplinary, drawing upon the insights of artists, musicians, theologians, philosophers, and literary critics as well as social and political historians.
Outline

Western Culture II: Since the Reformation is divided into eight units:

Unit 1: The Reformation and Mannerism, 1500-1603

Unit 2: The Baroque Era and the Scientific Revolution, 1600-1730

Unit 3: The Enlightenment, 1700-1789

Unit 4: Revolutions and Romanticism, 1760-1830

Unit 5: Romanticism, Nationalism and Realism, 1830-1870

Unit 6: Early Modernism, 1870-1914

Unit 7: Modernism and the Era of Discontent, 1905-1945

Unit 8: Late Modernism and Post-Modernism, 1945 to the Present

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 455
Canada and the Bomb: Canada and the World in the Cold War (Revision 3)

Opened in Moodle March 18, 2008.

Delivery mode: Individualized study.

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: None. HIST 225 is strongly recommended.

Centre: Centre for State and Legal Studies

HIST 455 has a Challenge for Credit option.
Overview

This course examines Canada’s response to the unleashing of the atom’s destructive power and the intense divisions between the two superpowers with the greatest control over that power. Among issues discussed are the range of official and private citizen attitudes to nuclear and conventional warfare, the Canadian armaments industry, Canada’s role in the Vietnam war, and Canadian participation in NATO and NORAD.

Throughout the course, a key concern is the relationship of Canadian attitudes to nuclear and foreign-policy issues on the one hand, and Canadian views of the values informing our own society, on the other.
Outline

Unit 1: From War to Cold War, 1945-57

Unit 2: To the Brink and Back Again, 1957-68

Unit 3: The Era of Detente, 1968-79

Unit 4: The “Second” Cold War and the Thawing Out,
1979-91

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 426
Contemporary Canada: Canada After 1945 (Revision 1)

Delivery mode: Individualized study.

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: Permission of the professor. HIST 225 is recommended. Students without a strong background in Canadian history but who have an interest in this course are urged to register in HIST 326 rather than HIST 426. HIST 426 is a more advanced version of HIST 326. Contact the course professor if you are in doubt.

Precluded course: HIST 326 (HIST 426 may not be taken for credit if credit has already been obtained for HIST 326).

Centre: Centre for State and Legal Studies

HIST 426 has a Challenge for Credit option.

Overview

HIST 426 focuses on social change and social conflict since 1945. Beginning with a study of the Cold War in the immediate aftermath of World War II, it demonstrates both official and popular efforts to create a conservative society in which dissent was suppressed, class, sexual, and racial hierarchies were maintained, and the United States was the arbiter of political, economic, and cultural correctness.

It then examines the social pressures that challenged such an agenda in the decades following the war. Included in the study of social conflicts are the emergence of the women’s movement, movements of Native peoples and visible-minority groups, as well as the Quebec independence movement and movements of regional resistance to the perceived federal agenda. Particular emphasis is placed on the social experiences of the generations born after the war, the “baby boomers,” followed by the “Generation Xers.”

Also included is a study of the emergence first of the Keynesian welfare state and later the neo-conservative challenge to its expansion and indeed to its existence.
Outline

Unit 1: The Cold War

Unit 2: The Baby Boomers

Unit 3: Social History of the Post-War Period

Unit 4: The Changing Position of Women

Unit 5: Nationalism and Regionalism

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 407
The Enlightenment (Revision 1)

Delivery mode: Individualized study.

Credits: 3 - Reading course - Humanities

Prerequisite: None. Before registering, it is strongly recommended that students have previous university-level history studies experience. This course is designed primarily for students in the last year of a BA major in History.

Precluded course: HIST 405 (HIST 407 may not be taken for credit if credit has already been obtained for HIST 405.)

Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis

HIST 407 has a Challenge for Credit option.

Overview

What exactly was the intellectual and cultural movement called the Enlightenment? In what way was it a continuation of the Scientific Revolution? How did it reflect changes in the structure of eighteenth century European society and politics? Did it involve a repudiation or undermining of Christianity? And did the Enlightenment philosophes succeed in creating the “science of freedom” for which some of them strove?

HIST 407 examines the intellectual history of eighteenth-century Europe in the context of its social and political history, drawing upon the writings of leading historians of the subject as well as studying the works of leading French, German, and British thinkers from the period. The first part of the course provides an overview of European political, social, intellectual, and cultural life in the seven decades before the outbreak of the French Revolution. The second part gives an introduction, interpretation, and analysis of the Enlightenment, relying on the work of one of the leading historians of this intellectual movement, Peter Gay. The last part examines Enlightenment thought at first hand, using a wide variety of primary sources written by such thinkers as Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Diderot, Montesquieu, Swift, Hume, Smith, Kant, and Condorcet.
Outline

Part I: Europe in the Eighteenth Century

Unit 1: The Eighteenth Century: State and Society

Unit 2: The Eighteenth Century: Culture, Religion, and Rationalism

Part II: Interpreting the Enlightenment

Unit 3: Interpreting the Enlightenment I: The Rise of Modern Paganism

Unit 4: Interpreting the Enlightenment II: The Science of Freedom

Part III: Enlightenment Thought: Primary Sources

Unit 5: Primary Sources on Science, Religion, Ethics, and Epistemology

Unit 6: Primary Sources on Politics and Economics

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 371
The Medieval World (I): The Early Middle Ages (Revision 1)

Delivery mode: Individualized study.

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: None.

Precluded course: HIST 302 (HIST 371 may not be taken for credit if credit has already been obtained for HIST 302.)

Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis

HIST 371 has a Challenge for Credit option.
Overview

HIST 371 surveys over five hundred years in the history of Western Civilization from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the eve of the Twelfth Century Renaissance. Rather than studying the details of political history, students will focus on the enduring legacy of early medieval society—the religious, political, and legal institutions and structures, and the great works of art, architecture, poetry, and theology created during these centuries.
Outline

Unit 1: The Fall of the Roman Empire and the Rise of Barbarian Europe

Unit 2: By the Skin of Our Teeth? Pagan Culture and Christianity in the Centuries of Crisis, AD 400-700

Unit 3: The Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian Revivals of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries

Unit 4: Byzantium and Islam

Unit 5: The Vikings

Unit 6: The Central Middle Ages: Economy, Society, and Politics

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 329
Social History of Canada (Revision 1)

Delivery mode: Individualized study.

Credits: 6 - Humanities

Prerequisite: None. Credit in at least one history course is recommended.

Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis

Overview

HIST 329 examines the country’s history by tracing the way in which particular societies were constructed and how they have changed over time. The course looks at specific societies, beginning with Native society at the time of the first contact with Europeans. Although the course adheres to a loose chronological approach, more general themes are explored as well, such as the significance of gender and ethnicity in each society. HIST 329 is little concerned with political development or biographical details of the various male Europeans who held political office.
HIST 329 has a Challenge for Credit option.

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 225
History of Canada, 1867 to the Present (Revision 4)

View previous syllabus.

Delivery mode: Individualized study or grouped study. Video component*.
*Overseas students, please contact the University Library before registering in a course that has an audio/visual component.

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: None. Students planning to take both HIST 224 and HIST 225 should take HIST 224 first.

Centre: Centre for State and Legal Studies

HIST 225 has a Challenge for Credit option.

Overview

HIST 225 provides a survey of Canada’s political, social, and economic development from 1867 to the present. The course focuses on the impact of social developments on political changes as well as vice versa.
Outline

Unit 1: Inventing Canada, 1867-1914

Unit 2: Economy and Society in the Industrial Age, 1867-1918

Unit 3: Transitional Years: Canada, 1919-1945

Unit 4: Reinventing Canada, 1945-1975

Unit 5: Post-Modern Canada

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 215
Europe: Medieval to Modern (Revision 1)

Delivery mode: Individualized study with video component* and computer optional component.
Overseas students, please contact the University Library before registering in a course that has an audio/visual component.

Credits: 3 - Humanities
Prerequisite: None.
Precluded course: HIST 214 and HIST 314 (HIST 215 may not be taken for credit if credit has already been obtained for HIST 214 and HIST 314.)
Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis
HIST 215 has a Challenge for Credit option.

Overview

The course surveys the most significant political, economic, social, religious, and intellectual trends in European history from the beginning of the Middle Ages to the mid-eighteenth century. The aim of the course is to provide both a description and an explanation of the forces that shaped the birth of the modern world during the so-called Early Modern era, a time period that witnessed the rapid growth of commercial capitalism, the development of the nation state, the flourishing of such intellectual movements as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and the spread of European industry, commerce, and culture to both the New World and the continents of Africa and Asia.

The course textbook, A History of Western Society, provides a narrative account of the evolution of civilization in Europe from AD 400 to the mid-eighteenth century. The videotape lectures by Dr. J. M. Hayden summarize and analyse these developments, using the Middle Ages as a base against which to measure the economic, social, political, and intellectual changes experienced by Europe between 1350 and 1750. Textbook and lectures are supplemented by a study guide which integrates the material covered by them.
Outline

History 215 Europe: Medieval to Modern is divided into twelve units, each of which consists of a videotape lecture and associated readings from the print materials used in the course. There is also an optional computer conference for each unit. The units are as follows:

Unit 1: What is History? The Beginnings

Unit 2: The Legacy of Greece and Rome

Unit 3: The Middle Ages

Unit 4: The Zenith and Decline of Medieval Civilization

Unit 5: The Renaissance

Unit 6: European Expansion

Unit 7: The New Monarchies and the Reformation

Unit 8: The Wars of Religion

Unit 9: Absolutism and Constitutionalism in Western Europe

Unit 10: Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe

Unit 11: Early Modern European Society

Unit 12: The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 209
A History of the World in the Twentieth Century: I (Revision 2)

View previous syllabus.

Delivery mode: Individualized study with video component*.
Overseas students, please contact the University Library before registering in a course that has an audio/visual component.

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: None. Credit in at least one university history course is recommended.

Precluded course: HIST 209 is a cross-listed course—a course listed under two different disciplines—GLST 209. HIST 209 may not be taken for credit by students who have obtained credit for GLST 209.

Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis

Overview

HIST 209 examines the major economic, political, social, scientific, and technological developments in twentieth century history. The course adopts four broad themes: global interrelatedness; identity and difference; rise of the mass society; and technology versus nature. These themes serve as a guide to understanding the material in each of the course’s fourteen units.
Outline
Unit 1: 1900-Age of Hope
Unit 2: 1914-Killing Fields
Unit 3: 1917-Red Flag
Unit 4: 1919-Lost Peace
Unit 5: 1926-On the Line
Unit 6: 1927-Great Escape
Unit 7: 1929-Breadline
Unit 8: 1930-Sporting Fever
Unit 9: 1933-Master Race
Unit 10: 1939-Total War
Unit 11: 1945-Brave New World
Unit 12: 1947-Freedom Now
Unit 13: 1948-Boom Time
Unit 14: 1945-Fall Out

Undergraduate Course> Athabasca University

History (HIST) 202
Western Culture II: Since the Reformation (Revision 2)

Credits: 3 - Humanities

Prerequisite: None. HUMN 201 or HIST 201 is strongly recommended. This course is intended as a foundation course for Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of General Studies students, and is designed for learners with little or no previous university experience. It provides a good starting place for new students intending to study history, literature, philosophy, or other aspects of the humanities.

Precluded course: HIST 202 is a cross-listed course—a course listed under two different disciplines—with HUMN 202. HIST 202 may not be taken for credit by students who have obtained credit for HUMN 202.

Centre: Centre for Global and Social Analysis

Overview

How did the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution change the intellectual and cultural climate of Europe? In what ways was Baroque Classicism a cultural expression of the political Age of Absolutism? What were the principal qualities and achievements of the Enlightenment? Was there a causal relationship between the American and French Revolutions and the Romantic Movement? What new forms of middle class and working-class culture resulted from the growth of industrial society in the nineteenth century? Which leading artists and intellectuals made fundamental attacks on the values and cultural forms of industrial society, and what were their most valuable contributions? How did Western cultural and intellectual life change as a result of the two world wars? What have been the most important artistic and scientific developments in the post-industrial age?

These are some of the questions examined in HIST 202. It is the second of two, three-credit courses that together survey the development of Western civilization from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to the complicated and sophisticated world of the post-industrial era. Although the course employs a historical framework, its overall approach is interdisciplinary, drawing upon the insights of artists, musicians, theologians, philosophers, and literary critics as well as social and political historians.
Outline

Western Culture II: Since the Reformation is divided into eight units:
Unit 1: The Reformation and Mannerism, 1500-1603
Unit 2: The Baroque Era and the Scientific Revolution, 1600-1730
Unit 3: The Enlightenment, 1700-1789
Unit 4: Revolutions and Romanticism, 1760-1830
Unit 5: Romanticism, Nationalism and Realism, 1830-1870
Unit 6: Early Modernism, 1870-1914
Unit 7: Modernism and the Era of Discontent, 1905-1945
Unit 8: Late Modernism and Post-Modernism, 1945 to the Present