Research Success
The Department of History has a strong record of research success. Our own Jim Miller, Canada Research Chair in Native-Newcomer Relations, recently received the Gold Medal for Achievement in Research from SSHRC, the federal agency's highest honour. Jim was awarded this singular honour for his ground-breaking work on Indian residential schools, First Nations treaties, and, currently, his research on the Truth and Reconciliation process in Canada. Just last year, the U of S awarded an earned D. Litt to Bill Waiser, A.S. Morton Research Chair in the Department of History in recognition of his research contributions to western Canadian history, environmental history, and public history. For their outstanding research accomplishments, Janice MacKinnon, Jim Miller, and Bill Waiser have been named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, while both Miller and Waiser are recipients of the U of S Distinguished Researcher Award. Since September 2001, History faculty have been awarded 25 percent of all Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Standard Research Grants on campus, and 71 percent of those awarded to faculty in the Humanities and Fine Arts Division of the College of Arts and Science.
Click here for more information about Recent Faculty Publications or here for information about Research Networks in which we're involved.
Check out this list of SSHRC Standard Research Grants awarded to department faculty since April 2006:
Eugenic Frontiers: An Historical Examination of Sexual Sterilization in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1920-1975
Professor Erika Dyck, Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine
Dr. Dyck’s project will compare historical attitudes and activities surrounding the issue of sexual sterilization in mental health systems in Alberta and Saskatchewan in the 20th century. It will attempt to explain why Alberta supported legislation for eugenics from 1928-1972, while Saskatchewan meanwhile focused on developing a health care system that did not include provisions for sexual sterilization.
A World We Have Lost
Professor W.A. (Bill) Waiser
In this "prequel" to his award-winning centennial history of the province, Dr. Waiser will examine pre-1905 Saskatchewan from an environmental and Aboriginal perspective. He will explain how the province of the popular imagination today was a fundamentally different place before the start of the twentieth century.
Cognition and Governance in the Social Economy: Innovation in Multi-stakeholder Organizations
Professor Brett Fairbairn (Principal Investigator)
Professor Murray Fulton (Agricultural Economics, U of S, Co-Investigator)
Professor Marie Bouchard (Chaire de recherche du Canada en économie sociale, Université du Québec à Montréal, Co-Investigator)
Dr. Fairbairn and his research team will examine theory and case studies concerning ways in which multi-stakeholder engagement in governance affects innovation
processes in Canadian, community-based organizations.
"D'Une Grossesse d'Homme" and Other Family Matters: Men's Health in England and France (ca. 1675-1775)
Professor Lisa Smith
Dr. Smith's project will investigate cultural constructions of masculinity and the lived experience of manhood in early modern England and France. It will focus on the relationship between men's management of their own health and bodies, their supervision of family health, and the widespread discourses of masculinity and household management.
Gentlemen and Tailors: Clothing, Class, and Masculinity in Victorian Britain
Professor Chris Kent
Dr. Kent's project will examine the relationship between custom tailors and their gentleman clients in England 1840-1914 with special attention to the relationship between masculinity and men's fashions.
The Monarchy and Crown in Aboriginal Historical Consciousness
Professor Keith Carlson
Focusing on Coast Salish of British Columbia, Dr. Carlson will investigate how this oral society re-interpreted such things as introduced disease and the British Monarchy as it acquired new information from outside literate sources. His work will shed light on the connections between orality, literacy, tradition, memory, and history in the formation of indigenous historiography.
Reconciliation for Residential School Victims
Professor J.R. (Jim) Miller, Canada Research Chair in Native-Newcomer Relations
In this study, Dr. Miller will examine the twenty-year effort by churches, federal government, and Canadians to make amends for the damage inflicted on Native people by residential schooling. This work will complement his earlier comprehensive history of Aboriginal residential schooling in Canada.
Rethinking the Dust Bowl
Professor Geoff Cunfer
In this project, Dr. Cunfer will explore the causes of dust storms and wind erosion on the Great Plains during the century before the famous 1930s Dust Bowl. How frequent, widespread, and intense were dust storms between 1830 and 1930? Using local newspapers, explorers accounts, military records, and government maps, the project will create a detailed geography and chronology of dust storms during the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
