3 hours lecture, or online, 3 credits

This course presents a survey of twentieth-century world history. It is the equivalent of History 12 in the British Columbia secondary school system. Students will be introduced to the study of the past century through a combination of factually-based textbook exercises, moderated on-line discussion forums, and interpretive research and writing projects. Provincial English 12, ENG 098, ENG 060 or ESL 090 is a recommended co-requisite or prerequisite for students who take this class, while completion of the On-Line Learner Success Course is also recommended for those who take the course on-line.

Prerequisite(s): Grade 11 English or ENG 052

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, or distance (D); online; Hybrid online + tutorial, 3 credits

This course provides a general chronological overview of Canadian history in the pre-Confederation era. It introduces some of the major political, social and economic events that shaped early Canadian development.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Fall

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, or distance (D); online; Hybrid online + tutorial; 3 credits

This introductory course provides an overview of Canadian history since 1867, concentrating on the main lines of political, social and economic development. It analyses important issues such as the Riel Rebellion, the shift from a rural to an urban society, the effects of the two World Wars, the Great Depression, the relations between English and French Canadians, and provincial demands for autonomy.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing. HIS 111 recommended.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter, 2010 Spring, 2011 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

This course surveys world civilizations from ancient times to the beginning of the Medieval era. It will include study of such areas of history as ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Japan and India; classical Greece and Rome; Africa and pre-contact America; and Islam, Byzantium, Western Christendom. The focus will be upon identifying broad themes, issues and patterns in world history, and upon accounting for political, social, cultural, intellectual, religious and economic change.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, Provincial English 12, or placement testing

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Fall

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

This course surveys world history from the early Medieval period to contemporary times. The focus will be upon identifying broad themes, issues and patterns in world history, and upon accounting for political, social, cultural, intellectual, religious and economic change. The approach will combine sweeping analytical overviews with recurrent intensive investigation of selected societies and topics. Class time will be divided between lecture and slide show presentation, video documentaries, and discussion based upon common course readings and a series of student research exercises.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, ESL 090, or Provincial English 12.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter, 2011 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

HIS 122 seeks to place contemporary international affairs within a broad historical and analytical perspective. The course highlights a number of events, trends and themes that have shaped the history of both individual nations and the international system since the end of World War II. Topics to be studied will include the history of the Cold War; decolonization and the struggle of developing nations to gain political and economic stability; the 'rise' of Asia: the Arab-Israeli Conflict; the Islamic resurgence; the collapse of Soviet-style communism and the nature of conflict in the post-Cold War world; the development of the global economy since Bretton Woods; and the relationship between the history of international institutions and world issues since 1945.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, ESL 090, or Provincial English 12.

This course is not offered in any upcoming terms

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

This course is designed as an introduction to the world's major living faiths. Although the focus will be upon Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, other religions will be briefly discussed. We will examine the origins and historical development, the sacred texts, the central tenets, the institutions and the rituals of each religion. The framework will be explicitly comparative as we assess how the different traditions have responded to a basic set of questions. Is there a god or gods and, if so, what is her/his/its/their nature? What is the relationship between the human and the divine? What is the purpose of life and how should it be lived? Is there an afterlife and what is the connection between this life and the next? Instruction will combine lecture, video and group presentations; class discussion and textual analysis; intensive reading; and individual student research and writing projects.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Fall

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

The secret of life, explains the sacred tavern-keeper Siduri in an ancient Sumerian epic, is that there is no secret. "When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping", he tells the king Gilgamesh. "Fill your belly with good things, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man." This course will in some ways defy the strictures of Utnapishtim in returning to the questions that rest at the centre of world mythology. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is the nature of the cosmos? What is the relationship between the individual, the family, the community and the transcendent? How are life and death intertwined? We will discuss such questions in a philosophical context but the thrust of the course will be to use an historical and comparative framework that analyzes particular mythic traditions. Rather than attempt to encompass all of world mythology within a one-term course, we will focus upon the myths of Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Northern Europe, Mesoamerica and the Pacific Northwest as case studies.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter, 2011 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

200 hours = 9 hrs. lecture, 9 hrs. seminar, plus 12-21 days travel, 3 credits

Those who would dare are invited to step into the North Island College time machine. Walk the streets of ancient Pompeii. Contemplate the accomplishments of Incan Civilization from the heights of Machu Picchu. Listen for the sound of the Minotaur below as you stand in the palace at Knossos. This course combines intensive study of one historical theme or civilization with a two-to-three-week international tour. Typically, Travels in Time will only be offered in the Spring semester and will feature a short series of preparatory lectures and seminars followed by the trip. The class will conclude with a couple of meetings upon the group's return. The academic demands in HIS 205 will be significant but are meant to accentuate rather than to detract from the travel experience.

Prerequisite(s): C minimum in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, ESL 090, or Provincial English 12.

This course is not offered in any upcoming terms

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, online, or Hybrid online/tutorial, 3 credits

This course surveys the world of early modern Europe from the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy and northern Europe, through the age of the religious wars in the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment, and developments in eastern Europe and Russia, culminating in the great watershed of the French Revolution. In addition to covering military and political developments, the course also describes the changes wrought in the social and economic lives of the people of the emerging nation states of Europe.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Fall

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, online, or Hybrid online/tutorial, 3 credits

After a brief exploration of earlier 18th Century events, this course begins with the causes, course and consequences of the French Revolution. This survey course will then examine the major events of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Particular emphasis will be placed on industrialization, the growth of the nation state and imperialism. Social change will also be examined.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter, 2011 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

"Since wars begin in the minds of men," reads the UNESCO charter, "it is in the minds of men that we have to erect the ramparts of peace." This course explores how humans have struggled to understand, memorialize, and learn from war. Although the course uses a comparative thematic approach, there is a heavy emphasis upon twentieth-century wars, since this will both provide focus and allow us to probe the politicized relationship between lived memory and history. "War," notes the journalist Chris Hedges, "is a force that gives us meaning." This course will use monuments, memorials, museums, myths, paintings, photographs, weapons, flags, cartoons, family stories, novels, and movies as sources for thinking about the ways in which war is remembered and defined.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, Provincial English 12, or placement testing

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Fall

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, or distance (D), 3 credits

Major historical events are discussed, and their significance analyzed, in this survey course on British Columbia's history. The roles played by economics, geography, politics and social factors in shaping the province's development will also be examined.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

This course addresses the political, economic and social development of the American republic from the period prior to first contact between Natives and Europeans to the end of Reconstruction.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

This course is not offered in any upcoming terms

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

This course addresses the political, economic and social development of the American republic from the end of Reconstruction to the present day. Major themes will include urbanization, industrialization, western settlement, Progressivism, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War and rise to Super Power Status, and civil rights.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

This course is not offered in any upcoming terms

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, or distance (D), 3 credits

This course examines the historical experiences of Canadian women prior to 1920. Topics covered will include native women after contact, immigrant women and the pioneer experience, women as wives and mothers, women and reform, women's growing entry into the labour force, and the changing attitude of society towards the role of women.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing. 1st year Canadian History recommended but not required.

This course is not offered in any upcoming terms

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, or distance (D), 3 credits

This course examines the major issues in women's lives after 1920. Particular attention will be paid to the changing roles and expectations of women in the home, in society and in the workplace, and to the forces that brought about these changes.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098 or Provincial English 12, or placement testing.

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect 

3 hours lecture, 3 credits

Once upon a time, a shipwrecked sailor washed up upon distant shores. He wondered about where he was. Then he saw a scaffold and gallows. "Thank god, "he exhaled, "I am in a civilized country." What is the relationship between civilization, crime and punishment? Why have dead bodies been the symbol of law at some times and places but not at others? Why did criminal trials begin? How can we account for the replacement of torture and the "bloody scaffold" with the rise of the penitentiary? This course will ask such questions as it provides an historical perspective on changing definitions of deviancy, societal reactions to violent or criminal activity, and public policies to counteract prohibited behaviour. The time span and geographical range will be vast; we will range from the Mesopotamia of 3,000 BCE to 21st-century North America. To provide focus, the curriculum will be organized around four intensive case studies: Crime and Punishment in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean; Early Modern and Industrial Britain; American Justice from Colonial Times to Court T.V.; and Reactions to Crime and Deviance in 19th and 20th Century Canada and British Columbia.

Prerequisite(s): C in one of ENG 060, ENG 098, ESL 090 or Provincial English 12

Offered in the following terms: 2010 Winter, 2011 Winter

For more information, timetabling or to register visit: NIC Connect