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Experts in: 20th century

BAILLARGEON, Denyse

Professeure émérite

My current research focuses on the Sainte-Justine Hospital's fundraising campaigns from the late 1920s to the present, and on how commercial advertising for over-the-counter drugs contributed to the medicalization of Quebec society between 1920 and 1970.

The first project looks both at the message developed by the hospital (and its advertising agencies) to convince the public to dig into their pockets and donate to the hospital, and the physical organization of these fundraising campaigns, to see how it evolved over the years, when and to what extent it became more professional, and the role played by volunteers (most often women) and "experts" (most often men). This research is based on two key concepts: the concept of a mixed social economy, meaning the combination of private and public funding of healthcare and welfare institutions, and that of moral regulation, meaning actions by government or groups from civil society seeking to shape new subjectivities as a way of encouraging new behaviours.

In my second project I intend to study the advertising campaigns for certain over-the-counter drugs so as to analyze how their messages concerning bodies and health and the way they represented them evolved. My initial hypothesis is that the medicalization of society is attributable not only to the doctors and the state that were in the forefront of public health campaigns, but also to the drug companies that capitalized on people's concerns about their health and well-being in marketing their products, thereby reinforcing new norms in these areas. More generally, my research seeks to highlight the connections between health concerns and the rise of consumerism, two major 20th-century cultural phenomena.

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Bouchard, Carl

BOUCHARD, Carl

Chercheur, Professeur titulaire, Secrétaire de faculté, Vice-doyen

My work focuses on the notion of peace, its representation and conceptualization during the 20thcentury. At the doctoral level I worked on the broad movement within the democracies that emerged as winners after the First World War, aimed at creating a lasting peace. My recent research, which looked at letters from “ordinary people” to political figures (Woodrow Wilson) and international organizations (League of Nations), examined the connections between citizenship, individual engagement and international relations. In my current research I am studying the social mobility and reintegration of French-Canadian veterans after the First World War.

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Carley, Michael Jabara

CARLEY, Michael Jabara

Professeur titulaire

Michael J. Carley is an expert on 20th-century international relations and the history of Russia and the Soviet Union. His Research interests focus on relations between the Soviet Union and Western Europe and the United States between 1917 and 1945. He has written two books and some thirty papers and essays on French involvement in the Russian Civil War (1917-1921), Soviet relations with the Great Powers between the two world wars, issues of appeasement and the origins and conduct of the Second World War. He has been published in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia.

Professor Carley is working on two large projects. The first concerns the troubled relations between Soviet Russia/the USSR and the West from 1917 to 1930. His book, Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations, was published in late January 2014 by Rowman & Littlefield, in the US, and is available from Amazon and Indigo. It was recently recognized by the American magazine Choice as the Outstanding Academic Title, 2014 in Central and Eastern European history.

His second project deals with the origins and creation of the "Grand Alliance" against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Work on this second title is progressing well, and the provisional title is A Near-Run Thing: The Grand Alliance of World War II.

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Dagenais, Michèle

DAGENAIS, Michèle

Professeure titulaire

Cities are my main research topic. I study them through the history of their concrete and symbolic formation. I am interested in showing that the efforts involved in the physical organization of cities shape the way they are governed and help structure social and political relationships at this level. This way of seeing the history of cities as a product of interrelated physical and social factors has led to published papers on the development of public spaces for culture and recreation in Montreal and Toronto in the 19th and 20th centuries, and on the structuring of the municipal domain through drinking water and wastewater networks. I recently published a paper on evolving relationships between Montreal and water, in an attempt to reconstitute the role of water and its successive transformations in the city's urbanization process since the early 19th century. Since then I have been pursuing my work on the history of the environment at the larger scale of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence hydrographic system.

I am also interested in issues relating to the writing and public uses of history in theoretical and practical terms. I have taken part in various debates and roundtables on the teaching of history. I also sometimes collaborate on mounting exhibitions and producing historical documents for various audiences.

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Hamzah, Dyala

HAMZAH, Dyala

Professeure agrégée

My research interests concern the processes of reform and centralization in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, North Africa), from a cultural and social perspective. The central role of the press and associations in the emergence of a public space during the Arab Renaissance and the issues of education and citizenship in the colonial and post-colonial periods are central to my research.

At the same time, my work bears on the symmetrical processes of professionalization and the popularization of Islamic expertise in the 20th century. More specifically, I am interested in the institutional and curricular development of mosque-universities such as al-Azhar, Zaytuna and Qarawiyyin, from the 18th century until their nationalization in the 1960s, and also in the legacies and uses of Islamic historiography, philosophy and law in the contemporary period, particularly in nationalism and Islamism.

My current research aims to contribute to the cultural history of Arab nationalism and to define its key institutions: volunteer associations and secret societies; scouting movements; school textbooks.

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Huberman, Michael

HUBERMAN, Michael

Chercheur, Professeur titulaire

My background is in economics and history. Early in my career, my research focused on the development of the labour market during the Industrial Revolution. I have since studied the effects of globalization on working conditions and well-being from a historical and comparative perspective.

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Meren, David

MEREN, David

Chercheur, Professeur agrégé

I have taught the international history of Canada and Quebec at Université de Montréal since 2011. My goal as a historian is to use cultural and social history, as well as postcolonial studies, to obtain and promote a deeper understanding of the history of Canada and Quebec in the world, and the way in which their international activities (governmental and non-governmental) have shaped and been shaped by the lived experiences of the peoples living in the northern portion of North America. I employ international history to explore Canada and Quebec as projects of rule, while situating them and their populations in global currents.

My first book, With Friends Like These: Entangled Nationalisms and the Canada-Québec-France Triangle, 1944-1970 (UBC Press, 2012), examines the complex triangular dynamic between Canada, Quebec and France by situating this in the broader currents of the history of globalization. It explores the concept of “nation” in an increasingly interconnected world, and parallel to this, the efforts to manage multiple overlapping identities. This monograph also is part of my ongoing effort to shed light on the question of “empire” in Canadian and Quebec history. These research interests also led to my co-editing a volume that offers and encourages a critical reinterpretation of Canadian international history through the prism of race Dominion of Race: Rethinking Canada’s International History (UBC Press, 2017). 

I also explore the history of settler colonialism in Canada and Quebec, as it is impossible to understand Canadian and Quebec international history without referring to the complex history of the relationships between Indigenous Peoples and settlers. This idea also underpins my current research project, an exploration of the entangled history of Canadian development assistance after 1945 and Indigenous-Canadian relations.

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Milton, Cynthia E.

MILTON, Cynthia E.

Professeure associée, Chercheuse

Analyzing, both traditional and new methods of resolving conflicts by "saying the truth", she studies the Peruvian regions strongly affected by the Shining Path. Her present research centers on the works of Art produced following a period of violence. She presently holds an Alexander Von Humboldt Research Fellowship (2011-2014) for experienced researchers. She is the Director of the Chair in Contemporary Mexican Studies (CEMC) and the Research Network on Latin America (RÉAL).

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MONNAIS, Laurence

Chercheuse, Professeure titulaire

I am a medical historian and specialize in Southeast Asia. I have been working for over 15 years on the development of health policy and practices from the 19th century to the present, with a particular focus in recent years on the multiple "encounters" between Western (biomedicine) and so-called alternative and traditional forms of medicine. I am a determined advocate of a multidisciplinary, transnational approach, and recently developed projects and published on medications as a social object, immigrants' health practices and the identity of Vietnamese medicine.

I have held the Canada Research Chair in Healthcare Pluralism since 2007, and I work to improve our understanding of changes in health indicators in modern societies, over-medication and rejection of vaccination, as well as the enthusiasm for alternative medicine - all behaviours that are giving rise to increasing concern but also to different interpretations, which deserve to be revisited and examined from a historical perspective.

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OWNBY, David

Professeur honoraire

My main research interests have to do with the history of religion in modern and contemporary China. I have worked mainly on popular groups, having conducted field research in China, Taiwan and North America. The development of the religious fact in China since the latter 19th century is extremely complex, and we cannot study popular religion without considering the aims of the Chinese government and the posture of institutionalized religions. Given the religious rebirth in China since the end of the Maoist era, even historical research on this subject is important from a contemporary point of view.

With colleagues from York University and UBC, I have also launched a new research program on contemporary intellectual life in China. The project explores the complex relations between the growing freedom of expression for intellectuals, the cultural search for an identity that will be both modern and Chinese, and the pressing need for Chinese political authorities to find a new ideological legitimacy. This program is now funded through an SSHRC Insight grant.

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Rabkin, Yakov

RABKIN, Yakov

Chercheur, Professeur émérite

My research interests are as follows:

  1. The history of the Soviet Union and the consequences of its dismantlement, in particular the history of science and intellectuals, the transformation of research systems and the de-modernization of post-Soviet societies and socio-economic polarization and other effects on societies outside the post-Soviet space. 
     
  2. The contemporary history of Jews and the history of Zionism and the state of Israel, in particular the connections between the Zionist movement and the political right in the West, Jewish opposition to Zionism, the development of the Jewish identity since the turn of the 20th century and the origins and spread of Christian Zionism.
     
  3. Science and higher education as factors in international relations, in particular scientific exchanges, the internationalization of education and the role of scientists in international politics.

The themes of some recently completed and current theses and dissertations:

  • History textbooks in three post-Soviet states
  • The historiography of some Cold War conflicts
  • Franco-Romanian relations: between tradition and necessity (1949-1974)
  • Pro-Israeli activities in Canada
  • Jewish political and religious opposition to Zionism
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RAMIREZ, Bruno

Professeur émérite

My research themes are as follows:

  1. Intra-continental migrations (North America) and the immigration of Italians to Quebec
  2. The history of cultural policies from a comparative perspective (United States/Canada/Europe)
  3. The history of key concepts and their uses in the social sciences and government policies (assimilation; integration; incorporation; multiculturalism; inter-culturalism; transculturalism; diversity)
  4. Cinematic narrations of the past (documentaries and feature films)
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Saul, Samir

SAUL, Samir

Professeur titulaire

I publish, teach and supervise students at the Master's, PhD and post-doctorate levels in the field (or theme) of the history of international relations. I am interested primarily in France and the Arab world. I am a student and proponent of the "French School" of the history of international relations (HIR), which updated the study of the international phenomenon by including and integrating "deep forces" (economic, social, institutional, cultural, etc.) in the analysis. This approach generated a rich historiography whose originality transformed and reinvigorated the field of international history. This vitality is just as valuable today as it was yesterday in terms of questioning, investigating and discovering, as illustrated by the number of students doing their MA and PhD studies in HIR.

The issue that has intrigued me the most is the connections between the political and economic dimensions internationally. This question underpins many of my publications, in particular my work on Franco-Egyptian relations based on a doctorat d'État (I am among the last to have obtained this venerable diploma under the French university system, as it has now been replaced by the single dissertation). It led to a monograph, currently in printing, on the decolonization of French North Africa. In economic history, my interests focus on movements of capital, international trade and the history of businesses (banks, oil companies, electricity companies).

Since 2004 I have been a founding member and co-ordinator of the Groupement interuniversitaire pour l'histoire des relations internationales (GIHRIC). Along with research, I find teaching a real pleasure, as shown by the Award of Outstanding Achievement in Teaching I received early in my career from the Faculty of Arts and Science. The flame still burns brightly!

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TOUSIGNANT, Noémi

Chercheuse invitée

Themes that animate my recent work include:

  • Scientific (in)capacity in Africa as a lived social and material reality, and in relation to global health inequalities
  • The afterlives of scientific materiality and labour in settings of economic uncertainty
  • Civic subjectivities – pertaining to duty, public service and entitlement – in relation to scientific expertise in colonial and postcolonial Africa.
  • The role of science (and its absence) in the unprotection – that is, the active production or preservation of gaps in protection – of health and, more broadly, of livelihoods and environments, particularly from toxic exposures.
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