Just two weeks before the beginning of the fall term, Kathryn Harvey was asked to step in to teach a history class. She decided that for the third-year seminar, Historical Representations, the students would not only focus their attention on Canadian history, they’d make it as well.
“I wanted students to have an immersive experience, one that would challenge their ideas of what history is and how it is made,” said Harvey.
So she and 45 students began an examination on the Cold War period in Canada. First they cracked the books. One of the books available to the students was The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation, a book written by one of her peers, Patricia Gentile with Gary Kinsman. Many of the students chose to review the book.
They also went to the Diefenbunker in Carp, Ontario, to get a feel for the era. The combination of text and field trip provided her class with two distinct takes on the same period in time. They also examined other themes related to that era – the Igor Gouzenko Affair, the arms race, and the creation and forced population of Nunavut to plant the Canadian flag in the North.
“I wanted the students to research a subject that was largely unknown to them,” said Harvey. “Because of the lack of research on this topic, I thought any contribution these students made would help future researchers.”
Their final project literally represented the past with a modern twist as students merged their new-found knowledge of past events with current technology. The results included graphic novels, podcasts, websites, music, paintings and even a walking tour of Ottawa.
In the following weeks, a series of profiles illustrating the individual projects will be distributed through the FASS electronic newsletters.
“The Internet is revolutionizing the way we think about the past by providing new forms of representation,” said Harvey. Her students themselves have become creators and curators of history.