koffman@yorku.ca

This course also examines the relationship between family history, biography, and other forms of understanding how all individuals play parts in and are products of histories.  It offers the research tools, guidance, and insight for students to be historians of their own histories.

As a “workshop,” students will have continuous interaction with the professor and will be expected to play a role to play in analyzing and historicizing fellow students’ research discoveries. Students uncover a wealth of information about their subjects using the “basement archives,” by conducting oral histories, and by learning to use the powerful software and databases that hold the public records of the past, including marriage documents, birth and death records, travel and immigration documents, and more. It also exposes students to critical questions about how we know what we know about the past and how it may be similar or different from what we know about family histories, to practical tools of historical research, to fascinating questions about ethics, method, and access to extremely personal information. It also challenges some fundamentally held assumptions about family itself, and of the boundaries between the private and the public.

*TENTATIVE*

Kelley and Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy.

Weil, Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America

Zerubavel, Ancestors & Relatives: Genealogy, Identity and Community

Nash, “Genetics, Race, and Relatedness: Human Mobility and Human Diversity in the Genographic Project.”

Gloyn, Crewe, King, and Woodham, "The Ties that Bind: Materiality, Identity, and the Life Course in the “Things” Families Keep."

Cline and Angier, Life Writing: A Writers' and Artists' Companion: Writing Biography, Autobiography and Memoir

William, "The Meaning of Family Photographs"

Brown, “Tangled Roots? Genetics Meets Genealogy.”

Oikkonen, “Mitochondrial Eve and the Affective Politics of Human Ancestry”

Nelson, “Bio Science: Genetic Genealogy Testing and the Pursuit of African Ancestry.”

TallBear, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science

Kramer, “Kinship, Affinity and Connectedness: Exploring the Role of Genealogy in Personal Lives”

*TENTATIVE Grade Breakdown*

Basement Archive and Oral History         10%

Context for Your Work                                      15%

Research Paper                                                     25%

Peer-Review                                                              5%

Revisions / Final Draft                                      15%

Research Log                                                   20%

Participation / Micro-Tasks                            10%

This is an iterative seminar, an unusually structured and conceived university course. It does not have regular lectures, nor it does have fully fixed or pre-determined readings. Rather, it involves regular participation and invested discussion in class, and ongoing research outside of class time. There is some content to learn, and there are professional and practical skills to develop. During the first term, students will begin intensive and individualized family research projects. We will all begin with the near past, and as the course progresses, we will move deeper into our quests, noting the ways that our current intersection as workshop participants were brought together by ever expanding divergences.

The seminar is designed around (1) learning outcomes, (2) specific research skill-building exercises that contribute to the broad goals of the course, and (3) an open-ended student-driven exploration and discovery process. The course will include content learning about immigration and Canadian history, as well as strands of global 20^th century (and possibly 19^th century) history, including issues of class, race, war, poverty, business, and politics, though it will offer instruction on a sample of history methodological issues – oral history, biography, family history, and the place of genealogical research within the profession and the public.

1. to grant students experience is accessing, making, using, and understanding the “family archive” and the sources found therein as proper historical artifacts (family photos, government documents, ephemera, letters to or from family members, etc.).
2. to introduce students to the art, skill, politics and ethics of oral history / interviewing techniques.
3. to expose students to the powerful digital tools, archives and databases (both pubic and commercial) and help them collect and analyze public documents (birth and death notices, marriage licenses, immigration records, etc.)
4. to help see family histories (or personal pasts) are necessarily tied to local histories and politics, to Canadian social (and likely immigration) history, and to broader global forces, ideologies, policies, trends and issues. Students will hopefully learn to see how family histories are intimately connected to broader histories.
5. to build connections among students from York’s incredible diversity by encouraging collaborative work, problem solving, sleuthing the patterns that impacted the fates of their families and communities.