TMU History professors share their research during Canada History Week
Since 2014, Canada History Week (external link) has commemorated the historical events and people who have shaped the country and provided educational resources on the stories, achievements, and legacies that have defined its trajectory.
The Department of History at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) is home to diverse scholarship on Canadian history—spanning urban history, Indigenous-Colonial relations, labour and gender history, Canadian-international relations, scientific history and the history of different diasporic communities in Canada. The research expertise of TMU’s faculty, encompassing everything from local Canadian history to transnational and comparative perspectives, contributes to growing scholarship and elucidates the social, political, and environmental histories that have informed and continue to inform the nation’s development.
From top left: Ross Fair, Catherine Ellis, Carl Benn, Sean Kheraj.
November 20-26, 2024, was Canada History Week. This year, professors Carl Benn, Catherine Ellis, Ross Fair, and Sean Kheraj shared their ongoing research to strengthen awareness of Canada’s complex historical past and encourage inquiry into where history can inform Canada’s future.
Carl Benn
Carl Benn (left). Royal Ontario Museum (right) - west side and front [ca. 1915]. University of Toronto Archives. Public Domain.
Before joining the Department of History at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2008, Carl Benn worked in the museum field, where he fulfilled senior curatorial and managerial duties, restored historical properties, curated exhibits, and produced other public resources.
Benn has published extensively, including six books in military history, four of which focused on Indigenous participation in colonial conflicts. His current book project is a history of the Royal Ontario Museum, from the first efforts to create a major museum in late Victorian Toronto to the ROM’s subsequent founding in 1912 and then through its operations to the end of the Second World War. Benn’s teaching at TMU focuses on museum history, curatorship, heritage management, material culture, and archaeology, where he combines academic study with the practicalities of work in these fields.
Learn more about Carl Benn’s forthcoming book project on Instagram (external link) or LinkedIn (external link) .
Catherine Ellis
Catherine Ellis (left). Photo by Alex Jacobs-Blum. The Standing Strong (Mash Koh Wee Kah Pooh Win) Task Force Report front cover (right). Graphic design and Illustration by Mariah Meawasige (Makoose).
Catherine Ellis is a professor in the Department of History at TMU, specializing in British political, ideological and imperial history. In 2020-2021, Ellis co-Chaired the Standing Strong (Mash Koh Wee Kah Pooh Win) Task Force, a group of faculty, students, alumni and community members mandated to research Egerton Ryerson’s life and legacies and develop principles and recommendations to guide the future trajectory of the university.
Ellis worked collaboratively with the Task Force Research Team, including graduate and undergraduate researchers, to produce (PDF file) Appendix D: Life and Legacy of Egerton Ryerson in the (PDF file) Standing Strong Task Force Report & Recommendations. Guided by the Task Force’s mandate and community members’ desire to understand the complex history of Ryerson—our university’s former namesake—Appendix D draws on both archival materials and scholarly studies to identify key milestones and share existing research in the form of a detailed timeline from Ryerson’s birth to the early 21st century.
This timeline is vital not only to situate Ryerson in a historical context but also to understand how the legacies of his contributions to colonial structures of education continue to impact the university community. The timeline responds to the need to make historical research findings more widely accessible by bringing together a large body of information in a single document that is publicly accessible and uses language and conventions that can be broadly understood. Appendix D also addresses misconceptions about Ryerson and traces the changing perspectives of community members since the institution’s foundation in 1948 as the Ryerson Institute of Technology. As an educational resource, the Task Force’s report and recommendations reaffirm that the university cannot move forward and work toward reconciliation without understanding its history and the voices—past and present—urging change.
Ross Fair
Ross Fair (left). Front cover image of Improving Upper Canada: Agricultural Societies and State Formation, 1791–1852 (right).
Ross Fair is a professor in the Department of History, whose research focus is on pre-Confederation Canada, particularly governance and settlement issues in Upper Canada.
In his recent book, Improving Upper Canada: Agricultural Societies and State Formation, 1791-1852, (external link) he explored the pursuit of agricultural improvement and its role in developing the colonial state. Individuals who sought to improve Upper Canada's agricultural practices established and led agricultural societies (organizations that, today, continue to host annual Fall Fairs across Ontario). By 1852, agricultural improvers had secured the appointment of a Chair of Agriculture at the new University of Toronto, along with land for an experimental farm on the campus. They had also convinced the government that it must fund and oversee agricultural improvement efforts, leading to the appointment of a Minister of Agriculture to head what would soon become the Department of Agriculture.
Today, we continue to lead agricultural improvement through the federal Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and, provincially, through the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and similar provincial ministries across the country.
Fair's current research project explores efforts to encourage hemp cultivation in Upper and Lower Canada from the 1790s to the 1820s to supply British naval dockyards with the raw material necessary to rig the Royal Navy.
Learn more about Ross Fair’s recent book on Instagram (external link) or LinkedIn (external link) .
Sean Kheraj
Sean Kheraj (left). Website mainpage of Silent Rivers of Oil: A History of Oil Pipelines in Canada since 1947, Niche. (right).
Sean Kheraj, Associate professor in the Department of History, is an expert specializing in Canadian environmental and urban history. Kheraj’s current Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded research explores the development of oil pipelines in Canada. Kheraj’s research project, Silent Rivers of Oil: A History of Oil Pipelines in Canada since 1947 (external link) , traverses the history of oil pipelines in Canada and the subsequent environmental and social consequences of their operations.
Kheraj’s research focuses on the transportation systems that move oil from its location of extraction to where it is refined and consumed in urban regions. The mid-twentieth-century oil boom spurred by the large quantities of crude oil uncovered in Leduc, Alberta, led to the development of long-distance oil pipelines and the eventual transformation and modernization of the Canadian economy. Kheraj’s research reveals the multifaceted consequences of large-scale oil consumption, including environmental damage from fossil fuels and encroachment onto traditional Indigenous territories.
Learn more about Sean Kheraj’s research on Instagram (external link) or LinkedIn (external link) .
Historical research not only reveals details from the past, but offers the opportunity to reflect on how complex social, political, economic, and environmental factors continuously shape the future.