Skip to main content

Dr. Steven High

Full Professor , History
Founding Member, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling


Dr. Steven High
Steven High is at the lower right with his son, with contributors to Remembering Mass Violence
Carol Gray
Phone: (514) 848-2424 ext. 2413
Email: steven.high@concordia.ca
Website(s): Living Archives of the Rwandan Diaspora
Going Public
Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time
Availability: Please contact me via email rather than the telephone.

Research Profile

Steven High is an interdisciplinary oral and public historian with a strong interest in transnational approaches to working-class studies, forced migration, community-engaged research, as well as oral history methodology and ethics.

He has published extensively on deindustrialization and the postindustrial transformation of North American cities. His most recent monograph, Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence and Class (2022) was awarded three major prizes in Quebec History and Politics: le Prix du livre politique de la Présidence de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec, le Prix Lionel-Groulx de l'IHAF, and the Clio-Québec Book Prize from the Canadian Historical Association. He recently co-edited a special issue of Labour/le travail with Lachlan Mackinnon and has several others forthcoming. He is currently leading a seven-year SSHRC Partnership project on "Deindustrialization & the Politics of Our Time" (DePOT - deindustrialization.org).

His second area of expertise involves oral history, particularly as it relates to mass violence. Steven High led the prize-winning Montreal Life Stories from 2005 until 2012, where he worked in close partnership with survivor groups. He authored or co-edited a number of books and articles out of this project. He was recently awarded a Governor General's History Award for Popular Media for his work in this area

Finally, Steven High has published extensively on race and empire in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British Caribbean during the Second World War. This research includes a monograph, Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere (2009) and an edited collection, Occupied St. John's: A Social History of a City at War (2010), which received Honorable Mention for the C.P. Stacey Prize in Military History. In August 2018, Base Colonies was used to justify a special parliamentary committee to investigate establishing a minimum living wage for Bermuda and has been used by families seeking recognition of Historic Losses of Land in Bermuda.

He is a core member of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and is the past president of the Canadian Historical Association


Education

B.A. University of Ottawa, M.A. Lakehead University (Thunder Bay), Ph.D. University of Ottawa

Students in the Working Class Public History course were embedded in the deindustrialized district of Point Saint-Charles for a term.
Photo credit: David Ward

Graduate and Postdoctoral Supervision

Supervised Students and Postdoctoral Fellows

Post-Doctoral Fellows:

Désirée Rochat, January 2023-present, FRQSC, “Community Archiving as Ethnography: Historicizing the Grassroots Heritage Activism of Black Canadians"


Indranil Chakraborty, September 2021-August 2023, Horizon, “Bankruptcy, Sears, and the experience of displaced department store workers.”

Mathieu Aubin, January 2020-2021, Horizon, Co-Supervision with Jason Camlot, “Oral Literary History in the Spoken Web Project.”

Samuel Mercier, September 2019-2021, FRQSC, Co-Supervision with Jason Camlot, “Une histoire audiotextuelle des événements de poésie à Montréal (1960-1990).”

Lana Dee Povitz, January 2017-August 2018, SSHRC, “A Slow Burn: Activist Lives after Women’s Liberation and AIDS.”

Marie Lavorel (2018-2019). Horizon Postdoctoral Fellowship, “Oral History and Web Mapping.” [co-supervised with Sébastien Caquard, Geography]

Stéphane Martelly, 2015-2017, FRQSC Research-Creation, “Penser et créer depuis le lieu de ce silence. Élaborations de l’oeuvre absente et possible à partir des « histoires de vie » de Montréalais déplacés par la violence (Haïti-Québec).”

Lilia Topouzova, 2015-2017, SSHRC, “The Bulgarian Gulag: Survivors Remember.”

Amanda Ricci, 2016, FRQSC – Montreal History Group, “Oral History and the ‘Long’ Women’s Movement in Montreal.”


Karoline Truchon, 2014-2016, SSHRC, “La mixité sociale pour qui, comment et avec quelles impacts? Témoignages audio-visuels croisés à Toronto et à Nouvelle-Orléans.” 

Julie Perrone, 2014-15, SSHRC, “The Franklin Project,” Co-supervised with Peter Gossage.

Hourig Attarian, 2011-13, FQRSC, SSHRC, "'On Being Melez': Intergenerational Life Stories of Armenian Women."

Stacey Zembrzycki, 2010-12, SSHRC, “Professionalizing Survival: The Politics of Public Memory among Holocaust Survivor-Educators.” Winner of the Oral History Association Book Award. 

Anna Sheftel, 2010-11, FQRSC, “Negotiating Family Narrative of Atrocity and Genocide.” Winner of the Oral History Association Book Award.


 

PhD Students:

Samia Dumais, In Progress, History PhD, « Ancrer le passé dans le présent : pédagogie et récits en histoire afro-
canadienne dans le cursus scolaire québécois (1967-1990). »

Graham Latham, In Progress, History PhD, "Maybe we led them here’: Resistance and complicity in gentrifying Mile End, Montreal"


Lauren Laframboise, In Progress, History PhD, “The gendered pathways of decline: Lived experiences of deindustrialization in Montreal and New York’s garment industries.”


Kelann Currie-Williams, In Progress, Humanities PhD, “The Aurality of Images: Photographic Life Stories of Black Canada.” [secondary advisor]

Naomi Frost, In Progress, History PhD, "Remembering Democratic Kampuchea: Transgenerational Memory in the Cambodian Post-Genocide Diaspora"

Lindsay Burgess, In Progress, History PhD, “Why did the motorcycle club gain popularity as an organizational model for Canadian veterans in the early twenty-first century?”


Tom MacMillan, In Progress (ABD), History PhD, “The Struggle Within: Transnational Labor Unions and the Left in the United States and Canada (1880-1955)"


Derek Garcia, In Progress (ABD), PhD History, "The Borders of Knowledge: Voicing Educational Activism at the Colegio Jacinto Treviño, 1969-1976."



Eliot Perrin, In Progress (ABD), PhD History, "Flour Mill se fane?:Deindustrialization and Urban Renewal in Sudbury’s Francophone Quarter."

Laurence Hamel-Roy, In Progress (ABD), PhD Humanities, "Luttes à l’assurance chômage au Québec 1971-."


Aude Maltais-Landry, 2023, Education PhD, USherbrooke “L’inclusion de perspectives
autochtones au cours d’Histoire du Québec et du Canada: points de vue d’enseignants, d’élèves et d’historiens.” [Sabrina Moisan]

Piyusha Chatterjee, 2022, PhD INDI, “ 'We were always here': The Labour of Busking and its Disappearing Spaces in Montreal."

Carmen Ruschiensky, 2022, PhD Humanities (ABD), SSHRC, "Translating Cultural Memory: Migration and Mediations of Contemporary Québécois Literature." [Main Supervisor: Sherry Simon]


Fred Burrill, 2021, PhD History, “Heritages of Struggle and Dispossession in Saint-Henri, 1970-2016."


Lisa Ndejuru, 2021, PhD INDI, "Honoring Story: Speaking, Listening, Creating in the Aftermath of Violence."


Zeina Ismael Allouche, 2021, INDI PhD, "Forced separation from the biological family as perceived by transracial/ transnational adoptees and accounting for the forced separation of Indigenous children in Canada." [Main Supervisor: Elizabeth Fast]


Linda FitzGibbon, 2019, PhD INDI,“The memory work of an Irish Seniors Group in Ottawa.” (Main Supervisor: Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin)


Laurence Parent, 2019, Humanities PhD, “Rouler/Wheeling Montréal: Moving through, Resisting and Belonging in an Ableist City."


Nadia Hausfather, 2017, Humanities PhD, “Ghosts in our corridors: Emotional Experiences of Participants in Quebec's General Unlimited Student Strike Campaigns (2005-12)."  (Main Supervisor: JP Warren).


Lachlan MacKinnon, 2016, PhD History, “Deindustrialization on the Periphery: An Oral History of Sydney Steel, 1945-2001."


Rosemary O’Flaherty, 2016, PhD History, “Damming the Remains: Traces of the Lost Seaway Communities.”


Ioana Radu, 2015, Humanities PhD, “Uschiniichuu Futures: Healing, Empowerment and Agency among the Chisasibi Cree Youth.


Heather McNabb, 2015, PhD History, “Visions of North: Exploring the Stories Photographs Can Tell and their Role in Museum Practice, 1947-1987.” 


Alan Wong, 2013, Individualized Study PhD, “Between Rage and Love”: Disidentifications Among Racialized, Ethnicized, and Colonized Allosexual Activists in Montreal. »


Shauna Janssen, 2013, Humanities PhD, “Spaces of Indeterminancy: Artistic Engagement with former Industrial Sites.” 

 

Luba Serge, 2013, Individualized PhD, “Benny Farm: A Study of Collective Action, Local Democracy and Power.


Catherine Foisy, 2012, Humanities PhD, “Des Québécois aux frontière : dialogues et affrontements culturels aux dimensions du monde. Récits missionnaires d’Asie, d’Afrique et d’Amérique latine (1945-1980) 


Lindsay Pattison, 2011, PhD History, The Dynamics of the Disc’: Ultimate (Frisbee),Community and Memory,1968-2011


Erin Jessee, 2011, Humanities PhD,“Inscribed Intent: Genocidal Symbolic Violence and Social Death in the Aftermath  of the Rwandan and Bosnian Genocides. 

 

Master’s Students:

Sophia Richter, In Progress, DePOT Fellowship, History MA, “Right-wing populism in deindustrialized fishery communities in Rhode Island.”


Isadora Galwey, In Progress, History MA, “Colonial Hydro-Québec.”


William Gillies, In Progress, History MA, “No Energy to Keep Up: Energy Transition, Regional Deindustrialization, and the Story of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, 1967-2001.”


Liam Devitt, In Progress, History MA, "Queer Youth and Deindustrialization in Cape Breton"


Amanda Marie Whitt, In Progress, History MA, "Deindustrialization and the Tip Economy"


Tim Liebregt In Progress, History MA, "Deindustrialization and the Canadianization of Industrial Unions During the 1970s and 1980s"


Gabriel Ellison-Scowcroft, 2023, History MA, “This House Is An Adobe House:” A History of the Abeyta Family on Ojito del Caballo, 1882 to the present.”


Tom Fraser, 2022, History MA, SSHRC, "PensionFund Landscapes: Ontario’s public sector pensions, real estatefinancialization, and the right to the city"


Veronica Mockler, 2022, INDI MA, “CreatingPerformance for Citizen Self-Representation."

Graham Latham, 2022, History MA, “Set in Stone? The Samuel de Champlain Monument, Conflict and Compromise in Orillia, Ontario"

Genevieve Riou, 2022, History MA,“Haitian Cultural Memories of Conflict and Displacement in Canada."


Bryan Gordon, 2019, History MA, "Hoarders: An Oral History."


Lauren Laframboise, 2021, History MA, "The Suburbanized Spatial Restructuring of Montreal’s Garment Factories, 1959 to 1989."


Kelann Currie-Williams, INDI MA, 2021 "Prolonging the Afterimage: Looking at and Talking About Photographs of Black Montreal" [Secondary advisor]


Tanya Steinberg, 2019, History MA, “Place,Community and Memory in Postindustrial Pointe-Saint-Charles"


Sara Kendall, 2017,Individualized MA, “On the Revitalized City, At-Risk Youth, and Other Ways of Telling.”


Tyson Rosberg, 2016, History MA, “A Sheltered World: Remembering the Great Depression in Rural Quebec and the Prairies."


Eliot Perrin, 2016, History MA, “The Emergence of the Heritage Preservation Movement in Montreal.”


Pharo Sok, 2015, History MA, “Making Memories in Montreal: Cambodian Canadians and the Strategic Construction of Past and Present Selves, 1974-2015.”


Liam Michaud O’Grady, 2015, SIP MA (Co-Supervision), “La repression, ça finit par donner des résultats’: The Displacement and Erasure of Street Culture in Downtown Montréal, 1995-2010.”

 

Kyle Marsh, 2015, History MA, “The Consequence of Babel: 9/11 as Focal Point of Dispute in American Socio-Political Discourse.” 


Ashley Clarkson, 2015, History MA, “Oral History at Pier 21: Canada’s National Museum of Immigration.”


Aude Maltais-Landry, 2014, History MA, « Le concept de reserve indienne: étude de casde la communauté de Nutashkuan, »


Al Yoshizawa, 2014, History MA, “The Hunt for Matsutake.”


Simon Vickers, 2014, History MA, “From Balconville to Condoville – what about Co-opville? The Cooperative Housing Movement in Point St. Charles.”


Samah Affan, 2013, History MA, “Keywords in Conversation: Lessons from the Social Production of Space for Oral Histories of African Diasporas.”


Kim Moore, 2013, History MA, “Subjective Listening: Methodological and Interpretative Challenges and Opportunities in Constructing an Online Oral History Database.” 


Emily MacLeod, 2013, History MA. “Revisiting Old Town: Examining the Post-Occupational History of the Fortress of Louisbourg.”


Caroline Raimbault, 2012, Co-Director. "Une muséologie de l’immatériel: Réflexions sur la mise en valeur du témoignage oral à travers l’exemple de l’exposition Quartiers disparus au Centred’histoire de Montréal.” Université de Nantes.


Caitlin Alton, 2011, History MA, “Cultural Diversity in Mile End: Everyday Interactions between Hasidim and Non-Hasidim.”


Marie Pelletier, 2011, History MA “”Finding Meaning in Oral History Sources through Storytelling and Religion:  Case Study of Three Cambodian Refugees.”


Jessica Mills, 2010, History MA. “What’s the Point? The Meaning of Place, Memory, and Community in Point Saint Charles, Quebec.”

Maija Lise Fenger, 2009, History MA. “Banff Indian Days and the Stoney First Nation: An Exploration of the Frontier Myth.”


Jessica Silva, 2009, History MA, “Interpreting Genocide: The Graphic Novel of Rwandan-Montrealer Rupert Bazambanza.” 2009.


Christopher Clarke, 2008, History MA. “The Rucksack Revolution: The Beat Generation’s Views of Nature.”


Anna Wilkinson, 2008, History MA, “Oral History and Museums: A Case Study.”


William Hamilton, 2008, History MA, “The Miner’s Memorial of Kirkland Lake, Ontario.”

 

Undergraduate Teaching

I teach a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses. At the 200-level, I teach Post-Confederation Canada. At the 300-level, I teach several courses in the public history stream including Telling Stories and the Urban History Laboratory. At the 400/graduate level, I teach deindustrialization studies as well as oral history.

Back to top

© Concordia University