Dr. Steven High
Professor, History
Founding Member, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling
| 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 award-winning historian whose research on the structural violence of deindustrialization has put Canada at the centre of important global conversations about what a "just transition" might look like after past failures. His use of oral history ensures that his interpretation is grounded in the lives of working people. He has published many books and articles on this topic, including Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence and Class (2022) and Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt (2003). His next book, The Left in Power: Bob Rae's NDP and the Working Class, to be released in February 2025, considers how social democrats responded to the unfolding industrial crisis. He is currently leading a large transnational project investigating the politics of deindustrialization (see the website: deindustrialization.org).
His second area of expertise involves the methodology, theory and ethics of oral history, particularly as it relates to mass violence. Steven High co-founded Concordia's Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) and led the prize-winning Montreal Life Stories project 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, including Oral History at the Crossroads: Sharing Stories of Displacement and Survival
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).
Steven High has been awarded the J.B. Tyrrell Historical Medal by the Royal Society of Canada (2024), le Prix du livre politique de la Présidence de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec (2023), le Prix Lionel-Groulx pour le meilleur ouvrage sur un aspect de l’histoire de l’Amérique française (2023), the Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media (2020), the Fred Landon Award awarded by the Ontario Historical Society (2019), the Clio-Québec (2023, 2015) and Clio-Ontario (2019) book prizes from the Canadian Historical Association, the John Porter Memorial Book Prize awarded by the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association (2004), Raymond Klibansky Book Prize from the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences (2004), and the Albert B. Corey Book Prize from the American Historical Association (2004). He also received a Certificate of Achievement & Lifetime Membership from the US Oral History Association (2018).
He served as President of the Canadian Historical Association from 2021-23.
Education
B.A. University of Ottawa, M.A. Lakehead University (Thunder Bay), Ph.D. University of Ottawa
Graduate and Postdoctoral Supervision
Supervised Students and Postdoctoral Fellows
Post-Doctoral Fellows:
Camille Robert, January 2025-, FRQSC, «Mobilisations associatives et syndicales des infirmières d’origine caribéenne et philippine face aux discriminations raciales dans les hôpitaux québécois (1973 - 1993) »
Florence Darveau-Routhier, September 2024-present, FRQSC, « Archiver la ville vécue: histoire au présent d’un Sherbrooke en luttes. »
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: