Mairi Cowan

Mairi Cowan

Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
Historical Studies - History and Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy
  • E-mail:
    mairi.cowan@utoronto.ca
  • Room:
    MN 4282
  • Office Hours:
    Please refer to the syllabus and/or contact via email.
  • Mailing Address:

    3359 Mississauga Road, Maanjiwe nendamowinan, 4th floor
    Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6
    Canada

Biography:

Mairi Cowan is a historian of the late medieval and early modern world, with specializations in the social and religious histories of Scotland and New France. She has written about the connections between social discipline and the Catholic Reformation in Scotland; tensions of international theology, national politics, and local tradition in twelfth-century Glasgow; experiences of childhood in the Renaissance court of James IV, King of Scots; colonial efforts to “Frenchify” Indigenous people in seventeenth-century Québec; and Jesuit missionaries’ beliefs about demons in Indigenous societies of North America. Her most recent book, The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada, is a microhistory of bewitchment in New France.

Professor Cowan is also interested in studying how best to teach and learn history. She has published research on the development of critical thinking skills in large history courses, on the gaps that separate high school preparation from university expectations, and on the effectiveness of different kinds of feedback on students’ work. She is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the E.A. Robinson Teaching Excellence Award, which recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching at the University of Toronto Mississauga; the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations Teaching Award, which is given to Ontario’s most outstanding university teachers; and the Canadian Historical Association’s Excellence in Teaching with Primary Sources Award.

At the Department of Historical Studies, Professor Cowan teaches courses on world history, colonial North American history, and European history. Whether in a large first-year lecture, an advanced seminar, or an independent reading project, she focuses on guiding students through authentic historical problems while helping them to develop the skills they need to discover, understand, and engage with the human past in a historically responsible way. 

Mairi Cowan's Curriculum Vitae 

 

Select Publications
Books:

Journal Articles:

Book Chapters:

  • Cowan, Mairi. “Witchcraft in New France,” for The Renaissance World. London: Routledge, forthcoming.
  • Cowan, Mairi and Andrew Nurse. “Teaching Academic Integrity as Good Historical Practice.” In Handbook of Academic Integrity, edited by Sarah E. Eaton, 389-408. Singapore: Springer, 2023.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-079-7_99-1#DOI
  • Cowan, Mairi. "A Deliverance from Demons: Possession and Healing at the Seigneurie of Beauport." In French Connections: Cultural Mobility in North America and the Atlantic World, 1600-1875, edited by Robert Englebert and Andrew N. Wegmann, 11-34. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020. https://lsupress.org/books/detail/french-connections/
    • The collection has won the Wilson Book Prize, which recognizes a book that best places Canadian history in a transnational context.
  • Cowan, Mairi. “Jesuit Missionaries and the Accommodationist Demons of New France.” In Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period, edited by Michelle D. Brock, Richard Raiswell, and David R. Winter, 211-238. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-75738-4
  • Cowan, Mairi. “A Contested Conception: Jocelin of Furness and St Kentigern in Twelfth-Century Glasgow.” In From Learning to Love: Schools, Law, and Pastoral Care in the Middle Ages, edited by Tristan Sharp with Isabelle Cochelin, Greti Dinkova-Bruun, Abigail Firey, and Giulio Silano, 571-589. Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies Press, 2017. https://pims.ca/publication/isbn-978-0-88844-829-3/
  • Cowan, Mairi and Laura Walkling. “A ‘gret cradil of stait’: Growing Up with the Court of James IV.” In Children and Youth in Premodern Scotland, edited by Elizabeth Ewan and Janay Nugent, 15-31. St Andrews: Boydell and Brewer for St Andrews Studies in Scottish History, 2015. https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781783270439/children-and-youth-in-premodern-scotland/
  • Cowan, Mairi. “The Spiritual Ties of Kinship in Pre-Reformation Scotland.” In Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland, edited by Elizabeth Ewan and Janay Nugent, 176-195. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008. https://www.routledge.com/Finding-the-Family-in-Medieval-and-Early-Modern-Scotland/Ewan-Nugent/p/book/9780754660491

Reports:

  • Cowan, Mairi. “Childhood in Late Medieval and Early Modern Scotland,” an unpublished report for Historic Environment Scotland, 2022. 4136 words.
  • Cowan, Mairi, Tyler Evans-Tokaryk, Elaine Goettler, Jeffrey Graham, Christopher Landon, Simone Laughton, Sharon Marjadsingh, Caspian Sawczak, and Alison Weir. Engaging Students to Think Critically in a Large History Class. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2014. 76 pp. http://www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Critical%20Thinking%20ENG.pdf

Magazine and Other Articles:

Teaching and Learning Resources: