The faculty and staff of the Department of History want to extend a heartfelt congratulations to this year’s PhD dissertation and MA thesis prize winners. These prizes are awarded for the outstanding doctoral dissertation and MA thesis defended between June 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025.
The co-winners of the PhD Dissertation Prize are Michael Borsk (PhD, 2024) and Shannon Brown (PhD, 2025).
The winner of the MA Thesis Prize is Harrison Dressler (MA, 2024).
Dr. Michael Borsk’s dissertation, “Measuring Ground: Surveyors and the Properties of States in the Great Lakes Region, 1783-1840,” represents an especially fine example of deep empirical research that stands on its own and yet is carefully connected to conceptual questions that are woven throughout; in this case about the state, property, and knowledge. The herculean work of empiricism with dense administrative archives makes us think harder and differently about conceptual issues (what is property? How does it make the state?) and scholarly debates (What is accuracy? Is the United States an empire different from or similar to British colonies? What role does property play in Indigenous dispossession? Can we talk about bureaucracy before the late 19th century?) are presented with sophistication and intellectual maturity. If all history is the relationship between the specific and the general, Borsk makes that relationship work to his – and our – great advantage. The external examiner called this work “pathbreaking.”
Dr. Shannon Brown’s dissertation, “Satellites Beyond Borders: Canada and the World in the Global Space Age,” combines historical research and scientific inquiry to produce an exceptionally innovative dissertation on the history of Canadian participation in satellite technology. But this is much more than a comprehensive story about Canada’s involvement with this marvellous yet ubiquitous technology. Brown shows that these objects that shine brighter than stars and appear to be inherently and naturally global in orbit, are grounded in the history of Canadian and international technopolitics. As Brown shows, satellites were both made by, and in turn, remade the history of Canadian diplomacy, settler colonialism, peace activism, healthcare, and disarmament in the late twentieth century. This is a beautifully written and impeccably researched thesis and a major contribution to Canadian international history.
Harrison Dressler’s thesis, “The Making of Blindness in Ontario: Incarceration and Class Formation, 1872–1926,” examines the history of the Ontario Institute for the Blind (OIB) by using the records of three provincial investigations looking into allegations of mistreatment and abuses at the institution. Dressler argues that these sources get us closer to the experiences of students, revealing efforts to push back against authoritarian principals and teachers. His central argument is that the OIB was, fundamentally, a carceral institution, one shaped by the Ontario government's response to the upheavals of capitalism in the early 20th century. In making this argument, he offers a challenge to the connected Canadian historiographies of disability and education which have tended to view segregated educational institutions such as the OIB through a rights-based lens and considered them as humanitarian and educational undertakings. This is a sophisticated, well-researched, and well-written thesis that makes an important contribution to the way that Canadian historians understand education and disability.
