Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Benjamin Isitt, BA, MA, PhD, LLB

Email: Ben@Isitt.ca

Research Areas

Social movements and the state in Canada and the world; legal history and comparative labour relations; British Columbia and the Canadian West; comparative social democracy; Canadian political history; Canadian-Russian relations; digital scholarship and public history.

Courses Taught

HIST 132 History of Canada Since 1867
HIST 303 The Canadian West
HIST 3332 The Canadian Worker Since 1914
HIST 358 British Columbia Since 1945
HIST 402 Problems in International Relations: History of the Peace Movement
HIST 469 Social Movements in World History
HIST 490 Labour and the Left in British Columbia

Brief Biography

I specialize in Canadian and world history, with particular emphasis on social movements and the state in the twentieth century. Combining graduate training in History and Law, I have written two books, From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917-19 (Vancouver: UBC Press) and Militant Minority: British Columbia Workers and the Rise of a New Left, 1948-1972 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). My research has also appeared in leading journals including the Canadian Historical Review and Canadian Journal of Political Science. I have travelled extensively, to more than 50 countries on five continents, establishing ongoing collaborative relationships with scholars in Europe, Asia, and North America. I also have professional experience in government, journalism, and the not-for-profit sector.

My research agenda reflects these broad experiences. My monograph From Victoria to Vladivostok builds on an award-winning journal article that employed the method of micro-history to illuminate turbulent social relations during the First World War. This led to further transnational research on Canada’s forgotten Siberian Expedition of 1918-19, providing a rare dialogue between social history, military history, and the history of international relations. Engaging digital scholarship, the Siberian Expedition Virtual Exhibition and Digital Archive brings this history to life for students, teachers, and the public. The book has been translated into French and Russian and I am currently developing a documentary film.

My second monograph, Militant Minority, combines oral history and “horizontal history,” examining diverse responses within British Columbia’s postwar working class to changing economic and social conditions. I am now completing several projects, including a dissertation in Law on the relationship between social movements and the British Columbia judiciary, and SSHRC-funded studies on the political activism of people with disabilities and the relationship between social democracy and labour and environmental claims to natural resources.

Books

From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917-19 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010) Translated into French by Laval University Press and into Russian by Korpus

Militant Minority: British Columbia Workers and the Rise of a New Left, 1948-1972 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011)

Crises of Legitimacy: Judging Social Movements in British Columbia (in progress)

Able to Lead: The Legal Politics of Disablement and the Political Life of E.T. Kingsley, with Ravi Malhotra (Under Contract with UBC Press)

Globalization on the Resource Frontier: Workers, Environmentalists and the British Columbia New Democratic Party, 1972-2001 (in progress)

Recent Articles

“On the Borders of Bolshevism: Class, Race, and the Social Relations of Occupied Vladivostok, 1918-19.” Comparativ, 22 (October 2012): 72-86.

“The Siberian Intervention.” The Encyclopedia of War, edited by Gordon Martel (Oxford: Wiley & Sons, 2011).

“Confronting the Cold War: The 1950 Vancouver Convention of the CCF.” Canadian Historical Review, 91:3 (September 2010): 465-501.

“Elusive Unity: The Canadian Labor Party in British Columbia, 1924-1928.” BC Studies, 163 (Fall 2009): 33-64.

“Fellow Traveller: A British Columbia Fisherman Writes Home from the Eastern Bloc, 1952.” Labour/Le Travail, 63 (Spring 2009): 105-130.

“The Siberian Expedition.” Legion Magazine (November/ December 2008): 60-63.

“Searching for Workers’ Solidarity: The One Big Union and Victoria General Strike of 1919.” Labour/Le Travail, 60 (Fall 2007): 11-44.

“Social Democracy in Twentieth Century Canada: An Interpretive Framework.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 40:3 (September 2007): 567-589. With Nelson Wiseman.

“The Hospital Employees’ Union Strike and the Privatization of Medicare in British Columbia, Canada.” International Labor and Working-Class History, 71 (Spring 2007): 91-111. With Melissa Moroz.

“Mutiny from Victoria to Vladivostok, December 1918.” Canadian Historical Review, 87:2 (June 2006): 223-264.

Digital History/Online Publications

Siberian Expedition Virtual Exhibition & Digital Archive (www.SiberianExpedition.ca)

Explore the forgotten history of Canada’s Siberian Expeditionary Force through engaging trilingual narratives and learning resources, alongside a Digital Archive with 2,400 rare photographs and documents.

Canadian Social History Archive (www.SocialHistory.ca) (in progress)

A digital archive providing access to documents and oral interviews on Canada’s social history.

Canada’s Geographic Heritage (www.GeoHeritage.ca) (in progress)

A foray into Historical GIS that links a database of Historical Sites and Monuments with multimedia on Canada’s natural and human heritage.

Other Recent Publications

“Unlearned Lessons of the First World War.” Times Colonist (Victoria). 1 May 2010.

“Ghosts of elections past still haunt BC.” Times Colonist. 5 April 2009. Reprinted in BC Commentary 12, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 11-12.

“Make housing the priority for federal ‘shovel-ready’ dollars.” Vancouver Sun. 3 February 2009. Reprinted in Island Tides, 12 February 2009 and Columbia Journal 14, no. 1 (May 2009): 8.

Housing For All: The Social Economy and Homelessness in British Columbia’s Capital Region (Victoria: British Columbia Institute for Co-operative Studies, 2008)

Tug-of-War: The Working Class and Political Change in British Columbia, 1948-1972 (PhD dissertation, University of New Brunswick, 2008)

Higher Learning and the Labour Market in a Changing World: An Environmental Scan for British Columbia (Victoria: Ministry of Advanced Education, 2008)

Langford’s Bear Mountain Interchange: Urbanization on the Western Frontier and the Blurring of Public and Private Interests (Victoria: Research commissioned by West Coast Environmental Law, 2007)

Recent Awards and Scholarships

SSHRC Standard Research Grant (Co-Applicant), 2011-2014
University of Victoria Faculty of Law Fellowship, 2011-2013
Aid to Scholarly Publications Grant, 2011
Aid to Scholarly Publications Grant, 2010
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2008-2010
SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Fellowship, 2004-2007
Best Graduate Research Award, Labor and Working-Class History Association, 2006
PhD Graduate Arts Assistantship, University of New Brunswick, 2003-2004

View my complete Curriculum Vitae (PDF)