Mairi Cowan

Mairi Cowan

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 Professor in the Department of Historical Studies, with appointments to the Institute of University Pedagogy, the Department of History, and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, along with a Visiting Professorship at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. Her main areas of research are medieval and early modern Europe (especially Scotland), colonial North America (especially New France), and the teaching and learning of history. 

Professor Cowan’s historical research explores social and religious history in medieval and early modern societies. Her most recent book, The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada is a microhistory of bewitchment and dark arts in seventeenth-century New France. She has also written about how local tales of St Mungo interfered with an imported hagiographer’s understanding of theology in twelfth-century Glasgow; what can be known about experiences of childhood in the late medieval court of James IV, King of Scots; connections between social discipline and Catholic Reformation in Scottish towns; the Scottish identity of a nun in early Quebec; the limits of colonial efforts to ‘Frenchify’ Indigenous people in New France; and what Jesuit missionaries believed about demons in early modern North America.  

Professor Cowan also studies how best to teach and learn history. Her publications in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning include articles examining how to make feedback more helpful for students’ writing; the benefits and drawbacks of flexible assessment; the importance of teaching academic integrity as good historical practice; and the impact of interdisciplinary co-teaching on both students and instructors. She is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the E.A. Robinson Teaching Excellence Award, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations Teaching Award, the Canadian Historical Association’s Excellence in Teaching with Primary Sources Award, the D2L Innovation in Teaching and Learning Award, and the 2026 University of Toronto President’s Teaching Award. 

At the Department of Historical Studies, Professor Cowan teaches courses on world history, European history, and colonial North American 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.  

Curriculum Vitae.pdf (270.27 KB)

 

Select Publications 
Books: 

Journal Articles: 

  • Jaime, Adrian William, Valeria Tapia Cruz, and Mairi Cowan. “Tudor England and Stewart Scotland Through Spanish Eyes: A Complete Transcription and Translation of Pedro de Ayala’s Letter of 1498 to King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile.” Renaissance Studies 40, no. 4 (2026): 635-689. https://doi.org/10.1111/rest.70019  
  • Cowan, Mairi, Tyler Evans-Tokaryk, Abdullah Farooqi, Michael Kaler, and Allison Graham. "Phrasing Feedback to Improve Students' Writing in a Large First-Year Humanities Course." International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 15, no. 2 (2021). https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol15/iss2/15/ 
  • Cowan, Mairi and Christoph Richter. “The Faro a Colón in Santo Domingo: Reinterpreting a ‘More Nearly Perfect’ Memorial to Christopher Columbus.” The Public Historian 43, no. 2 (May, 2021): 63-80. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2021.43.2.63 
  • Cowan, Mairi. “Education, Francisation, and Shifting Colonial Priorities at the Ursuline Convent in Seventeenth-Century Québec.” The Canadian Historical Review 99, no. 1 (2018): 1-29. https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/chr.99.1.1. (Reprinted in Interpreting Canada’s Past: A Pre-Confederation Reader, Sixth Edition, edited by Amy Shaw, Corey Slumkoski, and J. M. Bumstead. Oxford University Press, 2021.) 

Book Chapters: 

  • 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. Louisiana State University Press, 2020. https://lsupress.org/books/detail/french-connections/ (This 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. 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. Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies Press, 2017. https://pims.ca/publication/isbn-978-0-88844-829-3/ 

Reports: 

  • Cowan, Mairi. “Childhood in Late Medieval and Early Modern Scotland,” an unpublished report for Historic Environment Scotland, 2022. 4136 words. 

Magazine and Other Articles: 

  • Cowan, Mairi. "The Thistle and the Cross." Canada's History, February-March 2022, 39-45. 
  • Cowan, Mairi. “The Stitches of Politics in Mary Stewart’s Needlework,” program notes for the play The Glove Thief by Beth Flintoff, Theatre Erindale, October 2019. 
  • Cowan, Mairi. “Season of Good Cheer.” Canada’s History (December 2016 / January 2017): 48-55. 
  • Cowan, Mairi. “King Cakes at the Ursuline Convent in Quebec,” “A Musical Midnight Mass in New France,” and “Courtship in Muddy Yuletide York.” In the Twelve Days of Trouvailles series, Findings / Trouvailles, The Champlain Society, 2016. 
  • Cowan, Mairi. “African Currents in the Renaissance Scottish Court.” History Scotland (November / December, 2014): 38-43. 
  • Cowan, Mairi. “Janet Rynd.” In The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. Edited by E. Ewan, S. Innes, R. Pipes and S. Reynolds. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 
  • Cowan, Mairi. “Yule in the Court of James IV.” History Scotland (January / February, 2005): 17-23. 

Teaching and Learning Resources: