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The Faculty of Arts at UBC brings together the best of quantitative research, humanistic inquiry, and artistic expression to advance a better world. Graduate students in the Faculty of Arts create and disseminate knowledge in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Creative and Performing Arts through teaching, research, professional practice, artistic production, and performance.
Arts has more than 25 academic departments, institutes, and schools as well as professional programs, more than 15 interdisciplinary programs, a gallery, a museum, theatres, concert venues, and a performing arts centre. Truly unique in its scope, the Faculty of Arts is a dynamic and thriving community of outstanding scholars – both faculty and students.
Here, our students explore cutting-edge ideas that deepen our understanding of humanity in an age of scientific and technological discovery. Whether Arts scholars work with local communities, or tackle issues such as climate change, world music, or international development, their research has a deep impact on the local and international stage.
The disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches in our classrooms, labs, and cultural venues inspire students to apply their knowledge both to and beyond their specialization. Using innovation and collaborative learning, our graduate students create rich pathways to knowledge and real connections to global thought leaders.
Research Centres
Research Facilities
UBC Library has extensive collections, especially in Arts, and houses Canada’s greatest Asian language library. Arts graduate programs enjoy the use of state-of-the-art laboratories, the world-renowned Museum of Anthropology and the Belkin Contemporary Art Gallery (admission is free for our graduate students). World-class performance spaces include theatres, concert venues and a performing arts centre.
Since 2001, the Belkin Art Gallery has trained young curators at the graduate level in the Critical and Curatorial Studies program in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory. The Master of Arts program addresses the growing need for curators and critics who have theoretical knowledge and practical experience in analyzing institutions, preparing displays and communicating about contemporary art.
The MOA Centre for Cultural Research (CCR) undertakes research on world arts and cultures, and supports research activities and collaborative partnerships through a number of spaces, including research rooms for collections-based research, an Ethnology Lab, a Conservation Lab, an Oral History and Language Lab supporting audio recording and digitization, a library, an archive, and a Community Lounge for groups engaged in research activities. The CCR includes virtual services supporting collections-based research through the MOA CAT Collections Online site that provides access to the Museum’s collection of approximately 40,000 objects and 80,000 object images, and the Reciprocal Research Network (RRN) that brings together 430,000 object records and associated images from 19 institutions.
Research Highlights
The Faculty of Arts at UBC is internationally renowned for research in the social sciences, humanities, professional schools, and creative and performing arts.
As a research-intensive faculty, Arts is a leader in the creation and advancement of knowledge and understanding. Scholars in the Faculty of Arts form cross-disciplinary partnerships, engage in knowledge exchange, and apply their research locally and globally.
Arts faculty members have won Guggenheim Fellowships, Humboldt Fellowships, and major disciplinary awards. We have had 81 faculty members elected to the Royal Society of Canada, and several others win Killam Prizes, Killam Research Fellowships, Emmy Awards, and Order of Canada awards. In addition, Arts faculty members have won countless book prizes, national disciplinary awards, and international disciplinary awards.
External funding also signifies the research success of our faculty. In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, the Faculty of Arts received $34.6 million through over 900 research projects. Of seven UBC SSHRC Partnership Grants awarded to-date, six are located in Arts, with a combined investment of $15 million over the term of the grants.
Since the 2011 introduction of the SSHRC Insight Grants and SSHRC Insight Development Grants programs, our faculty’s success rate has remained highly stable, and is consistently higher than the national success rate.
Schools / Departments
School
Department
Graduate Degree Programs
Recent Publications
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Arts.
Recent Thesis Submissions
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The Arthur of the March of Wales (ENGL - PHD)
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Pidgin poetics : language culture in modern China (ASIA - PHD)
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Statues in early modern English drama (ENGL - MA)
Doctoral Citations
A doctoral citation summarizes the nature of the independent research, provides a high-level overview of the study, states the significance of the work and says who will benefit from the findings in clear, non-specialized language, so that members of a lay audience will understand it.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Dr. Schnurr investigated attempts by settlers and scientists to impose cotton as a commodity crop in the eastern region of South Africa known today as KwaZulu-Natal. He argued that, despite repeated failures, cotton facilitated important structural changes to the region's agricultural, political and economic landscape. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2008 | In examining the history of Shakespeare's drama in print, Dr. Paul demonstrated how Shakespeare's editors enable readers to engage with performance histories and cultural memory. While acknowledging the advancements of electronic editions, his work establishes the continued relevance of the relationship between editors, readers, and printed texts. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Hill examined the role of the endocannabinoid system, the brain's natural version of cannabis, in depressive illness. Data in this dissertation demonstrated that major depression is associated with deficient endocannabinoid activity and that drugs which increase endocannabinoid activity may prove useful as a new class of antidepressant. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Dar-Nimrod reports that media provide deterministic genetic accounts for complex human phenomena. He offers a theory to illuminate effects of genetic essentialism. He supports this theory with previous research and new empirical studies demonstrating that primed with evolutionary theories men tolerate sex crimes more than men primed with sociocultural theories. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Bennett examined the role of private security guards in building a 'world class' city that can be marketed to tourists, investors and higher-income homeowners. This work highlights the complex social position of guards as low-wage workers and agents of social control. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Stan examined the growth response of trees following the formation of natural canopy gaps in old-growth forests of coastal British Columbia. Her research provides important information for reconstructing past forest disturbances, understanding tree species coexistence, and predicting the impacts of forest management in coastal British Columbia. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Kwak examined how different factors and actors are involved with the recent growth of the international education industry between Seoul, Korea and Vancouver, Canada. She emphasized the roles of governments, local educational institutions and ordinary migrants in promoting Vancouver as a popular destination for international students. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Nobell examined the continued significance of the symbol of the cross in the literature of Quebec after 1960. As represented in the novels studied, the cross becomes a metaphor for the transformation of religious discourse within a cultural framework of secularization. | Doctor of Philosophy in French (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Delisle examined the literature of Newfoundland out-migration, arguing that the concept of 'diaspora' provides a useful framework for understanding this large population dispersal and accompanying issues of nationalism, memory, and identity. This study provides a useful contribution to both the fields of diaspora studies and Canadian literature. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Proulx initiated a novel theoretical paradigm in social and developmental psychology: the Meaning Maintenance Model. His research examined cultural and developmental differences in how people respond to meaning threats, as well as the relationship between meaning maintenance failures and the incidence of suicide among First Nations youth. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |