Photo: Martin Dee
Applicants to master’s and doctoral degrees are not affected by the recently announced cap on study permits. Review more details
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.
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.
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.
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Arts.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Fires play an important role in forests. Dr. van der Kamp examined how fuel moisture changes across a forested landscape due to variations in terrain and forest cover. By applying a novel model for simulating fuel moisture, he found that knowing how forest cover changes is important when predicting patterns in fuel moisture. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Spencer created a framework which expands the concept of deixis to analyze Dene/Athabaskan poetics in dual-language textualized orature, focussing on the epistemological power of animals within these texts to consider the concept of "narrative revitalization," which she defines as cognate to and coeval with community practices of language revitalization. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Boulanger-Lapointe examined the cultural and ecological importance of berries across Inuit territories in Canada. She showed that the species are widespread and abundant, benefiting both humans and animals. Her findings also showed that the quality and accessibility of berry patches are negatively affected by climate change, pollution and community development. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2017 | Canadian opera has often been overlooked due to lack of access. To remedy this, Dr. Nakagawa created an anthology of arias from operas by Canadian composers and writers. Her work will increase exposure to Canadian opera for both performers and audiences, resulting in better recognition, appreciation and understanding of this genre. | Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice (DMA) |
| 2017 | Dr. Chakraborty investigated decision making under conditions of risk, uncertainty and temporal delay. Instead of studying each of these behaviors in isolation, he provides a more comprehensive theory of human behavior by studying the interplay of uncertainty and time as influencing factors in different environments. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Dengate studied the maternity leave experiences of Canadian mothers. She found that mothers' jobs were central to both the structure of leave and the transition back to paid employment. This knowledge will aid the development of more responsive federal and workplace family policies to support women's engagement in motherhood and career. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Farrales studied the sexualities of Filipino and Filipinas in Canada through two of the three so-called B's of Filipino culture: basketball and beauty pageants. She explained how the Philippines and Canada's colonial conditions influence how they express their sexualities, affecting how they envision themselves as workers and citizens. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Jones examined the involvement of military lawyers in U.S. and Israeli lethal targeting operations. His findings reveal that law does not minimise military violence; rather law enables, legitimises and sometimes even extends violence. His work contributes to our understanding of the relationship between law, violence and military operations in the 21st century. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Barnard studied connections between prisons and culture in contemporary Spain. Her research explored how cultural texts and practices changed understanding of the penitentiary system and suggested alternatives to punishment. Linking prisons, belonging, movement, and borders, she illuminates a central challenge facing today's Spain. | Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Studies (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Victor examined the causes of negative emotions in people who self-injure, including the contributions of stressful experiences, biased attention, cognitive interpretations, and emotional reactivity. She found that some of these causes were more important than others, which has applications for improving treatments for self-injury. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |