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 | Dr. Patterson challenged modern ideas of games by examining the social significance of parlour games as forms of cultural expression in medieval and early modern England and France. Her research shows the varied methods by which medieval players enjoyed playing games and how the idea of 'game' developed and changed over time. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Gamu analyzed the politics behind mining companies' attempts to manage social conflicts in the Peruvian highlands. His research challenges the idea that corporate social responsibility initiatives are effective instruments for mitigating the inherently destabilizing effects of industrial mining in local communities in developing countries. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Marchak examined how people reason about transformations, including the disassembly/reassembly of artifacts and metamorphosis in animals. She found that children and adults rely on different criteria to reason about the persistence of an individual following such changes. This research advances our understanding of the human mind. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2017 | Hearing oneself while speaking is known to have an effect on speech production and perception. Dr. Stelle investigated the more unusual form of real time, visual feedback on speech production, and showed how this feedback affects speakers. Her work expands our understanding of speech motor control. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Lyon studied the third age, a life course stage promoted by academic, professional and popular texts consisting of a healthy, prosperous, flexible retirement. Her ethnographic work showed that low-income women from the baby boomer generation interpreted these discourses in distinct ways according to their class, gender, and status. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Evans-Cockle examined the influence of Erasmian Christian Humanism on the prophetic poetics of Edmund Spenser and John Milton. He showed how Erasmus's grammatical hermeneutics changed the way early modern Protestants read the Bible and how this, in turn, opened new creative horizons for the exploitation of biblical texts by early modern poets. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Croft's research examined a new facet in the psychological study of gender stereotypes. She found that the division of labor at home, particularly men's contribution to childcare and housework, is causally linked to the roles girls & women expect to occupy outside the home. This extends prior research exploring workplace equality in isolation. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Gorokhovskaia examined the relationship between elections, protest, and political participation in Russia's modern hybrid authoritarian regime. She found that although electoral competition is heavily manipulated, it remains possible for citizens to meaningfully influence a regime's behavior even from within a repressive political system. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Caines studied the consequences of non-rational expectations in macroeconomic systems. His work shows how information constraints in asset and credit markets can lead to significant propagation of shocks. The results are used to explain recent experiences in US housing markets and have important implications for asset pricing properties. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Arnett studied the cultural occurrence of rock art and how it was used by Nlaka'pamux of the British Columbia Plateau. His research showed that while rock art was a form of intervention against colonization, it later shifted to the preservation of local traditions. This work will be of benefit to Indigenous people throughout the world. | Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD) |