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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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Dr. Brennan explored whether working in teams on a cognitive problem is a benefit or a cost. By applying a well-known tool in the study of individual cognition to the new problem of collaborative cognition, she was able to show that friendship and certain modes of communication are the key ingredients that permit two heads to be better than one. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Kam examined how mind-wandering affects the way we process information in the outside world. She found that our cognitive processing of information is generally disrupted when our minds wander away from the task. This research suggests the ability to disengage our thoughts from the outside world is integral to human cognitive functioning. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Marsh studied fossil exhibits at the Smithsonian. She identified how they have been shaped by new communication techniques, professional cultures, and institutional divides between research and outreach in the last century. Her work has relevance to institutional ethnographers, historians, public science communicators, and museum practitioners. | Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Tracy studied the politics of nature protection in Canada, New Zealand and Norway. She found that decentralized nature protection governance has significant limitations, especially when dealing with protecting eco-regions defined by high opportunity costs. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Barber's study of cultural heritage in Hong Kong used a perspective informed by relational urbanism and policy mobility. Case studies of locational conflicts and policy change raised new theoretical and political questions by showing that the uses of heritage are simultaneously local and global, progressive and conservative. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Davis examined the role of evolutionary theory in explaining religious belief and behaviour. His research shows that both genetic selection and cultural selection play essential roles in religious evolution, and this research contributes to our understanding not only of religious psychology, but also of human evolution in general. | Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Das Gupta's study of the determinants of nutrient consumption in India helps unravel hitherto unexplored factors that affect food demand in less developed countries. His work reveals the role played by conspicuous consumption in reducing calorie intake among the rural poor in India. This research should inform future anti-malnutrition policy. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Solez contributed to the cultural history of ancient Greece. He demonstrated that banqueting or feasting was the ideal mode of cultural contact in the worldview of Greeks in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. Multicultural banquets explain the continuities in Mediterranean banqueting-styles and other evidence of cultural exchange. | Doctor of Philosophy in Classics (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Luzi studied the movement of sediment in gravel bed mountain streams. He demonstrated the importance of larger-than-average streambed particles in controlling channel stability and patterns of sediment transport. This research can in turn be used to assess the potential effects of development on aquatic habitats. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Leong examined the impacts of future climate change on freshwater supply for the oil sands industry. She found that changes in annual river flow patterns will impact the frequency of water shortages that mining companies will face. This research can inform water management and policy decisions in adapting to a changing climate. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |