Photo: Martin Dee
Review details about the recently announced changes to study and work permits that apply to master’s and doctoral degree students. Read more
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. Aceves analyzed the role of a group of feminist artists in developing and transforming regimes of media and visuality in post-1968 Mexico. She considered this process as indicative of local and transnational political and social transformations, and demonstrated the importance of these feminist practices in affecting politics. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Chisholm examined the effects of action video game experience on visual attention. Using eye movements as a measure of attention, he showed that video game players are less susceptible to distraction than non-players. This provides insight into the mechanisms underlying a host of cognitive benefits associated with action video game experience. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Lukatela examined how international development agencies adopt and implement mainstreaming policies. She found that the behaviour of senior managers is influenced by their networks, while middle managers are directed by personal values. This research explains the persistence of challenges in achieving development goals, such as gender equality. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Kendall studied the effects of financial market panics on stock prices. His work showed that, during times of market panic, economic agents have reduced incentives to research the stocks that they trade. As a result, he concluded, market panics can result in inaccurate stock prices, even when all agents behave rationally. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Woo studied the mechanisms that underlie differences in sexual desire between women of Asian and European ancestry. She found that higher sex guilt among Asian women may explain their lower sexual desire compared to women of European descent. The findings have implications for the treatment of women with high sex guilt and low sexual desire. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Quastel studied efforts to make a wide variety of commodities, such as tuna, bauxite and housing, more sustainable. Through case study research he found that new forms of sustainability policy are being created. This research helps expand scholarship in the geography of the global economy, environmental governance and sustainability. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. McKee conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the horse people of Bluegrass Kentucky in order to understand the cultural and historical connections between horse racing, animal slaughter, equine rescue, and prison educational programs. | Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Dyce examined the historical role of archives in Canada, between 1867 and the present. Studying the circulation of geographical knowledge in maps, photographs, atlases, and school textbooks, he advanced the argument that Canadian interpretations of environmental change are deeply vested in the archival and spatial histories of the country. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Oliver examined how child protection workers interpreted strengths-based practice, an approach focussing on client strengths and goals. Study outcomes included recommendations to help child welfare agencies support this approach and a model for making strengths-based relationships with mandated clients. | Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work (PhD) |
| 2014 | Dr. Lyon examined linguistic structure and meaning in Okanagan, a Salish language spoken in British Columbia. This research provides valuable documentation of an endangered language of the Pacific Northwest, and contributes to our understanding of how human languages may vary. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |