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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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Dr. Dunlop examined the ways in which individuals make sense of their lives. He argued that such sense-making pursuits can manifest within distinct modes of thought. These processes carry implications for our understanding of culture, the self, and psychological functioning. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. McKendry investigated ways in which homeless men use Vancouver public libraries. She found that, in addition to information needs, public libraries are inclusive places that also serve the social needs of homeless men. These findings may be of interest to librarians planning library programs and to architects designing future library buildings. | Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Guang Dai studied how seniors make the decision of purchasing a long term care insurance policy. His work also explored why people's family names matter in rural China area. His research advances our understanding of an individual's economic behaviour and market outcome, under various cultural and institutional environments. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Van Huizen examined the 1926-1984 Canadian-U.S. controversy over Seattle's many attempts to build the High Ross Dam and flood into British Columbia. He demonstrates that such disputes hinge on conflicting ideas about development and the politics of cross-border places, and points to the prevalence of "green liberalism" to resolve them. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. MacKenzie examined long-term decision-making in democratic systems. He argues that democratic institutions can help produce conditions that are conducive to effective longer-term thinking and farsighted action. This research challenges the notion that democracies are not capable of effectively managing pressing long-term economic problems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Grillo examined representations of race and ethnicity in discourses by Peruvian Andean indigenous authors, from the conquest of Peru by Spaniards in the 16th century to the present. She argues that an idea of race is imposed to Andean subjects through discourses on religion and education, and can be traced back to the beginning of colonization. | Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Studies (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Nielsen completed her research in the field of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She explored the personal narratives of women who had experienced breast cancer. She argues that "disruptive breast cancer narratives" have the potential to shift public perceptions, breast cancer culture, and biomedical understandings of the disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Regambal examined the traumatic events experienced by first responders in northern British Columbia. She found that first responders were more likely to experience traumatic stress if they were called to events they perceived as chaotic or exceeding their resources. This underscores the need to understand the characteristics of traumatic events. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Troncoso-Valverde studied models of gaming where auctioneers use information about the characteristics of their products to attract buyers. He found that auctioneers release more information when they compete for the same pool of buyers. His findings contribute to our understanding of the role played by information in competitive environments. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Hiebert studied the political and aesthetic theory underlying the body of work of George Woodcock, the prolific writer who forged relations between Vancouver and the Dalai Lama in the sixties. The intellectual and geographical mobility of Woodcock is shown essential to the role he played in the formation of Canadian literature as a field. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |