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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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Dr. Sulmona studied the geography of advanced border controls in Canada and the Netherlands from 1985 to 2010. This revealed a "trade with security" partnership strategy among airlines, airports, and border control agencies. Conceptually, this extra-territorial and virtual relocation of state frontiers enhances sovereignty and global mobility. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. McLaughlin examined how endocannabinoids in the prefrontal cortex coordinate coping responses to acute and chronic stress. He found that endocannabinoids in this brain region promote recovery following exposure to stress and that maintaining endocannabinoid tone may represent a promising therapeutic strategy to treat stress-related illnesses. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Clarke investigated the concept of belief, one of the basic ways in which the mind interacts with the world around us. He developed a theoretical basis for the principle of positive thinking: whatever you truly believe about the future will come to pass. His research will be widely applicable to everything from psychotherapy to entrepreneurship. | Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Peters conducted research with social workers which concluded that the use of structural social work theory in practice progresses through a series of six developmental and interactive stages. The framework that she developed has the potential to influence the way this theory is taught and to support social workers in the effective development of their practice. | Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Banack explored the influence of religion upon Alberta's political development. This study demonstrated an important link between an individualistic and democratic version of Christian-based thought, initially espoused by formative political leaders, and the populist and anti-statist sentiments that set Alberta apart from other provinces. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Peyton examined a series of resource development conflicts in the Stikine watershed in northwest BC, a region that is currently the site of intense mining exploration and controversy over energy projects. He situated the current conflicts against the legacies of previous megaprojects -- both failed and realized -- to understand their social and environmental side effects, as well as their legacies for future development. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Oabel examined the restructuring of the sugar industry and its effects on workers in a labour market in the central Philippines. Although economic change has intensified existing social inequalities, he found it also afforded workers the opportunity to both sustain and improve their lives through new livelihood strategies. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Liu studied the resurgence of the popular woodblock printing industry in China dating back to the 1980s. In challenging folk art discourses that relegate Chinese printmaking traditions to the past, Dr. Liu examines the prints in their lived contexts, as tied to ritual practices, lineage identities, and livelihood. | Doctor of Philosophy in Art History (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Dempsey studied the ways ecosystems and biodiversity are becoming increasingly entangled with economic logics and practices. She traced the resulting ethical, scientific, and political issues and argues that the changes are creating a new form of nature that is enterprising, one that can compete in the marketplace and within modern state governance. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Chan explored dementia caring in Chinese families and showed how family members draw on different cultures in complex, fluid, and non-thinking ways. The complex co-constitution of culture, emotion, and practice in non-thinking ways suggests alternative modes of knowing and being, such as emotional rationality. | Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work (PhD) |