Jay Hilsden
Master of Arts in Anthropology (MA)
Using ancient proteins to identify archaeologically underrepresented fish on the Pacific Northwest Coast
Canadian Immigration Updates
Review details about the recently announced changes to study and work permits that apply to master’s and doctoral degree students. Read more
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
Research Supervisors in Faculty
or browse the list of faculty members in various academic units. You may click each unit to view faculty members appointed in that unit. View the full faculty member directory for more search and filter options.
| Name | Academic Unit(s) | Research Interests |
|---|---|---|
| Abdul-Mageed, Muhammad | Department of Linguistics | Artificial intelligence (AI); Deep Learning; Natural Language Processing; Machine Learning; Computational Linguistics; Social Media Mining; Arabic |
| Abedinifard, Mostafa | Department of Asian Studies | Literature and literary studies; modern Iran; Iranian/Persianate studies through fiction, drama, poetry, cinema, andnonfiction |
| Abrutyn, Seth | Department of Sociology | Social theory; Sociology and social studies of health, health systems and health care; Sociological Theory; Youth Suicide; Sociology of Emotion; Culture; Medical/Mental Health; Institutions/Organizations |
| Adriasola Munoz, Ignacio Alberto | Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory | investigates responses by artists and intellectuals to the crisis of aesthetic and political representation triggered by the failed protests against the US-Japan Security Treaty of 1960, and in particular their reliance on depictions of the sexual and geographical margins in their articulation of an aesthetics of political disaffection. |
| Afsahi, Afsoun | Department of Political Science | Democratic theory and practice, Gender in politics, Challenges, opportunities, and best methods of inclusion, Representation of marginalized communities in democratic decision-making processes |
| Ahmed, Rumee | Department of Asian Studies | Islamic studies; Human rights, justice, and ethical issues; Islam; Muslims; Religion; Law; Theology; ethics; Philosophy |
| Akinwole, Tolulope | Department of English Language and Literatures | African literatures; African literatures and cultures; global Black literatures; African screen media; Black geographies; critical and cultural theory; Postcolonial Studies; decolonial studies; literature and infrastructure; automobility |
| Al-Kassim, Dina | Department of English Language and Literatures | Critical identity, ethnic and race studies; English language; Gender, sexuality and education; Human rights, justice, and ethical issues; anti-colonial; Artistic and Literary Movements, Schools and Styles; Artistic and Literary Theories; Arts and Cultural Traditions; Arts, Literature and Subjectivity; comparative literature: Arabic, English, French; feminist; Gender Relationship; Identity and Transnationality; Philosophy, History and Comparative Studies; postcolonial; psychoanalysis; queer theory; sexuality; Subjectivity |
| Al-Solaylee, Kamal | School of Journalism, Writing, and Media | Literary nonfiction, Race and representation, Migration studies |
| Alaica, Aleksa | Department of Anthropology | Other agricultural sciences; Archaeology; human-animal interactions; Moche Perceptions and Use of Animals; Food Security and Interregional Interaction during Wari State Expansion; Colonization, Diet and Animal Management |
| Alden, Lynn | Department of Psychology | Cognitive processes in the anxiety disorders, Social Anxiety Disorder, adult-onset Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, cognitive-behavior therapy |
| Alford-Duguid, Dominic | Department of Philosophy | Philosophy; Philosophy of mind/cognitive science; Philosophy of Language |
| Alvarez Moreno, Raul | Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies | Literary or Artistic Works Analysis; Artistic and Literary Movements, Schools and Styles; Artistic and Literary Theories; Literary or Artistic Work Dissemination or Reception Contexts; Language, Knowledge, Significance and Thought Building; Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Literature and Culture (Celestina, picaresque novel, short story); Economy and Medieval Literature and Culture; Visual Culture in Medieval and Early Modern Spain; Relations between Language and Ideology; travel writing |
| Amijee, Fatema | Department of Philosophy | Metaphysics; Modern Philosophy; feminist philosophy; History of Analytic Philosophy |
| An, Ji-yoon | Department of Asian Studies | Korean cinema, K-drama, Rise of Hallyu, Diasporic cinema, Diasporic identity, Identity and cultural flows, Monsters of different cultures |
| Anderson, L. Mark | School of Music | Piano, Piano Pedagogy |
| Anderson, Siwan | Vancouver School of Economics | Micro-level institutions, role of gender, studies of rural governments |
| Anderson, Scott Allen | Department of Philosophy | intersection of ethics and social and political philosophy, largely focused on how to use and regulate power, coercion, and social norms; action theory and moral psychology, privacy, and problems related to the intensification of technology and information. |
| Anger, Suzy | Department of English Language and Literatures | Victorian Literature, Literature and Philosophy, Victorian Literature and Psychology, Victorian Literature and Science, Hermeneutics |
| Antwi, Phanuel | Department of English Language and Literatures | critical black studies; settler colonial studies; black Atlantic and diaspora studies; Canadian literature and culture since 1830; critical race, gender, and sexuality studies; and material cultures; |
| Arefin, Mohammed | Department of Geography | Human geography; History of sciences and technology (except medicine and health care); urban geography; discard studies; urban political ecology; Environmental justice; waste; sanitation; geographical political economy |
| Arneil, Barbara | Department of Political Science | Identity politics, history of political thought |
| Averill, Gage | Haitian music, barbershop harmony, sound, music and power, music and politics, Caribbean music, steelband, ethnomusicology, world music, Ethnomusicology, Haiti, Haitian diaspora, American Popular Culture, Trinidad and Tobago, and Traditional Irish Music | |
| Ayan, Irem | Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies | French language; Sociology of translation and interpreting; Gender and work exploitation; Emotional labour and work alienation; Fictional representations of translators and interpreters |
| Ayars, Alisabeth | Department of Philosophy | Ethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Epistemology, Cognitive Science |
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Graduate Student Stories
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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)
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Dr. Cordero studied contemporary Caribbean fiction. She focused on religion, memory, and history while addressing nonlinearity to highlight the coexistence of multiple temporalities. Her research deploys an original, experimental method for literary analysis named archipelagic reading that reclaims Caribbean worldview and its epistemic authority. | Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Studies (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr. Jettinghoff examined why motivated reasoning persists despite its personal and societal costs. He found that, contrary to prevailing views in psychology, many people knowingly accept irrationality rather than deceiving themselves about their biases. This work reframes motivated reasoning as supported by, not contrary to, stances on rationality. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr. Corcuera studied how minimum wages affect employment and wages when there is a large informal sector. His research finds that in these cases, raising the minimum wage tends to reduce formal jobs. However, by estimating changes in purchasing power across households, he finds that the least wealthy are not negatively affected overall. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr. Fuhrman studied the interaction of visual attention and physiological movements during speech production. This work showed that a general principle linking attention and energy can serve as a basis for optimizing visual fixations to predict auditory speech patterns in an AI model, offering insights for both human cognition and AI development. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr. Winnick created and tested a new methodology for studying ancient Greek ethnicity. By treating the genealogies of the characters of Greek mythology as networks and using network theory to study them, he advanced scholars' ability to study Greek ethnicity with efficiency and depth. | Doctor of Philosophy in Classics (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr. Guan studied how people make sense of one other’s moral characters—their capacity for good and evil. Her research uncovered how, when supposedly good people act badly, this threatens our psychological sense that the world is a predictable and safe place. Her work sheds light on how beliefs about morality shape our interactions with others. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr. Ahn studied the impact of education policy and reforms on the quality of education, school segregation, and labour market outcomes. Her research reveals the long-term benefits of school attendance boundary adjustments on students' outcomes and their neutral effects on school segregation. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr. Cheung-Ismailzai’s research shows how the Standard North American Family (SNAF) ideal marginalizes diverse households by imposing hidden food-related labor. Her concept of “SNA-Foodwork” uncovers how class and race shape burdens in food planning and access. She calls for inclusive policies that address the needs of families. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2025 | Dr.Cervantes-Macías explores the migration journeys of Mexican professionals from Mexico to the United States and Canada. Through a mixed-methods approach, her research examines the role of social class and educational institutions in facilitating the international mobility projects of the global middle classes in a North American context. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2025 | How can we gauge risk of experiencing gambling harm? Dr. Deng examined online gambling data in British Columbia and found gambling products with higher usage and spending concentrations attracted gamblers with elevated risk. Gambling risk was also predicted by deposit and withdrawal behaviors and by a combination of product risk and usage. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |