Steve Commichau
Doctor of Philosophy in Germanic Studies (PhD)
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 |
|---|---|---|
| la Selva, Samuel | Department of Political Science | Political theory, legal philosophy |
| Lachance, Lindsay | Department of Theatre & Film | Indigenous approaches to developing Indigenous theatre |
| Laffin, Christina | Department of Asian Studies | Humanities and the arts; premodern Japanese literature; medieval Japanese history; women's writing; Japanese women's history; travel writing; autobiography; Japanese poetry; Literacy; socialization; wet nursing; narratology |
| Lagresa-González, Elizabeth | Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies | Humanities and the arts; Early modern Literature and Culture; Early modern Theater; Early modern Visual and Material culture; Queer, Gender and Sexuality studies; Cross-cultural and Comparative studies |
| Lahiri, Amartya | Vancouver School of Economics | Exchange rates and monetary policy, growth and development, international economics, macroeconomics, and development economics |
| Laird, Colleen | Department of Asian Studies | Japanese media and gender studies; Gendered image production, gendered reception, and women in industry; Video games, new media, streaming media, animation (anime), and comics (manga); Paratexts: distribution, exhibition, and production materials; Film theory, genre theory, transnational cinemas and star texts, and feminist and queer theory |
| Langager, Graeme | School of Music | choral conducting |
| Laroussi, Farid | Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies | Contemporary French studies, Maghreb literature(s) in French and postcolonial studies |
| Lauer, Sean | Department of Sociology | Urban sociology and community studies |
| Laurin, Kristin | Department of Psychology | Social psychology; Psychology of social class; Political psychology; Rationalization and system justification; Morality |
| Lauster, Nathanael | Department of Sociology | Population, Housing, Urban Studies, Crowding, Home & Housing, Technology & Environment, City Building & Regulation, Family, Demography, Health |
| Law, Hedy | School of Music | Opera; eighteenth-century French music; opera; pantomime; dance; gesture; sign; the Enlightenment; Cantonese music; Cantonese opera; Cantonese songs; tone language; global Cantonese music; global music history; gender and sexuality; music and race |
| le Billon, Philippe | School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Department of Geography | Geography, politics, africa, environmental, human geography, development, security |
| Leavitt, Sarah | School of Creative Writing | Autobiographical comics; Formal experimentation in comics; Comics pedagogy |
| Lee, Steven Hugh | Department of History | Cold war |
| Lee, Barbara | School of Social Work | |
| Lee, Nancy | School of Creative Writing | Fiction; Creative Writing |
| Lee, Christopher | Department of English Language and Literatures | Asian North American literatures and cultures, Asian diaspora studies, American Studies, race and ethnicity, aesthetic philosophy, critical theory |
| Lemieux, Thomas | Vancouver School of Economics | labour market issues, Applied, labour, earnings inequality in Canada and other countries I am also interested in econometric methods used to analyze the earnings distribution and regression discontinuity designs |
| Lemieux, Victoria | School of Information | Archival, repository and related studies; Library science and information studies; Blockchain technology; information visualization and visual analytics; International development; Records and information management; Risk management; Transparency and the public interest (in public sector and financial contexts); Trustworthy records |
| LeMoult, Joelle | Department of Psychology | Neurosciences, biological and chemical aspects; Neurosciences, medical and physiological and health aspects; Psychology and cognitive sciences; depression and psychobiological responses to stress; understanding how depression develops and unfolds across the lifespan |
| Levell, Nicola | Department of Anthropology | interdisciplinary folds of anthropology, theoretical museology, material culture and critical curatorial studies |
| Lewis, Avi | Department of Geography | Social and political change, Communication, Documentary filmmaking, Climate change |
| Li, Xiaojun | Department of Political Science | international and comparative political economy with a focus on China; Does Conditionality Still Work? China |
| Li, Hao | Vancouver School of Economics | Microeconomic theory, theory of contracts and organizations, and games and decisions |
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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)
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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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Dr. Werner studied the origin of the orca in popular and scientific discourses. His research highlights the importance of first-hand encounters in shaping the historical representation of the killer whale (1861-1964). This study showcases the possibilities for animal-centered history in the age of mass digitization of historical source material. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Howe studied climate change policy networks, discourse, and policy influence in Canada. Research and environmental actors were important in some policy spheres, but not seen as influential. For some environmental actors, media coverage made them seem less influential. Also, policy beliefs and network ties both explained collaboration behaviour. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Yang examined how carbon is made governable in the urban settings by investigating the discursive elements, the formal and informal structures and norms of the policy processes. This research highlights the particular narratives, governance logics and social practices used in the mobilization of climate policy. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. TeBokkel explains how British Romantic poetry was influenced by agricultural improvement and, in turn, informed the capitalist agriculture. As a result, modern farming practice, labour, technology, management, research, and legislation still rely on Romantic tropes and genres. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Berseth examined how genomic science is being used to conserve wild Pacific salmon. She found that decision-makers weigh different aspects of wildness in determining where and how to intervene using novel technologies. This work helps us understand the changing meaning of wildness in the Anthropocene. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Stecy-Hildebrandt examined how blue and white collar workplaces shape fathers' involvement in child care. Both types of organizations were found to limit fathers' caregiving, but in different ways, highlighting the importance of understanding specific workplace contexts and their implications for reinforcing the gendered division of labour. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Dinat explored the ways in which the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission continues to shape the political and literary discourses of the contemporary nation. His work contributes to ongoing conversations around the relationship between the state, the subject, and literature in the post-apartheid era. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Feltes studied the Constitution Express, a 1980s Indigenous movement to stop the patriation of Canada's Constitution from the UK without Indigenous consent. Guided by its leaders, she found that beyond rights, the movement sought international decolonization. This study challenges Canadian federalism, recentering Indigenous jurisdiction. | Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Mushiya has examined the social and economic impacts of new technology on African societies. She has demonstrated that globalization is an extension of imperialism engrained in the predation of minerals used in technology. Her research provides insight into the role of industry and legislators in the chronic poverty of African societies. | Doctor of Philosophy in French (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. James's research focused on gender and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. She found that at the particular intersection of colonialism and patriarchy lie challenges that must be overcome if we are to move towards truly transformative reconciliation. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |