Photo: Martin Dee
Applicants to Master’s and Doctoral degrees are not affected by the recently announced cap on study permits. Review more details
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Dr. Koch examined how speech melody is used to highlight important information in Thompson River Salish. This endangered First Nations language is spoken in the BC interior. Findings are based on a significant new body of valuable language recordings. The results challenge cognitive models of the link between information status and speech melody. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Cuttler established a link between checking compulsions and prospective memory, which is the ability to remember to perform activities in the future. Her research indicates that a deficit in prospective memory contributes to the compulsion to check. Her findings have implications for the conceptualization and treatment of checking compulsions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Schnurr investigated attempts by settlers and scientists to impose cotton as a commodity crop in the eastern region of South Africa known today as KwaZulu-Natal. He argued that, despite repeated failures, cotton facilitated important structural changes to the region's agricultural, political and economic landscape. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2008 | In examining the history of Shakespeare's drama in print, Dr. Paul demonstrated how Shakespeare's editors enable readers to engage with performance histories and cultural memory. While acknowledging the advancements of electronic editions, his work establishes the continued relevance of the relationship between editors, readers, and printed texts. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Hill examined the role of the endocannabinoid system, the brain's natural version of cannabis, in depressive illness. Data in this dissertation demonstrated that major depression is associated with deficient endocannabinoid activity and that drugs which increase endocannabinoid activity may prove useful as a new class of antidepressant. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Dar-Nimrod reports that media provide deterministic genetic accounts for complex human phenomena. He offers a theory to illuminate effects of genetic essentialism. He supports this theory with previous research and new empirical studies demonstrating that primed with evolutionary theories men tolerate sex crimes more than men primed with sociocultural theories. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Bennett examined the role of private security guards in building a 'world class' city that can be marketed to tourists, investors and higher-income homeowners. This work highlights the complex social position of guards as low-wage workers and agents of social control. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Stan examined the growth response of trees following the formation of natural canopy gaps in old-growth forests of coastal British Columbia. Her research provides important information for reconstructing past forest disturbances, understanding tree species coexistence, and predicting the impacts of forest management in coastal British Columbia. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Kwak examined how different factors and actors are involved with the recent growth of the international education industry between Seoul, Korea and Vancouver, Canada. She emphasized the roles of governments, local educational institutions and ordinary migrants in promoting Vancouver as a popular destination for international students. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2008 | Dr. Nobell examined the continued significance of the symbol of the cross in the literature of Quebec after 1960. As represented in the novels studied, the cross becomes a metaphor for the transformation of religious discourse within a cultural framework of secularization. | Doctor of Philosophy in French (PhD) |