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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 |
|---|---|---|
| 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) |
| 2022 | Dr. Macdonald's research shows the importance of parole incentives in the prison system. He finds that their absence led to greater misconduct and lower rehabilitative effort by prisoners who returned to prison at higher rates as a result. His findings contribute vital evidence relevant to current efforts to reform and reduce prison populations. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2022 | Dr. Pestonji examined how the experience of repeatedly seeing a person or hearing a song affects how much we like them/it. Her research gives insight into the cognitive processes that underlie how we make liking and similar holistic preference decisions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2021 | In our changing climate, floods and landslides are likely to be more frequent in mountainous regions. Dr. Leenman studied how such changes could influence the steep streams on alluvial fans, which are depositional landforms in these areas. Her work shows how the frequency and magnitude of natural hazards on fans may respond to climate change. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2021 | Dr. Yu examined what people would predict when jointly seeing two predictive cues. He found that people made conjunctive predictions that represented the overlap of the outcomes predicted by the cues. The results contribute to the understanding of human predictions and are helpful to those who design signage and labelling for the general public. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |