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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Dr. Song examined the newly created autonomy among female Catholic virgins of nineteenth-century Korea under the intensified control of French missionaries. This research invalidated the established conclusion in Korean history that Catholicism liberated Korean women and contributed to destroying the patriarchy in Choson Korea. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Suh examined chamber music which was loved by the upper-middle class audiences in eighteenth and nineteenth century Korea. She brought light to the chamber music scenes through the position of musicians, placing musical issues as a window through which to explore the multiple realities of the pre-modern Korean society. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Basham studied practices of knowledge production and definitions of expertise in technical encyclopedias from seventeenth-century China. Using a military encyclopedia as a case study, she argued that Chinese readers in this period defined expertise as mastery of text-based knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to state policy. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Zhao investigated the fertility processes of Chinese immigrants in Canada. Her Embodied Dynamic model explains institutional, relational, and situational dynamics that shape how people cope simultaneously with immigration and childbearing. She argued how immigrants are received and screened channel them into different reproduction paths. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Andrews explored indigenous spirituality in rural Ghana, focusing upon the intersections between music, ritual, and social development. His research illuminated the importance of recognizing and supporting indigenous spirituality as a key agent in mitigating cultural loss and how it contributes to a community's resilience. | Doctor of Philosophy in Music, Emphasis Ethnomusicology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Kendall studied how cartoony faces, such as in comics or emojis, are processed when compared to photorealistic faces. She found evidence that illuminated how cartoony images are processed faster and more easily than photorealistic images, which may underlie their use in broader applications. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Why do some people believe in the supernatural and others do not? Dr. Baimel examined the psychological foundations of supernatural beliefs in diverse samples of the world's religions. His work identifies both cross-cultural stability and variability, and stresses that any complete account requires consideration of the world's vast religious diversity. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Lark studied the cognitive processes required for completing prospective memory tasks, which involve executing a previously formed plan while engaged in another activity. Her research suggests that after executing a plan, it takes extra time and effort to switch attention back to the other activity, and performance on that activity suffers. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Wei studied the reading practices and scholarly culture of Qing Dynasty China. He studied a variety of writings and symbols drawn by readers in the margins of books called marginalia. This study explores how this culture took form, gained momentum, and shaped styles, as well as the scholars' lives, thoughts, and mind-states in the Qing dynasty. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Hackinen studied how corporations use donations to non-profits as a tool to influence regulators during the notice and comment process for U.S. federal rulemaking. He also developed new tools measuring for political influence using the text of comments submitted to regulators. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |