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. Vranic explored the terracotta sculptures from Northern Italy of life-size groups representing the Lamentation over the Dead Christ. This established a history for these works and provides a technical explanation of how they were created. Her work shows that the technology of making terracotta sculpture was a highly specialized practice in the Renaissance. | Doctor of Philosophy in Art History (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Wu investigated whether people are trusting because of how they are raised or if they constantly adjust their trust in response to life experiences. He examined moving from a high to a low trust place and how mothers and fathers play different roles in shaping trust of their children. This research shows that people learn to trust early in life through socialization and that learned trust persists into adulthood. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Colalillo examined how characteristics of mothers, such as memory, self-control, personality, and attitudes toward parenting, are linked to their parenting behaviors. She found that these relations differ depending on the nature of the childrearing context. This research sheds light on the complexity of parenting and parent-child interactions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Shaffer investigated early social media practices within the Government of Canada. Findings revealed limitations on the ability to hold the government accountable due to increased use of proprietary, for-profit, social media platforms. Her work offers insights into the frictions that develop when certain technologies are adopted into bureaucratic systems. | Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Henshaw adopted a biographical approach to study Chinese collaboration with Japan during the Second World War. Although wartime collaboration has long been denounced in China as a moral failure, Dr. Henshaw's work examines the norms of pre-war Chinese politics and situates collaboration in the longer context of 20th century Chinese history. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Shababo studied the life and work of the seventeenth century Korean scholar and statesman Yun Hyu. In his research, he demonstrated how insights from cognitive sciences can improve our understanding of historical data and particularly of religious motivations. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Lam investigated how post-childhood linguistic experience affects the way bilingual adults perceive speech sounds. In a Cantonese word identification experiment, Cantonese speakers who grew up in Canada used different listening strategies from those who grew up in Hong Kong. These results advance our understanding of bilingual competence. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Stephenson studied the interplay between chronic stress and close relationships. Her work shows that coping with stress can be better understood as a social process, involving not just one person, but also those around them. Her findings highlight specific ways that close relationships can promote better health and wellbeing in times of stress. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Galindo da Fonseca studied the decision of an individual to open a firm or look for a job. He found that although unemployed are more likely to start a firm, they create smaller less successful firms. This work has important implications for understanding the consequences of policies promoting entrepreneurship. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2019 | Dr. Burnett's research examined how past experiences of people who pay for sexual services in Canada inform their behaviours. His analysis revealed the diversity of this population and their role in shaping safety outcomes. This research will inform health and safety policy changes in the sex industry. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |