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 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.

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
Copeland, Brian Vancouver School of Economics International trade, environmental economics, interaction between globalization, the environment, and the sustainability of renewable resources
Corrigall-Brown, Catherine Department of Sociology Sociology; social movements; identity; political sociology; social psychology
Coulthard, Lisa Department of Theatre & Film film theory and violence; film sound and violence, contemporary American and European cinemas, continental philosophy and Lacanian theory
Coulthard, Glen Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, Department of Political Science First Nations politics – national; political theory
Couture, Victor Vancouver School of Economics Economics; Urban economics and transportation; Efficiency of urban transportation systems; Potential for e-commerce to reduce spatial inequality; Preferences for social interactions; Consequences of gentrification
Creighton, Millie Department of Anthropology Japan, Japanese descent communities (Nikkei or Nikkeijin), Korea, Inter-Asian Relations, Identity, Consumerism, Popular and Mass Culture, Gender, Minorities, Work and Leisure
Crowston, Clare Department of History history of early modern France, history of labor, women and gender, material culture, economic exchange, and fashion
Cutler, Frederick Department of Political Science Social movements and democracy; public opinion; Political Methodology; Canadian Politics; Elections; Electoral Systems; Federalism; Academic Publishing Systems
Dadugblor, Stephen School of Journalism, Writing, and Media English language; Rhetoric; Digital media/social media; democratic deliberation; decoloniality; writing studies; African Studies
Dalziel, Pamela Department of English Language and Literatures Victorian-literature, Victorian-culture, visual-representation, illustration, gender-studies, religion, interdisciplinary-studies, textual-criticism, scholarly-editing, Thomas-Hardy, Charles-Dickens, George-Eliot
Dancygier, Barbara Department of English Language and Literatures Linguistics, grammar
Daniels, Megan Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies Classical religion; Archaeology of Greece and the broader eastern Mediterranean; Late Bronze Age to Hellenistic Period; Ancient religion, sanctuaries, votive objects; Cross-cultural interaction; Ancient economies and trade; Divine kingship; Digital/data science approaches to the ancient world, particularly ancient religion; Migration and mobility across Eurasia; Phoenician culture; Ceramic analysis
Dauvergne, Peter Department of Political Science Social sciences; international relations; global environmental politics; sustainability governance; global South; Developing countries; transnational corporations; technology; consumption; Plastic Pollution; social movements; environmentalism; activism; deforestation
Davis, Wade Department of Anthropology Social sciences; cultural biological diversity, language loss, South American ethnography, coca, Colombia; Polynesian Wayfinding, Tahltan, Haida, Vodoun, Tibetan beyuls, Arctic, Sacred Geography, Dreamtime,
Davis, Henry Thomas Department of Linguistics First Nations languages
Dawson, Samantha Department of Psychology Psychology and cognitive sciences; Interventions for sexual dysfunction; Sexual function and dysfunction in individuals and couples
De Angelis, Franco Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies Ancient Greek world history, environment, urbanism, developmnet of societies, colonization, economics, ancient literature
de Villiers, Jessica Department of English Language and Literatures Linguistics
Dechaine, Rose-Marie Department of Linguistics Native American languages; Algonquian language family, Cree, Blackfoot, Ojibwe; French / English bilingualism policy; formal linguistics; generative grammar (Chomsky); West African languages (Niger-Congo, Yoruba, Igbo, Edo); Nigerian languages; literacy vs. oralcy; language planning re: French, Indigenous languages, Speech/gesture coordination, syntactic interface relations
Deer, Glenn Department of English Language and Literatures discourse studies, the rhetoric of power in narrative fiction, and postmodernism and Canadian Literature
DeLongis, Anita Department of Psychology Psychology and cognitive sciences; social determinants of health; chronic illness; coping; couples; families; health; Health Psychology; marriage; social support; stress
Dempsey, Jessica Department of Geography wrestle with the theoretical and historical-geographical complexities of environmental politics as it shapes and is shaped by the entanglement of state, economy, science, and culture
Devereux, Michael Vancouver School of Economics Economics, Macro and Monetary Economics Economic Policy, Monetary and Fiscal Policy, Deficits, Exchange Rates, Capital Flows, Financial Crises, International, monetary
Dick, Alexander Department of English Language and Literatures Literary or Artistic Work Analysis; Philosophy, History and Comparative Studies; Artistic and Literary Theories; Arts, Literature and Subjectivity; British Romanticism; Scottish Enlightenment; Literature and Economics; Literature and the Environment; Literature and Science; Scottish Literature
Dierkes, Julian School of Public Policy and Global Affairs Sociology, n.e.c.; All other social sciences, n.e.c.; Sociology of education; Public Policy; Mongolia; policy communication; contemporary Japan; digital diplomacy; supplementary education; mining policy; Japanese education; Democratization

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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.

 

Publication: Elementa
UBC Author(s): Navin Ramankutty (School of Public Policy / Faculty of Arts)
Volume: 11
Publication Date: 16 June 2023

View Publication
Publication: Journal of the History of Analytical Philosophy
UBC Author(s): Ori Simchen (Philosophy / Faculty of Arts)
Volume: 11
Page Range: 1-10
Publication Date: 13 June 2023

View Publication
Publication: BMJ (Clinical research ed.)
UBC Author(s): Liisa Ann Margaret Galea (Psychology / Faculty of Arts)
Volume: 381
Page Range: p1303
Publication Date: 12 June 2023

View Publication

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Recent Thesis Submissions

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
2023 Dr. Mackenzie's dissertation discusses some of the earliest visualizations of plants seen through a microscope. She explored the relationship between images and knowledge-making in the seventeenth century, at a moment where new ways of seeing were emerging in response to novel approaches for understanding and documenting the natural world. Doctor of Philosophy in Art History (PhD)
2023 Dr. Lacy Boersma examined how the language of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, especially the words used to articulate doctrines of the Church of England, contributed to England's modern identity. She shows that it is not only ideas which define a nation. Terminology, the origins and associations of terms used to express those ideas, also matter. Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD)
2023 Dr. Minniti investigated the distribution and use of Egyptian and Egyptian-inspired objects, also known as Aegyptiaca, in Sicily during the Archaic Period (ca. 776-480 BCE). Her analysis provides a better understanding of how the objects were adopted into local customs, and the reasons why their owners chose to use them. Doctor of Philosophy in Classics (PhD)
2022 Dr. Sandhra studied museums as spaces of belonging through the experience of three Asian Canadian migrant communities in BC - Sikhs, Chinese and Japanese. Her research and findings centred racialized voices only as a means to demonstrate the power of margins as the site of solidarity and belonging in public history discourse. Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)
2022 Dr. Zhang studied the interactions between occupational persistence and labor market efficiency. He demonstrated the relationship between intergenerational persistence and occupation-talent misallocation in the labor market. His research highlights the role of information friction in workers' occupational choices and lifetime earnings. Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD)
2022 Dr. Sharpe studied how American maximalist novels published after 2001 comment on our contemporary information-saturated moment. Acknowledging that technology is causing neurological changes, these authors call for a new form of reading that embraces the inconvenience and difficulty of the maximalist novel as a way of restoring reader autonomy. Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD)
2022 Dr. Wu's doctoral study focuses on everyday life at Yinxu, the last Shang capital. The research explores the significance and relevance of daily practice, particularly how the actions of individuals were immensely involved in urban processes. It has significant implications for our understanding of the dynamics of urbanization in early China. Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD)
2022 Dr. Figueiredo studied how context and agency affect Brazilian school children's information searching strategies to complete homework. She found that these strategies depend on school and home resources, and interpersonal assistance. Her analysis of information searching strategies provides recommendations for designing youth digital applications. Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD)
2022 Dr. Lachapelle argued that an emerging way of science-making emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, organized around preprint servers, challenging the traditional channel of scholarly communication, organized around academic peer-reviewed journals. These servers participate in a reversal of epistemic evaluators and the logic of scientific capital. Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD)
2022 Dr. Ma examined a warlord based in a Korean island in the early seventeenth century when China underwent a dynastic transition. His study ably fills in the details of a part of this transition. It helps to break down approaches to history that focus on national binary conflicts without considering other nations and marginal players. Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD)

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