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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Dr. Lam examined how mood regulation, maladaptive pain coping and social support impacts pain, for individuals living with spinal cord injury. This research highlights the importance of considering the contributions of both psychological and social factors in the experience of pain, and may aid in designing effective pain management interventions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Rudrum studied the social organization of maternity care and birth in a rural community in post-conflict northern Uganda. She found that pregnant women had to navigate complex power relationships, as well as overcome financial and logistical challenges, in order to access care. Her research has implications for maternity care practice and policy. | Doctor of Philosophy in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (PhD) |
| 2015 | In his dissertation, Dr. Borkent proposes an interdisciplinary methodology for analyzing Canadian visual poetry, that is, poetry that must be both read and seen to be understood. He discusses conceptual, visual, linguistic, and improvisational mechanisms that yield an array of poetic forms, interpretive possibilities, and critical connections. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Talbot examined relationships between early life stress and adult psychosocial functioning and health risk. Adult psychosocial functioning mediated the relationships between adverse childhood environments and adult sleep processes. This work has important implications for adult health outcomes and can help inform primary prevention efforts. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Wall completed his doctoral studies in the field of Geography. He used GPS tracking data to study the movements of elephants across the African continent. In addition to developing new geospatial methods and software, he used the tracking data to characterize the ways in which elephants use the landscape, so that they can be protected. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Breton's work focused on people's attitudes toward immigration and the context in which they emerge. His research demonstrates that immigration policies affect the attitudes of both mainstream society and immigrants. Concentrating on Canada, he also showed that Canadian national identity has the potential to increase positive views on immigration. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Ellamil examined how thoughts spontaneously start and unfold in the brain. She found that the initial generation of thoughts, and the subsequent elaboration of the thoughts, use different brain networks. The interaction between these brain networks provides insight into the treatment of depressive rumination and the training of creative thinking. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Toews studied how time is expressed in Siamou, a language of the African country of Burkina Faso. She described Siamou grammar and developed diagnostics for perfective, imperfective, past and future, using them to analyze Siamou's temporal system. Her findings have implications for researching expressions of time in under-studied languages. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Bennett studied the earliest language encounters between the English, the Spanish and the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. He developed a new methodology for revealing colonial encounters that have been excluded from recorded histories. In doing so, he improved our understanding of the relationship between language study and imperialism. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Du explored local labour markets and labour migration within the Pearl River delta in south China. He found that distinct economic structures and activities are caused by uneven development, resulting in diverse labour markets and contested identity for labour migrants. This research illustrates the profound social transformation in China. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |