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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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Dr. Goh studied how archival legislation in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Singapore influence the implementation of records management programs. She found that archival legislation lacks clarity and that there are complexities in making changes. Her findings provide insights for a revised legislation to improve the management of public records. | Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Cheung examined the social dynamics of early Bronze Age China using multi-isotope analysis. Focusing on the ancient networks surrounding the late Shang capital Yinxu, her thesis has provided novel insights into the social organization of Yinxu, as well as the complex political geography of early Bronze Age China. | Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Golubev challenged an established tradition of approaching Soviet society as a product of the Soviet ideological experiment. He argued that material objects were key elements in the organization of the Soviet historical and spatial imagination, and positioned the models and practices of Soviet selfhood within the global experience of modernity. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Vivaldi conducted research among migrant indigenous people in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work shows the importance of mobility and the creation of spatial networks for confronting socioeconomic marginalization and urban segregation. This research contributes to thinking and promoting urban inclusion and indigenous decolonization. | Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. McMullin constructed a set of artificial languages for people to learn in the laboratory, and showed that the way humans learn linguistic sound patterns influences the range of patterns found across the world's languages. His dissertation argues that current linguistic theory cannot account for this, and proposes a mathematically principled definition of what constitutes a possible language. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Sepulveda explored how the suffering provoked to a colony of black-necked swans by an ecological disaster occurred in a protected wetland, in Valdivia, Chile, became a landmark event that forced historical changes in the country's environmental frame and its until then dominant business model. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Littell investigated dialogue patterns in Kwak'wala, a critically endangered aboriginal language of British Columbia, based on field interviews with Kwakwaka'wakw elders. This research helps future learners of conversational Kwak'wala know how to ask and answer questions, draw parallels and contrasts, and express agreement and disagreement. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Kennedy examined how carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology became the central plank in Alberta's climate change strategy. She found that CCS evolved from decades of support from government, industry and research communities, but failed to address industry emissions, as well as social legitimacy and market access concerns. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Lorenzi examined how sexual violence is represented in contemporary Canadian literature and drama. By focusing on authors' innovative uses of silence, she developed a methodology for understanding how trauma can be articulated to both readers and audiences. Her research also benefits survivors seeking new ways to tell their stories. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2016 | Dr. Jales developed a statistical method to estimate the economic effects of the minimum wage in developing countries. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |