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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Dr. Deggan is a literary scholar interested in the aesthetic means by which landscape representations are used to communicate aspects of human consciousness. His work offers an ecologically focused means of linking ethics, art, and the environment across different cultural media, focussing upon global cinema and the novel. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Allen examined the expansion of the party system in Indonesia. He found that patterns of state spending and legacies of corruption shape voter and elite behaviour and impact party system outcomes. This research helps us understand how party politics evolve in new democracies. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Johnston examined how adolescents who are living with a progressive life-threatening neurodegenerative illness construct meaningful future self-representations. Findings reveal a range of possible selves both with and without the illness. Adolescents describe future thinking as a required activity for coping, personhood, and decision-making. | Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Vermote studied the local and global dimensions of the Jesuit networks and finances between Europe and China during the 17th and 18th centuries. Because transporting money and other resources from Europe to China was unpredictable, the Jesuit communities relied increasingly on revenue from real estate investments in, Beijing, Manila and elsewhere. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Schellenberg examined how Cantonese and Mandarin singers express speech tones during singing. He showed that Cantonese singers add in extra tonal information missing from the written music, and Cantonese listeners use this information in understanding the sung words. Also, Mandarin singers and listeners do not incorporate speech tones in music. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Martin examined the changing nature of pre-marital co-habitation over the twentieth century, and the impact on later marital stability. His work highlights ways in which changing social norms influence union formation patterns, and how marital stability is more closely associated with filtering mechanisms than pathways to union . | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Szakay investigated how a bilingual person's first and second languages are connected in the mind. She studied English-Maori bilingual New Zealanders, and established a new type of connection based on the ethnic dialect of a speaker. Her results have practical implications for facilitating language processing in the second language classroom. . | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Hill investigated waterless human waste management at remote sites. His study exposed the costs and impacts of poorly designed systems including composting toilets. Novel urine-diverting toilets showed much more promise for nutrient recovery, safety, and cost. Recently, this topic has attracted considerable funding from the Gates Foundation | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Yamane used ultrasound imaging to test whether certain consonants in Japanese that were thought to vary in their production actually have a specific tongue position. Her study revealed that speakers use individualized tongue postures to make these sounds. This research illuminates a hidden contrast in how speakers distinguish sounds in language. . | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2013 | Dr. Gagne-Hawes compared works of the Raj novel genre, created by British authors living in India under the British Raj from 1858 to 1947, with the 1980s British Raj Revival novels and films. She demonstrated ways in which the novelists' image of British national character shaped political rhetoric and artistic production in Thatcherite Britain. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |