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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Dr. Higashi conducted research on peace-building initiatives in Afghanistan and East Timor. His findings and recommendations factored into the decision of the Japanese government to support the reconciliation efforts in Afgahanistan. Because of his outstanding research, Dr. Higashi received an appointment as Associate Professor in the University of Tokyo, and has subsequently been assigned to be Minister-Counsellor for the Japanese mission to the United Nations in New York. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Yu examined how inflation indexed bonds help to explain home bias in equity portfolios. She studied ways in which international financial development affects risk-sharing across countries. These studies assist us in understanding how international financial markets help to share income risk across borders. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Ruby investigated the reasons why people either consume or avoid eating meat, taking into account various environmental and internal factors. Drawing on participants form diverse cultures, his inquiry focussed on the role of emotion, social influence, perceived animal quality and moral intuitions. His conclusions will contribute to research in the field of Psychology. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Chaskes argued that the fiction of American, postmodern author Donald Barthelme is a critique of the violence and political corruption of the late twentieth century. Barthelme's writings have often been deemed trivial, but Dr. Chaskes finds that Barthelme belongs to a tradition of radical writing that offers ways of understanding one's world | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Nosen's investigated whether the way people think about nicotine cravings affects smoking cessation experiences. She found that people who accept cravings as a natural part of quitting smoking experienced less distress and fewer cravings during cessation. This research supports mindfulness-based approaches to treating addiction. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Ikebuchi conducted a study of Chinese and Japanese women who were placed in the Chinese Rescue Home in Victoria, BC, between 1886 and 1923 because they were at risk of being forced into prostitution. She found that while the white Methodist women running the Home aimed to domesticate and transform them into Christian wives, mothers and servants, the Home was a space where both white and Asian women pursued their aspirations. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Sedgwick explored the trial of Japanese leaders after World War II. He provides a behind-the-scenes, experiential history of a groundbreaking judicial undertaking and multilateral institution. His work reinterprets modern internationalism and global governance as a messy and negotiated process, rather than a staid set of promises and ideals. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Celestino defended an original semantic and metaphysical account of mental states such as beliefs and desires, their reports and fiction. She provided a new understanding of how we talk about things with words. Her research thus contributes to the understanding of how language works. | Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Schreier randomly assigned adolescents to volunteer activities, to examine whether this could improve their physiological health. She found that, following her intervention, volunteers had lower levels of cardio-vascular risk markers than control participants, suggesting novel ways to improve health among youth while contributing positively to society. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2012 | Dr. Yang examined one of the largest instances of political migration in modern Chinese history: one million soldiers and civilian refugees who followed Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist regime from mainland China to Taiwan, after the Chinese civil war in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This study of displaced communities in Asia during the Cold War offers new perspectives on exile, displacement, and Chinese diaspora. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |