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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Dr. Kameda-Madar examined the ideological workings of cultural networks in the Tokugawa period in Japan by surveying a range of visual representations of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering. Her study showed how pictorial motifs promoted class permeability and contributed to the dynamism of identity formation. | Doctor of Philosophy in Art History (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Davis examined how forest-based communities in the Pacific Northwest have responded to mountain pine beetle and wildfire threats by forming regional organizations. She found traditional leaders and established relationships may limit resource-sharing among stakeholders, but regional organizations have helped bring new resources to rural communities. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Lee examined psychological and institutional factors that shape individual attitudes toward trade policies. She found that concerns about economic insecurity and the lack of government commitment to social protection had a greater effect on the public perception of trade liberalization than the promise of economic growth. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Frimer's research asks what motivates some people to devote their lives to promoting the greater good. He found that highly moral people like Gandhi have achieved enlightened self-interest. His studies shed light on how moral motivation develops, and offer insights into how we might foster a civil society. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Cheung developed a new approach to interpreting the society of Ming dynasty China by analyzing the history of famous places in the city of Hangzhou. He showed how different social groups helped construct significant sites and the sites' meanings, thereby enhancing current perspectives on social interaction and contestation in late imperial China. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Rausch studied the writings of two Korean Catholics from the Choson dynasty to see how violence is sometimes justified by appeals to religious and secular worldviews. He argued that the key to understanding why people turn to violence is the study of the narratives they deploy to justify it. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Ye analyzed the reproduction of class inequalities within Singapore's division of labour to illustrate the politics of cosmopolitanism. By developing a theoretical framework that integrated Karl Marx and Pierre Bourdieus' notions of class, she examined the livelihoods of Bangladeshi male migrants, Malaysian commuter workers and financial professionals in Singapores labour market. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Stewart developed a new climate classification system for urban temperature studies. His system divides city landscapes into local climate zones based on the thermal and structural properties of the surface. This work standardizes international communication of temperature observations, and provides a research framework for urban climate studies. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Barter's research uncovers the strategies possessed by civilians in war. In the midst of war, civilians can be proactive, and their strategies can have important effects on conflict dynamics. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in three conflicts, he shows how and why some people flee, while others support armed groups, and some speak out. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Joseph studied literary responses to urban change in the city of Vancouver. She demonstrated that literary texts communicate important knowledge about the experiential, emotional, and relational aspects of urban life. Literary texts, she argued, expand and complicate our understanding of what the city is and what it might become. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |