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. Sedo examined a small Northern Chinese county during the Ming period to provide a new regional alternative to the dominant 'Jiangnan Model' of Late Imperial Chinese studies. In doing so, he provides a new local vantage point to rethink the deeply regional character of the composite Ming realm. | Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Reid described developing practices of grassland conservation in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, British Columbia. This research shows how different social groups -- ranchers, Aboriginal community members, and conservationists -- understand and value grasslands in different ways.The research explores emerging land use compromises and supports cooperation in conservation initiatives. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Frost studied how a group of young Punjabi men from Surrey, British Columbia self-identified and how their identities in turn influenced their educational performances. Her research demonstrates the important role played by family and community in the lives of these young men and contributes to our understanding of the experiences of the Canadian-born children of one of Canada's largest immigrant groups. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr Supernant explored the relationship between ancient cultural landscapes, built rock features, and indigenous identities in the Lower Fraser River Canyon. She concluded that archaeological rock features created important places on the landscape where individual and collective identities were negotiated at many scales, both in the past and present. | Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Wittfoth examined theories of language associated with sceptical and rhetorical traditions of thought dating back to ancient Greece. Her research uncovered coincident linguistic insights in sceptical-rhetorical theories of language, linguistic-pragmatics, experimental psychology, and cognitive science.These findings have philosophical implications relevant to all areas of linguistically meditated research. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Benesch examined the creation and development of the Japanese ethic of bushido, or the "way of the samurai." Dr. Benesch argues that bushido is essentially a modern construct that first developed largely as a response to foreign ideas during Japan's modernization process in the late nineteenth century. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Liu examined representations of female Daoists in poetic works from the eighth to the twelfth centuries in China. This study contributes to our knowledge of Daoist women and male intellectuals' views about them as well as the social and literary milieus from the Tang to the Song dynasties. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Kelleher studied Hume's theory of belief and judgment. Although Hume's belief theory has long been analyzed in term of force and liveliness, Dr. Kelleher argues that recognizing the central role of feeling and affect will enable us to better understand crucial aspects of Hume's moral and aesthetic theories, as well as his epistemology. | Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy (PhD) |
| 2011 | Dr. Ngai studied a Buddhist board game of a gambling nature developed as propaganda in ancient China and similar religious devices found in other Asian countries. She drew new attention to the device's basic didactic function and rediscovered this otherwise unknown cross-border cultural phenomenon that has been neglected by historians. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Marin examined the effects of stressful life experiences on endocrine and immune activity in young people. She found that the impact of stressful events is accentuated in a subgroup of youth with chronic interpersonal difficulties. Interventions aimed at helping youth manage stress could have health implications later in life. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |