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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Dr. Dragojlovic investigated the way in which the United States? and the U.S. President's global image impacts their ability to persuade foreign publics to support their preferred policies. This research helps us to understand how countries and other global political actors can use soft power to achieve their policy objectives. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Chin discovered a novel social psychological phenomenon - that individuals feeling particularly uncertain about themselves are more inclined towards greater acts of goodwill. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Roberts used numerical and outdoor physical scale modeling techniques to investigate the three-dimensional surface representation in measurement campaigns of the urban surface energy balance. The resulting measurement protocol can be adopted in future studies to guide the optimal siting of radiation and turbulence flux sensors | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Page examined the politics of wilderness conservation leading to the identification and establishment of the Great Bear Rainforest in British Colubmia. Using Actor Network Theory, he explored the scientific, cultural, economic and political practices articulating an alternative to structured conflict among environmentalists, forest companies and First Nations. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Ucar studied three topics in Industrial Organization. First, she developed a model of long-term contracts as barriers to entry with differentiated products. Second, she provided a theoretical justification for why consumers react to image advertising. Third, she found empirically that deceptive advertising is counter-cyclical. Each essay offers policy recommendations. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Grafton examined the agency of readers of Canadian literature in public programs held in libraries, on the radio, and online. Criticism of these contemporary programs often assumes that participants simply read what, when, and how they are told; however, she found that readers play a vital role in evaluating literature and producing literary canons. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Lehrer examined the education and labour market decisions of Internally Displaced People in Northern Uganda. She found that men living in older Internally Displaced People?s camps are less likely to work due to gender-specific social norms. In addition, Dr. Lehrer assessed the impact of two food-for-education programs on schooling outcomes. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Douglas examined the health and safety of children who live in marijuana grow operations. Her findings showed no significant difference in the health of these children as compared to others in the population, thereby challenging prevailing assumptions and related practices. Her work will inform child welfare practice in these unique and complex circumstances. | Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Chávez Peón investigated the speech sounds of Quiavinà Zapotec, an indigenous language of Mexico. He examined prominence, tone, and voice quality, within phonetic and formal linguistic theoretical approaches. His research sheds light on the relation between phonetics and the sound structure of words. | Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics (PhD) |
| 2010 | Dr. Calloway studied the interaction between faith and reason during the so-called "Scientific Revolution" in England in the seventeenth century. Considering scientific demonstrations of the Christian religion, she argued that this "modern" trend actually carries on a practice older than Christianity itself, whose central theological problems remain unchanged. | Doctor of Philosophy in English (PhD) |