Ajibola Fabusuyi
Doctor of Philosophy in Germanic Studies (PhD)
The subject of becoming in Black German autobiographical nonfiction and documentary film-making
Canadian Immigration Updates
Applicants to Master’s and Doctoral degrees are not affected by the recently announced cap on study permits. Review more details
The Faculty of Arts at UBC brings together the best of quantitative research, humanistic inquiry, and artistic expression to advance a better world. Graduate students in the Faculty of Arts create and disseminate knowledge in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Creative and Performing Arts through teaching, research, professional practice, artistic production, and performance.
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.
Research Centres
Research Facilities
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.
Research Highlights
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.
Schools / Departments
School
Department
Graduate Degree Programs
Research Supervisors in Faculty
or browse the list of faculty members in various academic units. You may click each unit to view faculty members appointed in that unit. View the full faculty member directory for more search and filter options.
| Name | Academic Unit(s) | Research Interests |
|---|---|---|
| Byrne, Jeffrey | Department of History | International history; Empires, decolonisation, & postcolonial history; Africa; Middle East; Revolution |
| Callison, Candis | School of Journalism, Writing, and Media, Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies | changes to media practices and platforms, journalism ethics, the role of social movements in public discourse, and understanding how issues related to science and technology become meaningful for diverse publics. |
| Cameron, Maxwell | Department of Political Science, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs | Political science; Political Regimes (Democracy, Monarchy, Federalism, Parliamentarism, etc.); Social Organization and Political Systems; Comparative Politics; Democratization; Latin America; Practical wisdom |
| Caragata, Lea | School of Social Work | Social oppression and marginalization; Counselling, welfare and community services; Social policy; welfare systems; Poverty; labour markets; lone mothers; social policy; youth provisioning |
| Carrabre, T. Patrick | School of Music | Music; construction of identity; creation of shared musical spaces with indigenous and non-western musicians; decolonization; use of interactive electronics |
| Casas Aguilar, Anna | Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies | Contemporary literatures; Spanish Cultural Studies; Catalan Literature and Culture; Gender Studies; Masculinities; Feminisms; Self-writing; Hispanic Cinemas |
| Castonguay-Belanger, Joel | Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies | French language; History of the book and print culture; Québec literature and culture; Science and literature; The Enlightenment and the French Revolution |
| Catungal, John Paul | Institute for Gender, Race, Sex and Social Justice | queer of colour geographies, critical race and ethnic studies, diaspora and transnationalism, critical pedagogy, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the lived geographies of sexual and racial minorities in educational spaces |
| Cavell, Richard Anthony | Department of English Language and Literatures | English language; Media and Society; Media Influence on Behavior; Media Types (Radio, Television, Written Press, etc.); media studies; media theory |
| Chang, Dorothy | School of Music | Composition |
| Chapman, Mary Ann | Department of English Language and Literatures | Arts and Cultural Traditions; Arts and Literary Policies; Arts and Technologies; Arts, Literature and Subjectivity; Social Determinants of Arts and Letters; Artistic and Literary Marginality; Artistic and Cultural Heritage; Artist or Author Social Identity; Artistic and Literary Movements, Schools and Styles; Artistic and Literary Theories; Literary or Artistic Work Analysis; Literary or Artistic Work Dissemination or Reception Contexts; Literary or Artistic Works Analysis; Writing and Literary Experimentation; Poetry; Novel and Short Story; Essays; Gender Relationship; Audiences and Mass Media; Media and Democratization; Media and Society; Media Influence on Behavior; Civil and Social Responsibilities of Media; Stereotypes; Electoral System; Printing Art; Persuasion Strategies; Social Movements; Publics; Performance and Theatrical Productions; Social Networks; American Literature; Asian American Literature; Asian Canadian Literature; Suffrage; Public Pedagogy of the Arts; Public Humanities |
| Charles, Grant | School of Social Work | Psychosocial oncology, intellectual disabilities, family interventions and at risk youth |
| Chaudhry, Ayesha | Institute for Gender, Race, Sex and Social Justice | Islam, Muslims, religion, gender, human rights, family and children, discrimination, social justice |
| Cheek, Timothy | School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, Department of History | 20th century Chinese history, the history of the Chinese communist party, the role of intellectuals in public life in China |
| Chen, Jinhua | Department of Asian Studies | East Asian state-church relationships, monastic (hagio/)biographical literature, Buddhist sacred sites, relic veneration, Buddhism and technological innovation in medieval China, and Buddhist translations |
| Chen, Frances | Department of Psychology | Health psychology; social connection; social support; stress; coping; conflict and negotiation; hormones; Neuroendocrinology |
| Cheong, Amanda | Department of Sociology | Sociology; migration; Citizenship and Legal Status; Statelessness |
| Childress, Clayton | Department of Sociology | Cultural Production, Reception, and Meaning Making, Taste, Decision Making, Inequality, Organizations, Markets |
| Chiu-Duke, Josephine | Department of Asian Studies | Asian history; History of Major Eras, Great Civilisations or Geographical Corpuses; Chinese and Taiwanese history; liberal democracy; political thought and institutions |
| Chowdhury, Arjun | Department of Political Science | Failed states, intervention, civil war, autocrats, revolution. |
| Christoff, Kalina | Department of Psychology | brain, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, prefronal cortex, fMRI, neuroimaging, neuropsychology, executive functions, problem solving, reasoning, thinking, mind-wandering, attention, consciousness, real-time fMRI, trauma and PTSD, Cognitive and neural basis of human thought, reasoning and problem solving |
| Christopoulos, John | Department of History | Historical studies; Early modern Europe; History of pre-modern medicine; Social and cultural history of early modern Italy |
| Clark, Luke | Department of Psychology | Gambling, Problem Gambling, Addiction, Decision-Making, Reward, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms involved in gambling behaviour and disordered gambling |
| Claxton, Dana | Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory | film, video, photography, single- and multi-channel video installation, and performance art |
| Coleman, Katharina Pichler | Department of Political Science | International organizations, international relations, international security/peace operations, interntional rules, noms and legitimacy, sun-Saharan Africa |
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Recent Publications
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Arts.
Recent Thesis Submissions
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The Arthur of the March of Wales (ENGL - PHD)
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Pidgin poetics : language culture in modern China (ASIA - PHD)
Doctoral Citations
A doctoral citation summarizes the nature of the independent research, provides a high-level overview of the study, states the significance of the work and says who will benefit from the findings in clear, non-specialized language, so that members of a lay audience will understand it.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Dr. Dramkin investigated how we map number words to perceptual magnitudes. Her work shows that by understanding the shared logic between number words and perceptual scales, young children can readily attach number words to their perception of number, length, and area, and even perform intuitive mathematic computations (e.g., division). | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Akinwumi investigated the concept of forgetting in postcolonial African and Caribbean literatures. He argues that forgetting is at once a tool of oppression and survival. To be sure, his analysis deepens our insight into the workings of forgetting and helps us to grasp more clearly how the equilibrium between memory and forgetting is achieved. | Doctor of Philosophy in French (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Gallagher examined the visual and musical features of pastoral landscapes (forests and fields) and anti-pastoral areas (ruins and caves) in the video games Final Fantasy X, XII, XIII, and XV. Her research shows that music significantly impacts players' perceptions of these areas, making them feel more relaxed and apprehensive, respectively. | Doctor of Philosophy in Music, Emphasis Musicology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Sutherland investigated the complex lived experiences of trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people, with a focus on intergroup dynamics, healthcare challenges, and strategies of resilience. His findings showcase how these populations are navigating stigma-related barriers and working to improve their health outcomes. | Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Ebrahimi Kahou has developed methods to offer solutions to tackle high-dimensional dynamic models in economics, utilizing insights from economic theory. The methodology utilizes a symmetry commonly found in many heterogenous agent models in economics. This work can be used to study more realistic models of income and wealth distributions. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Stewart's thesis investigates how the perception of mind in inanimate entities affects moral judgments. His studies suggest that perceiving the 'mind' of such objects, ideas, and emotions can shape our moral decisions and emotional regulations. These insights have implications for advancing our understanding of human moral psychology. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Schmalor's research shows that subjective SES and economic inequality influence self-centeredness. High inequality and high SES both make people more self-centered, and the gap in self-centeredness between high and low SES is bigger when inequality is high. This suggests that the selfishness of the rich depends on their economic environment. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Liu has shown the poetics of pidgin in Chinese literature. She challenges the stigmas associated with this language, emphasizing its aesthetics that embrace ambiguities and invite diverse interpretations. Through pidgin, her study reconfigures understandings of transcultural interaction and bridges Sinophone and Anglophone literatures. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Mercadante's research provides evidence to suggest that one reason why greedy people always want more and are never satisfied with what they own is because they feel a brief boost of pride upon acquisition, such that the act of acquiring something is a highly positive emotional experience, but owning the item afterward does not elicit pride. | Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) |
| 2023 | Dr. Pon composed a piece of orchestral music inspired by her early years with her child. Through the musical evocations and structure, she explored the mother-child-bond and related ideas like attachment, interconnection, awareness, time, and transience. Her work makes explicit a process of artistically realizing these human themes. | Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition (DMA) |