Historians study the past to better understand the present. They analyze the forces and influences that have affected human experiences and shaped different societies over time. For more than 80 years, our graduate program has promoted this analysis from social, cultural, political, and intellectual perspectives in diverse contexts throughout the world. Our graduate students have done research in such diverse locations as the Philippines, China, Japan, India, Russia, Germany, Britain, Mexico, Cuba, the United States and Canada and in fields spanning Indigenous History, Gender History, History of Science, International Relations, and Migration History, among others.
The Department comprises over 30 full-time faculty members and over sixty graduate students who work collaboratively in vibrant research clusters covering all the continents and organized thematically around themes such as Culture/Power/History; Environmental History; Indigenous History; History of Children and Youth; History of Science, Technology, and Medicine; and International Relations. It is the center of a community of history scholars at UBC that also includes faculty members and student colleagues from other departments and research institutes across the University who have numerous occasions to meet, especially during colloquia and workshops. Faculty and graduate students have access to library resources which are among the best in North America. The UBC Library is the second largest research library in Canada, with especially strong collections in the fields of East Asia, Canada, Britain and Central and Eastern Europe.
The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies establishes the minimum admission requirements common to all applicants, usually a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC). The graduate program that you are applying to may have additional requirements. Please review the specific requirements for applicants with credentials from institutions in:
Each program may set higher academic minimum requirements. Please review the program website carefully to understand the program requirements. Meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee admission as it is a competitive process.
Applicants from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of their application. Tests must have been taken within the last 24 months at the time of submission of your application.
Minimum requirements for the two most common English language proficiency tests to apply to this program are listed below:
Overall score requirement: 90
Reading
22
Writing
21
Speaking
21
Listening
22
Overall score requirement: 6.5
Reading
6.0
Writing
6.0
Speaking
6.0
Listening
6.0
Some programs require additional test scores such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or the Graduate Management Test (GMAT). The requirements for this program are:
The GRE is not required.
All applicants have to submit transcripts from all past post-secondary study. Document submission requirements depend on whether your institution of study is within Canada or outside of Canada.
A minimum of three references are required for application to graduate programs at UBC. References should be requested from individuals who are prepared to provide a report on your academic ability and qualifications.
Many programs require a statement of interest, sometimes called a "statement of intent", "description of research interests" or something similar.
Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.
Permanent Residents of Canada must provide a clear photocopy of both sides of the Permanent Resident card.
All applicants must complete an online application form and pay the application fee to be considered for admission to UBC.
In 2013-14, the Arts Co-op Program and the UBC Department of English launched UBC’s first Ph.D. Co-op Program. This exciting initiative allows Ph.D. students to widen their range of professional skills through paid work experience in fields such as academic administration, communications, project management, and archival, government, and non-governmental organization (NGO) research. Through Co-op, Ph.D. students will build valuable skills and experience that will extend and enrich their career options in both academic and alternative workplaces. Read more about how the Co-op Program works: https://artscoop.ubc.ca/graduate/phd-co-op/
| Fees | Canadian Citizen / Permanent Resident / Refugee / Diplomat | International |
|---|---|---|
| Application Fee | $112.00 | $168.25 |
| Tuition * | ||
| Installments per year | 3 | 3 |
| Tuition per installment | $1,802.52 | $3,166.73 |
| Tuition per year (plus annual increase, usually 2%-5%) | $5,407.56 | $9,500.19 |
| Int. Tuition Award (ITA) per year (if eligible) | $3,200.00 (-) | |
| Other Fees and Costs | ||
| Student Fees (yearly) | $1,081.64 (approx.) | |
| Costs of living (yearly) | starting at $18,517.90 (check cost calculator) | |
Applicants to UBC have access to a variety of funding options, including merit-based (i.e. based on your academic performance) and need-based (i.e. based on your financial situation) opportunities.
All full-time students who begin a UBC-Vancouver PhD program in September 2021 or later will be provided with a funding package of at least $22,000 for each of the first four years of their PhD. The funding package may consist of any combination of internal or external awards, teaching-related work, research assistantships, and graduate academic assistantships. Please note that many graduate programs provide funding packages that are substantially greater than $22,000 per year. Please check with your prospective graduate program for specific details of the funding provided to its PhD students.
Sample of Ph.D. Funding Packages Represents:
Ph.D. Funding Package - 4 year of funding. Each year represents:
All applicants are encouraged to review the awards listing to identify potential opportunities to fund their graduate education. The database lists merit-based scholarships and awards and allows for filtering by various criteria, such as domestic vs. international or degree level.
Many professors are able to provide Research Assistantships (GRA) from their research grants to support full-time graduate students studying under their supervision. The duties constitute part of the student's graduate degree requirements. A Graduate Research Assistantship is considered a form of fellowship for a period of graduate study and is therefore not covered by a collective agreement. Stipends vary widely, and are dependent on the field of study and the type of research grant from which the assistantship is being funded.
Graduate programs may have Teaching Assistantships available for registered full-time graduate students. Full teaching assistantships involve 12 hours work per week in preparation, lecturing, or laboratory instruction although many graduate programs offer partial TA appointments at less than 12 hours per week. Teaching assistantship rates are set by collective bargaining between the University and the Teaching Assistants' Union.
Academic Assistantships are employment opportunities to perform work that is relevant to the university or to an individual faculty member, but not to support the student’s graduate research and thesis. Wages are considered regular earnings and when paid monthly, include vacation pay.
Canadian and US applicants may qualify for governmental loans to finance their studies. Please review eligibility and types of loans.
All students may be able to access private sector or bank loans.
Many foreign governments provide support to their citizens in pursuing education abroad. International applicants should check the various governmental resources in their home country, such as the Department of Education, for available scholarships.
The possibility to pursue work to supplement income may depend on the demands the program has on students. It should be carefully weighed if work leads to prolonged program durations or whether work placements can be meaningfully embedded into a program.
International students enrolled as full-time students with a valid study permit can work on campus for unlimited hours and work off-campus for no more than 20 hours a week.
A good starting point to explore student jobs is the UBC Work Learn program or a Co-Op placement.
Students with taxable income in Canada may be able to claim federal or provincial tax credits.
Canadian residents with RRSP accounts may be able to use the Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP) which allows students to withdraw amounts from their registered retirement savings plan (RRSPs) to finance full-time training or education for themselves or their partner.
Please review Filing taxes in Canada on the student services website for more information.
Applicants have access to the cost calculator to develop a financial plan that takes into account various income sources and expenses.
27 students graduated between 2005 and 2013. Of these, career information was obtained for 25 alumni (based on research conducted between Feb-May 2016):
These statistics show data for the Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD). Data are separated for each degree program combination. You may view data for other degree options in the respective program profile.
| 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applications | 40 | 49 | 28 | 37 | 41 |
| Offers | 8 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 8 |
| New registrations | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
| Total enrolment | 25 | 29 | 30 | 29 | 32 |
Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.
This list shows faculty members with full supervisory privileges who are affiliated with this program. It is not a comprehensive list of all potential supervisors as faculty from other programs or faculty members without full supervisory privileges can request approvals to supervise graduate students in this program.
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Dr. Sandhra studied museums as spaces of belonging through the experience of three Asian Canadian migrant communities in BC - Sikhs, Chinese and Japanese. Her research and findings centred racialized voices only as a means to demonstrate the power of margins as the site of solidarity and belonging in public history discourse. |
| 2022 | Dr. Wang researched the causes and legacies of a state-sponsored massacre of Muslims in southwestern China. She investigated how Islam and Maoism had shaped interactions between Muslim villagers and communist officials from 1949 to 2019. Her work provides insights into why religious conflicts frequently emerge under communist rule in modern China. |
| 2022 | Dr. Shin explored how popular media in South Korea portrayed the pursuit of wealth as a masculine quality during the 1960s and the early 1970s. Unlike conventional portrayals of South Korean capitalism as state-led development, Dr. Shin showed how popular media encouraged ordinary South Koreans to embrace profit-seeking and capital accumulation. |
| 2022 | Dr. Paradela charts the development of audience research in the Philippines to explain how the imperative for audience discipline, or the imperative to make the people perform the role of audiences as prescribed by the local elites, persisted throughout and the 20th century and intensified during the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand E. Marcos. |
| 2022 | Dr. Werner studied the origin of the orca in popular and scientific discourses. His research highlights the importance of first-hand encounters in shaping the historical representation of the killer whale (1861-1964). This study showcases the possibilities for animal-centered history in the age of mass digitization of historical source material. |
| 2021 | Dr. Liao studied the trans-imperial, colonial, and Cold War origins of the cultural politics of youth in Singapore between the 1940s and 1970s. He showed how imperial ambitions, colonial anxieties, nationalist aspirations, and global Cold War agendas converged to shape state-society relations, age-relations, and state-formation in modern Singapore. |
| 2021 | Dr. Rocks traced Chinese involvement in transnational anarchist networks with anarchists in Europe and the Americas. He revealed that anarchism and anarchist practice offered sympathetic Chinese means to imagine and act to build worlds beyond the pathways of nation, state, colony, empire, and Marxist-Leninist or Fascist internationalism. |
| 2021 | Dr. Longstaffe studied the history (1960s-1980s) of marginalized women in Downtown Eastside Vancouver. She offers a new view of gendered and racialized poverty, homelessness, and violence, and the efforts of diverse women to resolve these issues. Her work shows that marginalized women were the most effective at finding solutions to their problems. |
| 2020 | Dr. Corbett examined the history of punctuality in modern Britain to better understand its development as a value. Tracing the use of the word punctuality, he found that the pressure to be 'on time' is rooted in moral valuations of debt, credit, and trust, which emerged in early eighteenth-century Britain. |
| 2020 | Dr. Taylor examined the relations between North Korea and Latin America during the Cold War, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the historical development of North Korean foreign policy, and providing a new, transnational perspective on the political and intellectual history of the Latin American Left. |
History focuses on the fields of Asian, Canadian, First Nations, British and European (early modern and modern), U.S., Latin American, and Environmental History and in the History of Science.
The following thematic research clusters highlight the interests and expertise of departmental members:
Departments/Programs may update graduate degree program details through the Faculty & Staff portal. To update contact details for application inquiries, please use this form.
Great academic programs, great location: the distinct seasons and mild climate are among the reasons why graduate students choose to study here -- from the autumn leaves to cherry blossoms, witness the many colours Vancouver has to offer.
