Kyle Frackman: Associate Professor at Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies, UBC Faculty of Arts

Associate Professor

Faculty of Arts

Research Classification

Cinema studies

Media studies (except social media and digital media)

Literature and literary studies

Cultural studies

Research Interests

queer studies

German studies

media studies

history of sexuality

sexuality

sexuality studies

East Germany

film

Gender Studies

history of science

literature

Media

Media Types (Radio, Television, Written Press, etc.)

Scandinavia

Relevant Thesis-Based Degree Programs

View all programs

Affiliations to Research Centres, Institutes & Clusters

Centre for European Studies

Language Sciences Institute

Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies

Public Humanities Hub

Research Options

I am available and interested in collaborations (e.g. clusters, grants).

I am interested in and conduct interdisciplinary research.

I am interested in working with undergraduate students on research projects.

Open All

Recruitment

Looking to recruit:

Master's students

Doctoral students

Postdoctoral Fellows

Desired start dates: Any time / year round

Other options:

I support public scholarship, e.g. through the Public Scholars Initiative, and am available to supervise students and Postdocs interested in collaborating with external partners as part of their research.

I support experiential learning experiences, such as internships and work placements, for my graduate students and Postdocs.

I am interested in supervising students to conduct interdisciplinary research.

Complete these steps before you reach out to a faculty member!

Check requirements

Familiarize yourself with program requirements. You want to learn as much as possible from the information available to you before you reach out to a faculty member. Be sure to visit the graduate degree program listing and program-specific websites.
Check whether the program requires you to seek commitment from a supervisor prior to submitting an application. For some programs this is an essential step while others match successful applicants with faculty members within the first year of study. This is either indicated in the program profile under "Admission Information & Requirements" - "Prepare Application" - "Supervision" or on the program website.

Focus your search

Identify specific faculty members who are conducting research in your specific area of interest.
Establish that your research interests align with the faculty member’s research interests.
- Read up on the faculty members in the program and the research being conducted in the department.
- Familiarize yourself with their work, read their recent publications and past theses/dissertations that they supervised. Be certain that their research is indeed what you are hoping to study.

Make a good impression

Compose an error-free and grammatically correct email addressed to your specifically targeted faculty member, and remember to use their correct titles.
- Do not send non-specific, mass emails to everyone in the department hoping for a match.
- Address the faculty members by name. Your contact should be genuine rather than generic.
Include a brief outline of your academic background, why you are interested in working with the faculty member, and what experience you could bring to the department. The supervision enquiry form guides you with targeted questions. Ensure to craft compelling answers to these questions.
Highlight your achievements and why you are a top student. Faculty members receive dozens of requests from prospective students and you may have less than 30 seconds to pique someone’s interest.
Demonstrate that you are familiar with their research:
- Convey the specific ways you are a good fit for the program.
- Convey the specific ways the program/lab/faculty member is a good fit for the research you are interested in/already conducting.
Be enthusiastic, but don’t overdo it.

Attend an information session

G+PS regularly provides virtual sessions that focus on admission requirements and procedures and tips how to improve your application.

ADVICE AND INSIGHTS FROM UBC FACULTY ON REACHING OUT TO SUPERVISORS

These videos contain some general advice from faculty across UBC on finding and reaching out to a potential thesis supervisor.

Graduate Student Supervision

Master's Student Supervision

Theses completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest theses.

Of matter and meaning: quantum entanglement and biological phantasy in psychoanalysis (2019)

This thesis offers a posthumanist reading of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories on body-ego and its somatic relations to the environment in Das Ich und das Es (The Ego and the Id), Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams), and Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (Civilization and its Discontents). Agential Realism, a philosophy proposed by Karen Barad, builds on recent insights in quantum physics. Using Barad’s theory, I read bodies as “intra-actively” entangled with matter and meaning, so that the body-ego as “phenomenon” materializes from a co-constitutive subject position within relationships with others. Unlike interaction, where pre-existing entities meet, “intra-action” emphasizes the mutual constitution of entangled agencies. This approach allows re-centering the body in ego formation and the subject-object relations in psychoanalysis. Following Barad’s understanding that “knowing is a direct material engagement” (Meeting the Universe Halfway, 2007), this analysis offers novel paths to engage with Freud’s creative somatic materializations in the body. Posthumanist feminist philosophies are uniquely situated to elucidate the intra-activity of the unconscious as enlivened and productive. This “biological phantasy” (Wilson, Gut Feminism 2015) as both somatic and imaginary, constitutes a collective event through which body-ego emerges. Just as “matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers” (Barad), this material reworking provides a novel understanding of the creative relation of the Freudian body-ego with cultural phenomena and collective states. The proposed theory offers new perspectives on psychoanalysis through a new materialist lens when navigating the willful aberrations of bodily unruliness.

View record