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  • Photo of banksy mural showing judge beating protester, on London court building

    Legality and Impunity in Times of Crisis Symposium

    Click here to find more information and register for the Legality and Impunity Symposium, hosted May 28-30 at Allard School of Law, UBC.

  • headshots of all 2025-26 PHH awardees

    2025-26 Public Humanities Hub Grants and Awards

    The Public Humanities Hub is pleased to announce this year’s funding opportunities and recipients. Click through title to view.

  • Audra Simpson speaking to a full audience in the Franklin Lew Forum room.

    2025-26 Public Humanities Hub Events

    Please join us for this year’s Public Humanities Hub Events. Click through title to see full details.

  • close up shot of two cameras set up to record an event, with a hand adjusting the lens of the right camera

    Visit Our Video Archive

    Did you miss an event or want to re-watch one? Visit our YouTube channel! We’re continually adding videos.

Events

Out Of Office Hours Collective: The Mega-Event and The City
DATE: Tuesday, June 30 TIME: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM VENUE: 312 Main Out of Office Hours is a new student-led collective bringing together students from UBC, SFU, and communities across Metro Vancouver to collectively learn from community expertise about activism and social justice in the city. The collective emerges from the 2026 “What Kind […]

Curatorial Practice as Public Scholarship: On fluid geographies and transdisciplinary forms 
DATE: Friday, June 19 TIME: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM VENUE: Reliance Theatre, Emily Carr University, 520 East 1st Ave., Vancouver In this presentation, Martha Kirszenbaum interrogates the methodologies of an eclectic curatorial practice developed across diverse geopolitical landscapes. The talk examines the fluid negotiation between art institutions and experimental, non-traditional spaces, illustrating how to […]

Legality and Impunity in Times of Crisis – Symposium
The world is in the throes of multiple crises, from ongoing genocide and settler colonial violence, to evolving forms of authoritarian governance and imperial warfare. The theme of ‘impunity’ has become part of mainstream political discourse as both cause and effect of the current international (dis)order. What are the psycho-political and affective dimensions of impunity? […]

Oral Histories in the Archive: Stories from Turtle Island and Rwanda
How are cultures with rich oral history traditions documented and archived with care? How are “living archives” trusted to engage and preserve experiences of survivors of genocides, such as the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi? Additionally, what the approaches to oral history archiving with Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Holders, or when working with residential school […]

Let’s Talk Humanities: A New International Order?
At Davos in January 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney famously declared that we are experiencing a rupture in the international order. But what exactly did he mean? American threats to Canadian sovereignty alongside interventions in Venezuela and Iran are just a few symptoms of this rupture. But how has Canada’s place in this much more […]

Trauma-Informed Archiving: Lessons from the War Childhood Museum
How are archives developed for the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 when memories are contested, diverge, or remain politically charged? What is the responsibility of the archive when working with survivors’ testimony and objects? How has the War Childhood Museum approached archiving the war differently from other institutions?  Join us online for a presentation by Dr. Ajnura Akbaš (War Childhood […]

More Events

Announcements

Call for Graduate Student Submissions – Evolving Climate Justice Agendas Through Student Research: Graduate Research Showcase
The Public Humanities Hub Graduate Research Showcase is a semi-annual series in which interdisciplinary graduate research on thematic topics is presented and celebrated. This term’s thematic showcase is co-organized with UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice.   This mini-symposium features seven-minute lightning presentations by graduate researchers who include climate justice and climate action as key themes […]

Cluster/Incubator Grant Launch
The Public Humanities Cluster/Incubator Grant supports innovative public humanities research and emergent stages of collaboration, and/or knowledge mobilization among interdisciplinary teams of public humanities scholars at UBC and beyond. Deadline: 9:00am, April 7th, 2026. Value: $15,000/grant. Up to 3 grants awarded. Eligibility: Principal Investigator must be a UBC-V Faculty member (tenured/track) in the Faculty of […]

Catalyzing Engaged Digital Scholarship Grant 2025-2026 Awardees
Please join us in congratulating the winners of the 2025-2026 Catalyzing Engaged Digital Scholarship (CEDS) Grant, co-presented by UBC’s Public Humanities Hub (PHH) and Digital Scholarship in Arts (DiSA). This grant provides $10,000 over 2 years to support collaborative critical inquiry and technological innovation with recipients intending to subsequently apply for Tri-Council funding.   Dr. Kimberly […]

Mary Liston studio portrait
New Scholar Spotlight Story – Dr. Mary Liston
Dr. Mary Liston, Associate Professor at Allard Law and Public Humanities Hub Advisory Board Member, talks about her work in administrative law, reimagining legal accountability and justice in Canada, and how to engage diverse publics in meaningful dialogue about law and society.

Prof. Althea Thauberger wearing a black top, blue jeans, and glasses, smiling
Welcoming Prof. Althea Thauberger as incoming Academic Director of the Public Humanities Hub
Dean of Arts Clare Crowston has announced the appointment of Professor Althea Thauberger as Academic Director of the Public Humanities Hub from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2027. Professor Althea Thauberger is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory. Prior to joining UBC in 2018, Professor Thauberger […]

Headshot of Dr. Bernard Perley
New Scholar Spotlight Story – Dr. Bernard Perley
Dr. Bernard Perley, Director and Professor in Critical Indigenous Studies and Public Humanities Hub Advisory Board Member, talks about his work in language revitalization, experiential pedagogy, and the crucial role art plays in both scholarship and activism.

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Upcoming Events

Romina Tantaleán-Castañeda (right) with Miriam Perez-Pinedo (centre), president of FEMIPA and co-researcher on the project, and María Shuñaqui-Sangama (left), former secretary of FEMIPA and cultural advisor to the research team, during a workshop in the Ashéninka Community of Materiato, Atalaya Province, Peru (2025).Can a river have rights?

Romina Tantaleán-Castañeda (PhD candidate, GRSJ) talks about her partnership with FEMIPA, a federation of Indigenous women in the Peruvian Amazon, their fight for environmental protections, and more.

A screen grab of the virtual exhibit at the Surrey Museum.Journeys in Care: Stories From Nurses of Indian Heritage

Dr. Lydia Wytenbroek (UBC Nursing) was the community curator for this exhibit, including interviews and personal narratives shared by nurses, at the Surrey Museum. It will be on until July 19, 2026. Explore the virtual exhibit here!

Title card for Heated Rivalry Lecture Series, hosted by JP Catungal in GRSJHeated Rivalry Lecture 2

Join the second lecture in the Heated Rivalry series, on June 24 at 4PM, looking at Asian Canadian Model Minoritization. Register here!

Sudan Solidarity Collective

Since 2023, Dr. Nisrin Elamin (Univ. of Toronto) has led the development of Sudan Solidarity Collective with U of T students, which has since raised around $350,000 for mutual aid networks in the face of Sudan’s war. Donate here!

hands moving tiles and dice around, birds eye viewBoard games can help build connections and reduce stress

UBC Pop Culture Cluster Director Dr. Biz Njidam discusses how tabletop gaming encourages community-building, and the Cluster’s Critical Play Lab and Fellows Program.

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Highlights

Out Of Office Hours Collective: The Mega-Event and The City

DATE: Tuesday, June 30 TIME: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM VENUE: 312 Main Out of Office Hours is a new student-led collective bringing together students from UBC, SFU, and communities across Metro Vancouver to collectively learn from community expertise about activism and social justice in the city. The collective emerges from the 2026 “What Kind […]

Curatorial Practice as Public Scholarship: On fluid geographies and transdisciplinary forms 

DATE: Friday, June 19 TIME: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM VENUE: Reliance Theatre, Emily Carr University, 520 East 1st Ave., Vancouver In this presentation, Martha Kirszenbaum interrogates the methodologies of an eclectic curatorial practice developed across diverse geopolitical landscapes. The talk examines the fluid negotiation between art institutions and experimental, non-traditional spaces, illustrating how to […]

Romina Tantaleán-Castañeda (right) with Miriam Perez-Pinedo (centre), president of FEMIPA and co-researcher on the project, and María Shuñaqui-Sangama (left), former secretary of FEMIPA and cultural advisor to the research team, during a workshop in the Ashéninka Community of Materiato, Atalaya Province, Peru (2025).

Can a river have rights?

Romina Tantaleán-Castañeda (PhD candidate, GRSJ) talks about her partnership with FEMIPA, a federation of Indigenous women in the Peruvian Amazon, their fight for environmental protections, and more.

A screen grab of the virtual exhibit at the Surrey Museum.

Journeys in Care: Stories From Nurses of Indian Heritage

Dr. Lydia Wytenbroek (UBC Nursing) was the community curator for this exhibit, including interviews and personal narratives shared by nurses, at the Surrey Museum. It will be on until July 19, 2026. Explore the virtual exhibit here!

Title card for Heated Rivalry Lecture Series, hosted by JP Catungal in GRSJ

Heated Rivalry Lecture 2

Join the second lecture in the Heated Rivalry series, on June 24 at 4PM, looking at Asian Canadian Model Minoritization. Register here!

Sudan Solidarity Collective

Since 2023, Dr. Nisrin Elamin (Univ. of Toronto) has led the development of Sudan Solidarity Collective with U of T students, which has since raised around $350,000 for mutual aid networks in the face of Sudan’s war. Donate here!

hands moving tiles and dice around, birds eye view

Board games can help build connections and reduce stress

UBC Pop Culture Cluster Director Dr. Biz Njidam discusses how tabletop gaming encourages community-building, and the Cluster’s Critical Play Lab and Fellows Program.

program of the (anti)colonial seas symposium, featuring a dark, moody, tumultuous sea with a crescent moon at the top

Global History of Anticolonial Thought Cluster hosts their second symposium “(Anti)Colonial Seas”

May 2026, the Global History of Anticolonial Thought Cluster brings together scholars from institutions around the world to discuss global connections across lands and seas.

dr. georgeson-usher in a black top and red dress looking to the right as she speaks with hand gestures, at the vancouver art gallery

What it means to “exist at the edges of the Pacific Ocean”

UBC AHVA’s Dr. Camille Georgeson-Usher curates “We who have known tides” at the Vancouver Art Gallery (Nov. 2025–Apr. 2026), which looks at how the ocean has shaped the work of Indigenous artists.

cover of "The Teachings of Mutton" which features the pelt of the woolly dog against a black background

The enigmatic Coast Salish Woolly Dog

UBC PhD candidate Alison Ariss contributes to The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog (Harbour Publishing, 2025), which tells the story of the now extinct Salish wool dog with perspectives from Musqueam, Squamish, Stó lō, Suquamish, Cowichan, Katzie, Snuneymuxw, and Skokomish weavers, Knowledge Keepers, and Elders.



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