UBC Pop Culture Cluster
The Pop Culture Cluster supports academic and public-facing scholarship on popular media and popular culture at UBC.
The UBC Pop Culture Cluster is located at UBC Vancouver, which is situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. The land it is situated on has always been a place of learning for the Musqueam, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next on this site.
News
Jan 27, 2026
Call for Indigenous Cartoonists: Xwémalhkwu (Homalco) Heroes Tribal Journey Indigenous Comics Initiative Project
Special Call for Indigenous Cartoonists Project Title: Xwémalhkwu (Homalco) Heroes: Tribal Journey Indigenous Comics Initiative Project Following the success of Xwémalhkwu Hero Stories: A Graphic Novel (2024)—a landmark project that brought Elders’ voices to new generations through comic art —TSL Enterprises Ltd, the Xwémalhkwu (Homalco) First Nation (HFN), Education without Borders, and the UBC Comics […]Announcements, Call for Artists, Comics Studies
Jan 19, 2026
Meet the Indigenous Comics Artists & Game Designers Headed to the Arctic Winter Games with the Pop Culture Cluster
The Pop Culture Cluster, with its partner project Visual Storytelling in the Indigenous North, are traveling to the Yukon with six Indigenous comics artists and three Indigenous game designers to the 2026 Arctic Winter Games (AWG) to document and create AWG-inspired artworks.Announcements, Comics Studies, Critical Play News, News
Jan 06, 2026
Meet the PhD CollAB(E)Rators!
A central component of the PopCC‘s Arts-Based Research initiative is the PhD Collab project, Arts-Based Interventions in Graduate Research, recently funded through a two-year pilot program from Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies (G+PS). Meet the faculty and graduate students who make up the PhD Collab project.Announcements
Dec 18, 2025
‘Understanding Through Comics’ End-of-Term Workshop with Cartoonist Jeff Ellis
On 24 November 2025, the Understanding Through Comics: A Comics and Comics Studies Journal Club held an end-of-term comic making workshop in the IKBLC Peña Room with Cloudscape Comics president and local cartoonist Jeffrey Ellis. Jeff tells us that when Comics Studies members and UBC students completed the workshop with comics of their own, they too earned the title of cartoonist. Today we will be highlighting both the past workshop and the work produced therein, the art of a new generation of […]Comics Studies, Comics Talks, News
Upcoming Events
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Feb 3rd
2026
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Feb 10th
2026
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Mar 2nd
2026
Pop Pedagogies Lightning Talks
12:00 pm
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Mar 10th
2026