Job no: 957389
Ast/Asc/Full Professor Tenure System - AAAS
Position SummaryThe Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) invites applications for an assistant professor tenure-stream faculty position (9-month appointment) and an open rank faculty position in Black Feminisms, Genders, and Sexualities Studies (9-month appointment) in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. The position (both hires) is a 100% appointment in African American and African Studies and begins August 16, 2025.
AAAS at MSU was initially founded as a Ph.D. granting program in 2002 as a unit committed to making concrete connections between faculty scholarship, pedagogy, and social justice causes. On July 1, 2019, AAAS became a department. An undergraduate major was launched in 2022 to extend the Black Studies experience to an increasingly interested undergraduate population. As of spring 2024, we successfully graduated the first cohort of AAAS Bachelors of Arts. The Department of African American and African Studies embraces diverse approaches to intellectual leadership and artist-scholarship. We welcome interdisciplinary and integrated research, teaching, creative work, and engagement practices that are leading-edge in the doing of Black Studies. As a department our areas of specialization include Black Feminisms, Genders, and Sexualities Studies in all aspects of curriculum. Within the AAAS major, the curriculum is shaped by three concentrations: Communities in Action; Creative Expression, Culture, and Performance; and Black Institutions, Sustainability, and Statecraft.
Our new colleague(s) will play a key role in collaboratively building AAAS with core areas in Black Feminisms, Genders, and Sexualities Studies. The normal teaching load is 2-2 (two courses per semester). The successful candidate will maintain high quality scholarship in Black Studies or related interdisciplinary fields and approaches. A typical workload percentage for a 100% appointment in the College of Arts and Letters is 40% research, 40% teaching, 20% service. The service load for this position (both hires) will be distinctive as the candidate(s) will provide support to the new build of the AAAS Department. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:
Qualifications:
We seek candidates who hold a terminal degree (doctorate or MFA) in their field and demonstrate an interdisciplinary approach to leading-edge Black Studies. Leading-edge Black Studies across our curriculum in AAAS at MSU includes, but is not limited to, these areas: Black Ecologies (e.g. Outdoors, Nature, Land movements, Geographies, Environmental Justice, etc.), Speculative Arts (e.g. Black Futures, Black Fantastic, Black Funk, Radical Imagination, Otherworldly and Underground Constructions of Blackness, and Black Arts practices and aesthetics), and Black Institutions and Practices (e.g. Media, Sound Studies, Music Production, Community-Based Organizations, Activism, Abolition, Black Diasporic Spirituality, Dance, Entrepreneurship, Quare studies, Queer of Color Critique, Abolition, and/or Healing and Wellness etc.).
Candidates should possess excellent communication skills. Successful candidates should have a demonstrated history of community engagement, community accountability, and/or community-based approaches to scholarship. Candidates should have a capacity to engage in curriculum and departmental development. Preference will be given to candidates who can research and teach in Black Feminisms, Genders, and Sexualities Studies and engage in service related to building a new department as well as contribute to the current AAAS curriculum.
Candidates must demonstrate commitment to and alignment with department vision and values. As a department that is newly building, we have found transformative justice and leadership development processes critical to creating new departmental policies, procedures, etc. We actively engage and practice dreaming and wellness, individually and together, as a department. Candidates must welcome and be ready to engage these change efforts with openness and care.
Equal Employment Opportunity StatementAll qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, age, disability or protected veteran status.
Required DegreeDoctorate
Minimum RequirementsIn addition to the minimum qualifications, the below are the desired qualifications.
Qualified applicants should submit:
Please note that candidates who advance to the secondary review stage of the process will be asked to submit letters from three referees who can comment on the candidate's research, teaching, engagement, and/or service qualifications. No letters are required at the time of application.
Special InstructionsReview of applications will begin October 1, 2024 and will continue until the position is filled. Applications must be submitted electronically to the Michigan State University Human Resources website http://careers.msu.edu. Posting number 957389.
For more information on this position, please contact the search committee chair: Dr. Renée Wilmot at wilmotre@msu.edu (AAAS faculty member). Additional members of the search committee include Gianina K.L. Strother (AAAS faculty member), Dr. Sheri Lewis (AAAS faculty member), Dr. Suban Nur Cooley (AAAS Associate Chair and faculty member) and Dr. LeConté Dill (AAAS Associate Chair and faculty member).
Persons with disabilities have the right to request and receive reasonable accommodation.
Review of Applications Begins On10/01/2024
Websitehttps://aaas.msu.edu
Department StatementThe College of Arts & Letters recognizes that only an academic and organizational culture, which actively seeks out and strengthens diverse voices and perspectives among its members results in true excellence. The College of Arts & Letters is particularly interested in candidates of all backgrounds who are committed to the principle that intellectual leadership is achieved through open access and pro-active inclusion.
MSU StatementMichigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for more than 160 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery and forges enduring partnerships to solve the most pressing global challenges while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.
Advertised: Jun 7, 2024 Eastern Daylight Time
Applications close: Jun 7, 2026 Eastern Daylight Time
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