The American Studies Program at Bard College, in collaboration with the Center for Experimental Humanities and the Center for Human Rights and the Arts, invites applications for a 2-year Mellon Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in conjunction with Bard’s Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck/Humanities for All Times grant. Applicants for this position may specialize in any aspect of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) and American Studies, so long as the focus is on arts and visual culture. We are especially interested in scholars and/or practicing artists (open to all media) who are innovative and interdisciplinary in their approach and are committed to engaged artistic practice and scholarship that connects research and teaching to social and political activism of various kinds. They should also be committed to excellence in undergraduate teaching and to participating in the intellectual life of a Small Liberal Arts College.

 

Priority will be given to recent humanities PhDs, or ABDs with a clear pathway to completion, at the time they take up the fellowship, as well as recent MFAs or commensurate art experience. Fellows will have primary affiliation with the American Studies Program as well as with the Center for Human Rights and the Arts, and another area of discipline, based on the applicant’s interest. one or both of the two arts/humanities centers on campus.

 

Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck proposes an NAIS approach to a revitalized American Studies curriculum and undertakes an expansive understanding of land acknowledgment that goes beyond addressing a single institution’s history in regards to Native peoples. What would it look like to truly acknowledge the land beneath us, its history, and to collaborate with its continuing stewards? Rethinking Place affirms Bard’s tangible commitments to the principles and ideals of the College’s 2020 land acknowledgment by recognizing the need to address historical erasure and make space for marginalized epistemologies. Over three years, the grant offers annual conferences, reading groups, workshops, and support for newly developed curricula that both instruct students in methods of humanities practice and demonstrate those methods’ relevance to broader social justice pursuits. Rethinking Place also encourages collaboration between faculty and students within Bard and across regional peer liberal arts colleges and engaging with the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican Indians whose homelands these schools are in as well as with partners at regional colleges, Rethinking Place emphasizes community-based knowledge, collaboration, and collectives of inquiry.

 

The purpose of this fellowship is to help advance the academic and arts careers of promising early-stage teacher-scholars/teacher-artists while increasing the diversity and enriching the intellectual vitality of our interdisciplinary American Studies Program and of the wider Bard College community.

 

We are especially interested in receiving applications from individuals who are members of groups that historically have been underrepresented in the professoriate (including, but not limited to, Native American tribal citizens, with priority given to enrolled Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians), Indigenous, Black, African American, Asian American, and Latinx candidates).

 

The fellowship is for a period of two years, beginning July 1, 2022. The teaching load is 1-1, with the location of the courses in a program across the Social Studies, Language and Literature, or Arts Divisions, and MA in Human Rights and the Arts, depending on the candidate’s area of specialization. In addition to teaching, we ask that candidates propose a research project for their two years that could draw on collaboration with Bard’s students and/or faculty or utilize Bard’s campus, arboretums, historical buildings, special collections and archives (inclusive of Montgomery Place) on the themes of Rethinking Place. This project should, at the conclusion of the post-doc, culminate in a tangible outcome, such as an artwork or performance, a print or digital publication, a lecture series, a podcast, or the like. Where appropriate, Bard will endeavor to support public-facing outputs through its arts institutions.

 

The fellowship comes with a full-time salary, health benefits, and research funds of $5,000 per year. The Fellow will be provided with shared office or studio space, a computer, and library access and will be welcomed into the College’s new Faculty Cohort Mentorship Program designed to support early-career faculty at Bard. The Fellow will also benefit from community with opportunity post-docs in the Divisions of Social Studies and Languages & Literatures, as well as annual fellows in the MA in Human Rights and the Arts and the Center for Curatorial Studies. The fellowship period will be dedicated to the scholar/artist’s professional development and arts practice, which will involve teaching one course each semester and, with support from the College, to curate public-facing arts programming according to area of specialty.

 

Application Instructions Candidates should send the following application materials by Interfolio: http://apply.interfolio.com/105711<

 

Curriculum vitae

• Letter of application that outlines research plans for the fellowship term as well as the candidate’s interests in and approach to undergraduate teaching;
• Contact information for three references; and
• Personal statement defining their engagement with NAIS methodologies and with the relationship of Arts and social justice.
• Further materials, such as a sample of artistic work, scholarly work and sample syllabi, may be solicited at a later point. Review of applications will begin as soon as possible and will continue until the position is filled.

 

For questions about the position, please email Christian Ayne Crouch, Dean of Graduate Studies at crouch@bard.edu.