The American Studies Program at Bard College, in conjunction with the Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities (CESH) and the Center for Experimental Humanities, invites applications for a 2-year Mellon postdoctoral fellowship in conjunction with Bard’s Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck, part of the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities for All Times initiative. Applicants for this position should specialize in topics in Native American and Indigenous Studies(NAIS)/American Studies considering representations of space, cartography, and geography (social, cultural, historical). We are especially interested in scholars who are innovative and interdisciplinary in their approach and are committed to engaged scholarship that connects research and teaching to NAIS social and environmental 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; applicants may still be ABD if they have a clear pathway to completion and degree in hand at the time they take up the fellowship. Fellows will have primary affiliation with the American Studies Program as well as with CESH.

 

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 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 course across the Social Studies, Language and Literature, or Arts Divisions pending the candidate’s area of specialization. This position will be supported by community-engaged staff and faculty associated with CESH and representing active Bard-community collaborations addressing environmental injustice and rethinking land and water stewardship in Dutchess and Ulster counties. The fellowship should culminate with a concrete contribution to these collaborative efforts, and might include: community-grounded conceptualization of public messaging/signage/education; reimagining/reframing mapping and municipal boundaries; engaging community in a public education event; crafting new relationships between students, community, and faculty in relationship to Bard lands; concretely addressing Land Back as a concept and reality. 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 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 fellowship period will be dedicated to the scholar’s professional development, which will involve teaching one course each semester and, with support from the College, to curate public-facing programming according to area of specialty.

 

Application Instructions Candidates should submit the following application materials by Interfolio  http://apply.interfolio.com/105714

 

 

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