The Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) invites applications for an assistant professor tenure-stream faculty position in Black Feminisms, Genders, and Sexualities Studies (9-month appointment) in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. The position is a 100% appointment in African American and African Studies and begins August 16, 2023. 

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 in order to extend the Black Studies experience to an increasingly interested undergraduate population. The new AAAS department 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 will play a key role in collaboratively building the new AAAS Department 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 research 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 will be distinctive as the candidate will provide support to the new build of the AAAS Department. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:  

• Aiding in the implementation of strategic short- and long-range plans for departmental development;  

• Assisting in the creation and implementation of operating policies and procedures, including best practices for recruiting outstanding faculty, students, and staff;  

• Collaborating with AAAS faculty in sustaining public-facing humanities research agendas and excellence in outreach to foster and produce knowledge in the field and local communities.   

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

All 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.

Minimum Requirements

We seek a candidate who holds a terminal degree (doctorate or MFA) in their field and demonstrates 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. geographies, outdoors, nature, land movements etc.), Speculative Arts (e.g. Black Futures, Black Fantastic, Black Funk, Cyborg, Radical Imagination, Otherworldly and Underground Constructions of Blackness), Black Institutions (e.g. Education, Cultural, Community-Based, Religion, Spirituality, and/or Entrepreneurship etc.), Queer of Color Critique, Environmental Justice, Activism, Abolition, and Black Girlhood Studies.  

Candidates should possess excellent communication skills. A successful candidate should have a demonstrated history of community engagement 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 as well as contribute to 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.  

Application Deadline: Review of Applications will begin on 15 November 2022

More details on the role are available here