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Assistant Professor of African American Literature

Employer: Mount Holyoke College
Location: South Hadley, MA

Faculty Jobs: Arts & Humanities, Ethnic & Cultural Studies
Position Type: Tenured & Tenure-Track
Employment Type: Full Time
Institution Type: Four-Year Institution

Job Details
Organization

Job Details

The Department of English at Mount Holyoke College invites applicants for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of African American Literature. We welcome complementary expertise and teaching in Africana and Black diasporic studies including Caribbean literature, Black Atlantic, Black Canadian, Afro-Latin, and other transatlantic and hemispheric studies. The Department likewise aims to support scholars with interdisciplinary and global interests; our faculty specialize in a wide array of subjects, working in areas of literature and cultural studies including gender studies, queer theory, labor, postcolonial theory, media studies, visual culture, Asian American Studies and Black Studies, among others. There will be opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration with such programs as Africana Studies, Latina/o Studies, Gender Studies, Film Media Theater, and Critical Race and Political Economy.

The successful candidate will teach introductory courses in African American literature and the study of literature as well as courses within their expertise. The teaching expectation is 4 courses per academic year. Applicants should have teaching experience, and a Ph.D. in hand before August 2023.

This position is part of an initiative to hire three faculty members in Africana Studies at Mount Holyoke College. Exemplifying Mount Holyoke’s commitment to nurturing a diverse and inclusive learning community led by an accomplished faculty, the cluster hire is intended to enhance collaboration among departments and to increase opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange across teaching, research, and public engagement efforts. It will strengthen curricula as the College launches a new major and department in Critical Race and Political Economy. Building on long-standing efforts to hire persons who are Black, Indigenous or people of color, the cluster hire initiative will also deepen community and strengthen faculty retention.

Please submit a cover letter, CV, writing sample (up to 25pp. uploaded as a single PDF) and three statements concerning (1) research interests, (2) teaching philosophy, and (3) mentoring a diverse student body. Additionally, please send a syllabus for an African American Literature survey course and a dream seminar of your choice. Please include contact information for three references as part of your application. Reference letters will be requested at a later date in the search process. For best consideration, we will begin reading applications by October 25, 2022. Please contact the English department (english@mtholyoke.edu) with any questions.

Mount Holyoke is an undergraduate liberal arts college with 2,200 students and 220 faculty. Over half the faculty are women; one-fourth are persons of color. Mount Holyoke College is located about 90 miles west of Boston in the Connecticut River valley, and is a member of the Five College Consortium consisting of Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts.

Mount Holyoke College is a women’s college that is gender diverse. The College is committed to providing equal access and opportunity in employment and education to all employees and students. In compliance with state and federal law, Mount Holyoke College does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, genetic information, sex, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, ancestry, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected status under federal, state or local law. The College does not discriminate on the basis of gender in the recruitment and admission of students to its graduate program.

All offers of employment are contingent upon the finalist successfully passing a background (including criminal records) check.

Organization

Mount Holyoke College is a highly selective liberal arts institution with a long tradition of educating women for active engagement in the world. A diverse community of approximately 2000 students (13% international, 17% U.S. women of color), the College is committed to the creation of a powerful learning environment which seamlessly links the curricular and co-curricular dimensions of campus life in a way that affirms identity, builds community and prepares women for leadership in a pluralistic world.

Mount Holyoke is located in the beautiful Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts. The College, which has just completed the third year of an ambitious six-year strategic plan, is committed to educating a diverse community of women at the highest level of academic excellence and to fostering the alliance of liberal arts education with purposeful engagement in the world. Mount Holyoke is in a particularly strong position having received the highest numbers of applications in its history. Mount Holyoke is a member of the Five College Consortium (along with Amherst, Hampshire, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst).

As the first of the Seven Sisters—the female equivalent of the once predominantly male Ivy League—Mount Holyoke established higher education for women as a serious endeavor. Our long, distinguished history of educating leaders arises from a powerful combination of:

academic excellence in a global learning environment
a tight-knit, diverse, and international community
a worldwide network of alumnae
the conviction that women can and should make a difference in the world.

Reputation
Mount Holyoke College is one of the nation's best institutions for undergraduate education, according to The Princeton Review Guide's 2010 edition of its annual guidebook, The Best 371 Colleges. Mount Holyoke rates highly in a number of categories, among them "best classroom experience" (#6), "best college library" (#12), and "dorms like palaces" (#13).

Students
Our 2,200 students hail from 48 states and nearly 70 countries. One in three students is an international citizen or African American, Asian American, Latina, Native American, or multiracial. Sixty-two percent of incoming first-year students were in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.

Majors

49 departmental and interdepartmental majors
Option to design your own major
33 percent of all majors are interdisciplinary
Majors of current MHC students: humanities, 32 percent; social sciences, 42 percent; natural and applied sciences, 26 percent

Class Size

15 percent of classes have 10 or fewer students
64 percent have 20 or fewer
82 percent have 25 or fewer

Student-to-Faculty Ratio
9 to 1

After College
Six months after graduation, 86 percent of the class of 2008 were working or in school. Of those students, 16 percent were attending graduate/professional schools of their choice. Typically, 75 percent of MHC graduates enroll in graduate/professional school within ten years.

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