A&S Launching Seven Faculty Searches for Global South, Environmental Humanities

OCT 5, 2015 Lorenzo Perez, Senior Writer
Stammen Relief

The College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences is launching searches to hire seven faculty at the assistant and associate levels for the Mellon clusters in the Global South and the Environmental Humanities.

In support of its Global South initiative to introduce new courses and research focused on the connected histories and cultures of Africa, Latin America, South and East Asia and other world regions, the College is proceeding with searches for the following four faculty hires:

  • Francophone Cultures of the Global South (Dept. of  French) — A scholar  examining the intercultural contact and exchange in “Global France,” a broad cultural area ranging from the Caribbean to Francophone Africa and extending to Polynesia, Canada, and Indochina. 
  • History of the Indian Ocean World (Corcoran Dept. of History) — A historian examining the people and cultures of the Indian Ocean World, from East Africa and the Persian Gulf to South and Southeast Asia. This new hire will teach one course a year for one of the relevant area studies programs.
  • Latin American Movements and Migrations (Dept. of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese) — A specialist in Latin American literatures and cultures, with research interests in race, ethnicity, and migration within a post-national and post-regional understanding of “Latin America.”
  • Latino/a Studies (50 percent in American Studies, 50 percent in Media Studies or English) —  A scholar in Latino/a Studies working on the arts, media, culture, politics, or history of migration and immigration to the United States from any part of the Americas.

Searches also will proceed for three faculty hires specializing in the Environmental Humanities:

  • Environmental History (Corcoran Dept. of History) — A specialist in environmental and ecological history focusing on the role of nature in human social and cultural experience, as well as in economic and political development. The successful candidate will draw on novel methodologies from other fields and will engage with disciplines such as biology, botany, and ecology, as well as archaeology, anthropology, and geography.
  • Religion, Nature, and Culture in South Asia (Dept. of Religious Studies) — A scholar studying the roles of religion in human interaction with the environments of the South Asian subcontinent, including the contemporary intersection between particular traditions and ecosystems (e.g. Hindu engagement with the Ganges River watershed) and cultural mediations of human and nonhuman worlds.  The search will solicit applications from multiple disciplines, including history, anthropology, and philosophy, as well as religious studies.
  • Literature, Ecology, and Environment (Dept. of English) — A scholar of ecological literary study, including the study of literary works that have led us to put more value on nature and the environment. (Though housed in the English Department, the scholar will contribute one course a year to interdisciplinary program in Environmental Thought and Practice.)

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded the College a five-year, $2.9 million grant in 2011 to fund the creation of interdisciplinary faculty positions focused on the Environmental Humanities and Comparative Cultures of the Pre-Modern World.  Earlier this summer, the Mellon Foundation awarded the College a separate five-year, $3.47 million grant in support of a new Global South initiative.

The College expects to make another round of calls for Mellon hires in Spring 2016, timed to coincide with the broader call for departmental hiring proposals.