Job Announcement: Muslim Mediterranean/Middle Eastern World, 1450-Present; Assistant or Associate Professor of History; UCSC

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Job Announcement: Muslim Mediterranean/Middle Eastern World, 1450-Present; Assistant or Associate Professor of History; UCSC

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Muslim Mediterranean/Middle Eastern World, 1450-present
Assistant or Associate Professor; University of California, Santa Cruz

The History Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz invites applications for a position at the Assistant (tenure-track) or Associate (tenured) Professor level in the history of the early modern or modern Muslim Mediterranean/Middle East, with a chronological focus in the period between 1450 and the present and a geographical focus centering on all or part of the area from Morocco to Persia. We welcome candidates whose research contributes to cultural, social, and/or economic history. The successful candidate will teach undergraduate courses at both lower- and upper-division levels, including the survey of Middle Eastern history and courses in the candidate`s area of specialization. Ability to contribute to the department`s world history curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate level is essential.

This position carries a five-course-equivalency workload, which normally means teaching four courses over three quarters and carrying out other academic and service responsibilities. The campus is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through their research, teaching, and service.

RANK: Assistant Professor - Associate Professor

SALARY: Commensurate with qualifications and experience.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Assistant Professor Level: Ph.D. or equivalent in history or related discipline. (Degree must be conferred by September 2012.) Must have evidence of research activity and potential for excellence in university teaching.
  • Associate Professor Level: Ph.D. or equivalent in history or related discipline, demonstrated record of excellence in research and teaching.


POSITION AVAILABLE: July 1, 2012, with academic year beginning Fall 2012. Position contingent upon final budgetary approval.

TO APPLY: Apply online at http://hum-recruit.ucsc.edu and reference the position #525-12. Submit a letter of application describing your research and teaching interests, a curriculum vitae, a writing sample, course syllabi, and, if possible, a summary of teaching evaluations. Applicants are invited to submit a statement addressing their contributions to diversity through their research, service, and/or teaching. Please arrange for three confidential letters of recommendation* (dated October 2009 or later) to be sent directly on your behalf to historyrecruit@ucsc.edu

*All letters will be treated as confidential documents; please direct your references to UCSC`s confidentiality statement at http://apo.ucsc.edu/ac ademic_policies_and_procedures/cappm/confstm.htm.

We strongly encourage electronic submission of your application materials. Please contact the History Department if you are not able to submit your application electronically or if you have any questions at 831-459-3701 or at historyrecruit@ucsc.edu. Refer to the position #525-12 in all correspondence.

CLOSING DATE: The position will remain open until filled, but in order to be considered at the initial screening, the complete application (including letters of recommendation and other supporting documents) must be received by October 3, 2011.

UC Santa Cruz faculty make significant contributions to the body of research that has earned the University of California the ranking as the foremost public higher education institution in the world. In the process, our faculty demonstrate that cutting-edge research, excellent teaching and outstanding service are mutually supportive. The University of California, Santa Cruz is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, committed to excellence through diversity. We strive to establish a climate that welcomes, celebrates, and promotes respect for the contributions of all students and employees.

Inquiries regarding the University`s equal employment opportunity policies may be directed to: Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064; (831) 459-2686. Under Federal law, the University of California may employ only individuals who are legally able to work in the United States as established by providing documents as specified in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Certain UCSC positions funded by federal contracts or sub-contracts require the selected candidate to pass an E-Verify check. More information is available here or from the Academic Personnel Office at (831) 459-5579.

If you need assistance due to a disability please contact the Academic Personnel Office at 499 Clark Kerr Hall (831) 459-5579. This position description is available in alternate formats, which may be requested from Academic Personnel at (831) 459-5579

Contact: Human Resources

University of California, Santa Cruz Online Application Form: http://apptrkr.com/199947

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412