Job Opening: Tenure-Track Position in Arab Middle Eastern Studies (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)

Job Opening: Tenure-Track Position in Arab Middle Eastern Studies (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)

Job Opening: Tenure-Track Position in Arab Middle Eastern Studies (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Qualifications


The Department of Asian Languages and Literatures in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities invites applications for a full time, tenure-track position in Arab Middle Eastern Studies at the rank of assistant professor beginning in Fall 2019.

The Department seeks candidates whose research focuses on literature, visual media, and/or other cultural texts. Areas of specialization may include, but are not limited to, the Nahda, intellectual history, postcolonial studies, environment and ecocriticism, space and migration, gender and sexuality, and film and media.

Appointment will be 100% time over the nine-month academic year (late-August to late-May). Appointment will be at the rank of tenure-track assistant professor, depending on qualifications and experience, and consistent with collegiate and University policy. 

Required qualifications: PhD (or foreign equivalent) in a relevant field is required. Native or near-native fluency in English and Arabic are also required. Advanced ABDs may be considered for appointment at the rank of instructor with the stipulation that the PhD is conferred in the first year of the appointment.

Preferred qualifications: The Department is particularly interested in candidates who employ a cross-disciplinary approach and embed their scholarship and teaching of cultural texts within broader social, historical, and political processes. Regional focus(es) should complement those already existing in the department.

About the Job


The successful candidate will teach two courses per semester concerning their fields of expertise for the department’s undergraduate and graduate programs. Faculty in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures in the College of Liberal Arts are expected to maintain an active program of scholarly research; develop and teach undergraduate and graduate courses; advise students; and contribute service appropriate for the rank of appointment to the department, college, University and profession. 

Candidates will be evaluated according to a) overall quality of their academic preparation and scholarly work, b) relevance of their scholarly research to the department's academic priorities and fields of inquiry, c) evidence of commitment to teaching and skills as a teacher, and d) strength of recommendations. 

The Standards for Promotion and Tenure in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures are available at https://faculty.umn.edu/sites/faculty.umn.edu/files/asian_languages_and_literatures.pdf.

For information on faculty workload guidelines and principles in the College of Liberal Arts, visit https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/cla-intranet/ofaa/resources/workload-principles--guidelines

How to Apply


Applications must be submitted online. To be considered for this position, please click the Apply button and follow the instructions.  You will have the opportunity to complete an online application for the position and attach a cover letter and CV.

Additional documents may be attached after application by accessing your "My Activities" page and uploading documents there. The following materials must be attached to your online application: a writing sample (maxiumum 25 pages) and the names and contact information for three recommenders who are prepared to submit letters on your behalf. 

Priority will be given to completed application received by November 1 2018 but applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. 

Contact all@umn.edu with application questions. 

About the Department


Please see the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures website at www.all.umn.edu for additional information. 

Established in 1868, the College of Liberal Arts supports the University of Minnesota's land-grant mission as home to disciplines in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

The College of Liberal Arts is committed to intellectual freedom, the pursuit of new knowledge, and the belief that the liberal arts are the foundation of academic learning. CLA prepares students to be independent and original thinkers, innovators in their chosen fields; to create meaning in their lives and in their life's work; and to become productive citizens and leaders in their communities and the world.

The College of Liberal Arts values diverse cultures, experiences, and perspectives as key to innovation and excellent education.
www.cla.umn.edu

Founded in 1851, the University of Minnesota, with its five campuses and more than 65,000 students, is one of the largest, most comprehensive universities in the United States, and ranks among the most prestigious research universities in the world. It is both a major research institution, with scholars of national and international reputation, and a state land-grant university, with a strong tradition of education and public engagement.

Diversity


The University recognizes and values the importance of diversity and inclusion in enriching the employment experience of its employees and in supporting the academic mission.  The University is committed to attracting and retaining employees with varying identities and backgrounds.

The University of Minnesota provides equal access to and opportunity in its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.  To learn more about diversity at the U:  http://diversity.umn.edu.

Background Check Information


Any offer of employment is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. Our presumption is that prospective employees are eligible to work here. Criminal convictions do not automatically disqualify finalists from employment.

About the U of M


The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMTC), is among the largest public research universities in the country, offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional students a multitude of opportunities for study and research.  Located at the heart of one of the nation's most vibrant, diverse metropolitan communities, students on the campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul benefit from extensive partnerships with world-renowned health centers, international corporations, government agencies, and arts, nonprofit, and public service organizations.

 

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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