2017-18 Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellowship

The Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (JINELC) at Washington University in St. Louis invites applications for a post-doctoral fellow to participate in a Mellon Sawyer Seminar, “Grounding the Ecocritical: Materializing Wastelands and Living on in the Middle East.” This one-year position begins on July 1, 2017.

The position is open to scholars working in a field related to the seminar theme in any discipline in the humanities and social sciences. We especially invite candidates whose work is theoretically informed, interdisciplinary, and based on research in the geographical areas of the Middle East, North Africa, Saharan Africa, southern and eastern Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. Candidates must have completed a PhD within the last five years by the time the appointment begins on July 1, 2017.

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this “Grounding the Ecocritical” Sawyer Seminar launches a comparative, interdisciplinary investigation into ecological, technical, and literary-cultural accounts of wasteland spaces across the region traditionally defined as the Middle East. The seminar is committed to developing methods and vocabularies to study the specific wastelands – from ruined cities to desiccated environments – that traverse this geographical area. It will do so by highlighting deep and materially inflected understandings of place: soil mechanics, architectural decay, biotic decomposition, desert wind patterns, and more. Through the comparative study of these processes, the seminar will explore the poetics and politics associated with particular places.

The fellowship pays a salary of $50,000 plus benefits, and provides a research/relocation fund of $1,000. The Fellow will teach one course each semester on themes related to the seminar and help to organize monthly workshops, film screenings, and other activities relating to the theme of the Mellon Sawyer Seminar in collaboration with other University units. Candidates with knowledge in web design are encouraged to describe their previous experiences and/or concepts for digital outreach in their applications. The Fellow will also mentor the three graduate students (two PhD; one MA) affiliated to the seminar.

All candidates should submit a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, a research statement, a list and brief description of three proposed courses, three letters of recommendation, and a writing sample of no more than 40 pages. All application materials should be sent to ecocriticalsawyer@wustl.edu. Recommenders should send their letters directly to this email address from their institutional email addresses with the full name of the applicant in the subject line.

Applications received by March 1, 2017 will receive full consideration, but the search will remain open until the position is closed or filled.

Washington University in St. Louis is committed to the principles and practices of equal employment opportunity. It is the University’s policy to recruit, hire, train, and promote persons in all job titles without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or genetic information.