UNC’s Department of American Studies will be hiring an Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities for the coming academic year (expected start date: 1 July 2013). The first of three anticipated DH hires at Carolina over the next several years, this individual will be a part of, and contribute to, the Carolina Digital Humanities Initiative (CDHI).
Among other things, this individual will contribute to the new Ph.D. program in American Studies, graduate program in Folklore, and to a broader graduate curriculum in digital humanities, training students both for traditional academic jobs as well as a variety of new professions in the public sphere; develop innovative graduate and undergraduate courses exploring the methodological and intellectual diversity of the field; further the work of the department through effective engagement with cultural organizations and non-academic audiences, particularly around issues affecting the state and region; and participate in interdisciplinary research collaborations. The position carries a $50,000 start-up fund with the expectation that the candidate arrive on campus prepared to pursue a robust and innovative digital research agenda.
The full job posting, as well as the online application, may be accessed here.
About the CDHI
Catalyzed by a $1.39 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the CDHI represents a major university-wide commitment to the digital humanities, underwritten by the Office of the Provost, College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Information Technology Services, and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities. Its goal over the next five years is the development and testing of an adaptable and sustainable model of transformative academic practice that embraces faculty research, graduate and post-doctoral training, undergraduate learning, and engaged scholarship in the humanities. The CDHI will also bring the humanities into the “big data” conversation going on across our own campus as well as among other leading research universities, federal agencies, and foundations. It is essential that humanities questions and concerns—about knowledge, meaning, value, and representation—be reflected in rapidly unfolding efforts to organize research, graduate training, and general education in relation to the data and information landscape of the 21st century.
This new faculty position is part of a targeted hiring of 3 new tenure-track digital humanities faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences between 2013-2014 and 2015-2016. The College of Arts and Sciences aims to hire the brightest and most promising young scholar-teachers in their fields who are pushing the intellectual boundaries of their disciplines and who appreciate the transformative potential of digital technologies for their own research and teaching agendas. These new hires will also appreciate the role digital technologies can play in expanding the audience for humanities scholarship and in engaging a wider public. Each position will carry significant start-up funding.