Overview

The University of Maryland is offering two Postdoctoral positions in the fields of Digital Humanities and African American History and Culture. Eligible candidates will have completed a doctoral program in African American Studies, Art History, United States Labor History, United States or Global Migration Studies,  Digital Media, Historical and Cultural Visualization, or a related field in the past five years. These are full-time, professional-track faculty appointments for two years connected to our Andrew W. Mellon-funded initiative “Synergies among Digital Humanities and African American History and Culture” ( AADHum). The 12-month salary for these positions is $70,000, including full benefits. Additional funding is available for conference travel and professional development.

The AADHum postdocs in the fields of Digital Humanities and African American History and Culture provide exciting opportunities to contribute to a major interdisciplinary initiative at one of the nation’s highest-ranked public research universities, as well as to gain skills and knowledge related to emerging, innovative areas of research and teaching. Through these positions, the AADHum initiative seeks to advance and expand the fields of digital humanities and African American history and cultural studies, and to develop and diversify the pipeline for the next generation of scholars and professionals who foster engagement at this intersection.

Roles & Responsibilities

With supervision and guidance provided by the leadership of the AADHum initiative, the postdocs will work closely with faculty and researchers in their field of expertise, for example, with the Center for Global Migration Studies, or with the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora. Postdocs will each participate in and help coordinate the Digital Humanities Incubator training sessions for faculty and students;  provide mentorship and research leadership to graduate assistants working in support of the project; and design a two-semester course sequence that engages first-year students with research questions involving African American labor, migration, and artistic expression that are tractable to digital tools and methods. These questions will be pursued through use of our testbed collections, including onsite, hands-on work at the Center for Global Migration Studies, the Driskell Center, and the George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO Archive.

The ideal candidates will have both relevant academic training as well as experience with content management and digital humanities project development. Postdocs will be expected to continue to develop their ongoing research within a field of study compatible with the AADHum initiative. Opportunities to lead, engage, or collaborate in workshops, seminars, presentations, and publications will be strongly encouraged and supported.

Qualifications

Required:

  • Ph.D., or equivalent terminal degree in African American Studies, Art History, United States Labor History, United States or Global Migration Studies,  Digital Media, Historical and Cultural Visualization, Cultural Studies or a related field
  • Terminal degree conferred May 2011 or later, and before start date for this position
  • Demonstrable strong scholarly research focus on African American history and culture
  • Practical understanding of the research process and research data lifecycle
  • Experience or familiarity with using digital media as part of teaching or research
  • Strong organizational and documentation skills
  • Ability to engage with people in new settings as well as excellent interpersonal and communication skills
  • Willingness to participate in teaching and training initiatives related to the postdoc or area of research

Desired:

  • Excellent skills in project management, workflow design and management, teaching and outreach, communication and collaboration with faculty members
  • Experience designing and implementing databases for scholarly projects
  • Experience coordinating and promoting programs and/or services
  • Working knowledge of various content management systems
  • Familiarity with markup and metadata standards associated with Digital Humanities projects

Local Guidance and Professional Development Support

Postdocs will work in close collaboration with faculty and staff from the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) and the Arts and Humanities Center for Synergy, the two core centers for the AADHum initiative. One of the premier digital humanities centers in the world, MITH will provide mentoring in best practices for data curation, data modeling, project development, and training, along with working knowledge of advanced methods and tools for data analytics. Launched in late 2013, the Center for Synergy has already been recognized as on the cutting edge of public humanities, successfully conceptualizing and building collaborative projects between Arts and Humanities scholars, other disciplines and external communities.  The center received one of the first NEH Humanities in the Public Square grants for its Baltimore Stories project, in which humanists work alongside citizens to examine the roles of narratives in the life of a major American city. The Center for Synergy will provide mentoring in best practices for developing vibrant intellectual communities, both in the form of innovative curriculum and in the form of engaging public programming, from the micro-level of reading groups to the macro-level of a national conference.

Opportunities for archival work in the rich research collections at the University of Maryland will also be key components of the postdoc experience. The archives of the David C. Driskell Collection document the creation and curation of the largest academic holdings of African American art and art from the African diaspora. The George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO archives are the official repository for records of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), selected records of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and the merged American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

To apply, please send a letter of application, CV, and contact information for three references to aadhum-postdocs@umd.edu. For best consideration, applications should be submitted no later than July 22, 2016. Review will continue until the position is filled. Start date to be negotiated, but no later than February 1, 2017.

For complete information about the position, please visit:  http://go.umd.edu/AADHumPostDocs

The University and Community

Founded in 1856, University of Maryland, College Park is the flagship institution in the University System of Maryland. Our 1,250-acre College Park campus is just minutes away from Washington, D.C., and the nexus of the nation’s legislative, executive, and judicial centers of power. This unique proximity to business and technology leaders, federal departments and agencies, and a myriad of research entities, embassies, think tanks, cultural centers, and non-profit organizations is simply unparalleled. Synergistic opportunities for our faculty and students abound and are virtually limitless in the nation’s capital and surrounding areas. Now part of the Big Ten, the University is committed to attracting and retaining outstanding and diverse faculty and staff that will enhance our stature of preeminence in our three missions of teaching, scholarship, and full engagement in our community, the State of Maryland, and in the world.

Diversity

The University of Maryland, College Park, an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment. The University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, age, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, creed, marital status, political affiliation, personal appearance, or on the basis of rights secured by the First Amendment, in all aspects of employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.