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Call for Applications: Visualizing Abolition Postdoctoral Scholar

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Position title: Visualizing Abolition Postdoctoral Scholar

Salary range: Commensurate with qualifications and experience, initial annual salary is $70,000.
Minimum annual salary rates are made based on the individual’s Experience Level, which is determined by the number of months of postdoctoral service at any institution. See current salary scale for Postdoctoral Titles at https://apo.ucsc.edu/compensation/salary-scales/index.html.

Percent time: Full-time (100%)

Anticipated start: The start date of the appointment is flexible but must begin between July 1 and September 1, 2022. Ph.D. must be in hand at time of the initial appointment.

Position duration: One year.

Job location: Santa Cruz, CA

Application Deadline: April 18, 2022 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

Application Window

Open date: March 18th, 2022

Next review date: Monday, Apr 18, 2022 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Wednesday, Jun 1, 2022 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

Position Description

The Institute of the Arts and Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) invites applications for a one-year postdoctoral scholar appointment to support the Visualizing Abolition Initiative, under the direction of Professor Gina Dent, Feminist Studies, and in collaboration with Dr. Rachel Nelson, Director, Institute of the Arts and Sciences. Visualizing Abolition, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is a public scholarship initiative designed to foster creative research and to shift the social attachment to prisons through art and education. To cultivate different modes of educating both students and publics about the harms caused by carceral systems and to inspire people to think beyond the entrenched social dynamics that center on punishment, the initiative includes a faculty working group; postdoctoral fellowships; graduate student dissertation workshops; curriculum development and educational endeavors that cross prison borders; public events; artist commissions; and art exhibitions. Working across prison borders, the goal is to change the narrative that links prisons to justice, contributing instead to the unfolding collective story and alternative imagining underway to create a future free of prisons.

The postdoctoral scholar position is a twelve-month appointment and includes salary and health benefits. The start date of the appointment is flexible but must begin between July 1 and September 1, 2022. The employee will be hosted by the Institute of the Arts and Sciences. They will be expected to be in residence at UC Santa Cruz, to participate in all aspects of Visualizing Abolition Initiative, and to develop their own scholarship.

We welcome applications from scholars in the humanities, social sciences, or arts who speak broadly to one or more of a range of concerns—the roles of art and culture in the historic and ongoing movement for abolition; visuality, prisons, and policing; feminist art practices and decarceration; visual criminology; popular culture and prisons; domestic and international movements for abolition; and other issues at the intersections of visual culture, prisons, and abolition.

Questions should be directed to visualizingabolition@ucsc.edu.

Institute of Art and Sciences: https://ias.ucsc.edu/

Arts Division: https://arts.ucsc.edu/

Qualifications

Basic qualifications (required at time of application)
Ph.D. (or equivalent foreign degree) in the humanities, social sciences, or arts. Ph.D. must be in hand at the time of appointment.

Application Requirements

Document requirements

  • Curriculum Vitae – Your most recently updated C.V.
  • Cover Letter – Letter of application that briefly summarizes your qualifications and interest in the position.
  • Statement of Research – Statement (not to exceed two pages) describing how your research relates to the themes raised by the Visualizing Abolition initiative.
  • Writing sample (20-25 pages)

Reference requirements

  • 2-3 letters of reference required

Applications must include confidential letters of recommendation*. Please note that your references, or dossier service, will submit their confidential letters directly to the UC Recruit System.

*All letters will be treated as confidential per University of California policy and California state law. For any reference letter provided via a third party (i.e., dossier service, career center), direct the author to UCSC’s confidentiality statement at http://apo.ucsc.edu/confstm.htm.

Apply link: https://recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF01240
Help contact: ias@ucsc.edu

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