Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral/Post-MFA Research Faculty Fellowships

The English Department at the George Washington University invites applications for two Mellon Foundation funded postdoctoral/post-MFA research faculty fellowships committed to disability justice. These appointments will run for two academic years, beginning in September 2023 and lasting until May 2025. Fellows will receive a two-year appointment with a nine-month academic year salary.  

Background: Storytelling undergirds key components of our department and its programs: our longstanding and highly valued work in disability studies and our signature community-oriented Creative Writing program, GW’s interdisciplinary biennial Composing Disability Symposium featuring activists, artists, and academics, the Crip/Queer Reading Group, as well as more recent programming that includes influential work in crip/queer/trans studies, a newly launched Asian American Studies minor, and two new micro-minors, one in Disability Studies and the other in Migration Studies. Our departmental faculty have expertise in histories of disability and life writing across medieval, early modern, Victorian, modern, and contemporary transnational contexts, as well as in Creative Nonfiction, offering a robust curriculum that centers disability’s role in social transformation. Our Mellon funded grant will enable us to harness the energy and ingenuity of these initiatives towards an innovative project oriented toward civic engagement and with others focused on community outreach, access, and disability justice.

Disability justice is an intersectional movement founded by queer, trans, and BIPOC disabled activists that centers communities impacted by concurrent systems of oppression. A coalitional movement with deep activist roots and vibrant intellectual-artistic lineages, disability justice creates new structures for collective care, creative worldbuilding, and liberatory futures.

Story for All: Disability Justice Collaboratories, with support from the Mellon Foundation, will enable the creation of two humanities “collaboratories”—small clusters of faculty and students (undergraduate and graduate) working together on curriculum development and on public-facing projects that help advance ideals of disability justice, especially by showcasing and sharing the stories of those who have experienced incarceration, detention, or institutionalization. We will appoint to each collaboratory a postdoctoral/post-MFA research faculty fellow with interests in disability studies and/or the emerging field of carceral studies and with experience in digital humanities. While one collaboratory will be headed by faculty members in Creative Writing and the other by faculty members in Literature/Cultural Studies, both will develop their “products” (curricular and public-facing) in conjunction with local partners. We welcome applications from those who are interested in, or have experience in, digital humanities tools and multimedia content creation as well as platforms for storytelling archiving.

These fellows, working closely together to help design and implement our humanities collaboratories, will serve as program liaisons and collaborate across collaboratories with department faculty, students, and librarians, community organizations, and program participants to create opportunities for public-facing engagement.

In September 2023, the newly selected Fellows will join the English Department in developing the collaboratories, which will launch in January 2024. During the two years of their fellowship, Fellows will teach or team teach two or three undergraduate courses (total over the two-year appointment) and will help to lead the collaboratories. The details of the two fellowships are included below:

Specific Duties and Responsibilities for the Post-MFA Fellowship: Creative Writing Collaboratory

  • Fellow will help to launch two collaboratories (pilot humanities labs) housed in the Department of English, focusing especially on the Creative Writing Collaboratory.  Fellow will partner with local Washington, DC, disability justice organizations, specifically facilitating our partnership with Free Minds, a nonprofit that brings storytelling to people in the criminal justice system. (https://freemindsbookclub.org/about-us/
  • Working closely with the Literary/Critical Mellon fellow and with Free Minds, Fellow will develop curricular tools and implement features of the program, including via community outreach and grassroots initiatives that serve those directly affected by the criminal justice system.  
  • Fellow will collaborate with the CREATE Digital Studio, a makerspace at the George Washington University, to develop and implement curriculum across both collaboratories for undergraduate and graduate students. (https://library.gwu.edu/create)
  • Fellow will develop open-access tools and curricular materials to steward creative academic-community partnerships toward transformative social and disability justice initiatives, as well as create platforms for the circulation of stories, publication, and outreach.
  • Additional responsibilities may include mentoring graduate and undergraduate students and teaching disability studies or elective special topics courses.

Minimum Qualifications for the Post-MFA Fellow:

Applicants must hold an MFA in creative writing or closely related field and have a work record demonstrative of commitments to disability justice. Applicants must have experience working with digital humanities platforms or the creation of accessible content in a range of media.

To Apply:

Please submit a cv, cover letter, and one-page statement on how your experience and skills would inform and support the collaborates to engldept@email.gwu.edu with the subject heading “Creative Writing Collaboratory Fellow Application”. Review of applications will begin on May 24th, 2023 and continue until the position is filled. For full consideration, please submit an application before the review date.

NOTE: Please direct any questions about the collaboratory to Professor Chet’la Sebree, chetla.sebree@email.gwu.edu

Specific Duties and Responsibilities for the Postdoctoral Fellowship: Lit/Crit Collaboratory

  • Fellow will help to launch two collaboratories (pilot humanities labs) housed in the Department of English, focusing especially on a literary/critical collaboratory organized broadly around life writing and disability justice (past, present, and future). Fellow will partner with local Washington, DC, disability justice organizations.
  • Working closely with the Creative Writing Collaboratory Fellow, the Lit/Crit Fellow will develop curricular tools and implement features of the program, including possibilities for grassroots initiatives and community outreach.
  • Fellow will collaborate with the CREATE Digital Studio, a makerspace at the George Washington University, to develop and implement curriculum across both collaboratories for undergraduate and graduate students. (https://library.gwu.edu/create)
  • Fellow will develop open-access tools and curricular materials to steward creative, academic, and community partnerships toward transformative social and disability justice initiatives, as well as create platforms for the circulation of stories, publication, and outreach.
  • Additional responsibilities may include mentoring graduate and undergraduate students and teaching disability studies or elective special topics courses.

Minimum Qualifications for the Postdoctoral Fellow:

Applicants must hold a PhD in English or a closely related field and have a work record demonstrative of commitments to disability justice. Applicants must have experience working with digital humanities platforms or the creation of accessible content in a range of media.

To Apply:

Please submit a cv, cover letter, and one-page statement on how your experience and skills would inform and support the collaborates to engldept@email.gwu.edu with the subject heading “Lit/Crit Collaboratory Fellow Application”. Review of applications will begin on May 24th, 2023 and continue until the position is filled. For full consideration, please submit an application before the review date.

Note: Please direct any questions about the Lit/Crit collaboratory to Professor Jonathan Hsy, jhsy@email.gwu.edu.

The university is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer that does not unlawfully discriminate in any of its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity expression, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law. 

Employment offers are contingent on the satisfactory outcome of a standard background screening.

 

 


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