Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana

The Africana Program at Bates College invites applications for a one-year Visiting Assistant Professor position, beginning in August 2024.

We welcome applications from all qualified candidates, but are especially interested in those whose work focuses on Blackness through feminist, queer, and global lenses, including but not limited to the United States. PhD must be in hand before beginning the job in August 2024.
Experience teaching undergraduates is strongly preferred. Candidates with a demonstrated commitment to inclusive pedagogy and the success of historically underrepresented, marginalized and first-generation students are encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will teach 5 courses a year, including co-teaching Africana 100 in the Fall, and have the opportunity to redesign existing course titles so as to reflect their expertise and interests. Such course options may include Queer Africana, Narrating Slavery, Anti-Blackness and the Environment, Black Feminist Activist and Intellectual Traditions, Decolonization, Black Lives Matter, Birthing While Black, and Survey of Literatures of the Caribbean.

The college’s mission statement celebrates “the transformative power of our differences.” Accordingly, we believe that campus diversity can contribute to student learning, and we embrace the college’s aim to extend access to a Bates education to an ever-wider range of students. We strongly encourage applications from individuals in underrepresented groups, individuals who have followed non-traditional pathways to higher education due to societal, economic, or academic disadvantages, and individuals with a demonstrated capacity to advance the college’s continuing commitments to equity and inclusion.

Bates College is a residential liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Details about the college and its community can be found here. Lewiston is a diverse and growing city in Maine, two and a half hours north of Boston and 45 minutes from Portland, Maine’s largest city.
At Bates, Teaching is supported by a new Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning. Community-engaged learning and study abroad are encouraged and robustly supported. Bates is committed to supporting educational access for all. Educational access and justice are central to Bates’ history and mission. That work is supported in a variety of ways, including an HHMI Inclusive Excellence grant to support transforming how we teach STEM, a Schuler Education Foundation Grant to support financial aid for Pell-eligible students, low income, and undocumented students, and a Mellon Foundation Curricular Transformation Grant. Read more about our faculty’s commitment to equity and inclusion here.

Application instructions:

The following materials are required: cover letter (2-3 pages) outlining the applicant’s scholarly work and their approach to teaching, a curriculum vitae, three letters of recommendation, writing sample of up to 35 pages (double-spaced) in length, and sample syllabus of a course the applicant would be prepared to offer.

Review of applications will begin on March 15th and continue until the position is filled.

Questions about the position can be addressed to: bates.africana@bates.edu. Employment is contingent upon successful completion of a background check.