Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow: Black Art in the Americas and the Afro-Atlantic

Friday, January 7, 2022

The Department of Art at the University of Virginia is pleased to announce that it is accepting applications for a 2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in Black Art in the Americas and the Afro-Atlantic. Please find details below, with thanks for helping this posting reach the broadest possible audience. 

 

Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellowship Program | The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, UVA 

Review of applications will begin February 2, 2022.   

 

BLACK ART IN THE AMERICAS AND THE AFRO-ATLANTIC 

The University of Virginia Department of Art and the Lindner Center for Art History hope to provide a departmental home to a Postdoctoral Fellow with expertise in Black Art in the Americas and the Afro-Atlantic. We invite applications from candidates who received, or will receive, their Ph.D. degree in the history of art or a related field between August 24, 2019 and August 24, 2022. The two-year fellowship is offered under the auspices of the Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, funded by the UVA Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Mellon Foundation. The Rising Scholars program reflects the College of Arts and Sciences’ ongoing commitment to diversifying its programs and the professoriate more broadly, as well as its mission to further our understanding of the legacies of racial inequity, to making progress toward racial equity and to support the career trajectories of underrepresented and historically excluded scholars whose research focuses on Race, Justice, and Equity. 

 

We conceive of the Americas and the Afro-Atlantic world in capacious terms and would welcome research and teaching that brings a critical perspective to what constitutes “America” and its relationship to Black communities and art. Applicants whose research focuses on specific locales and those whose work spans transgeographic regions, networks, and communities are equally welcome. We are open to diverse research questions, historical periods, and methods, though we especially welcome scholars whose work explores how Black artists and their critics have come to challenge and expand the field of art history and/or explored the bounds and potentialities of artistic media.  

 

The Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow will join a faculty in the Ph.D. program in art and architectural history with existing strengths in the art, architecture, and visual culture of the Americas, the Afro-Atlantic world, and Africa from antiquity to the present, while adding new perspectives and areas of expertise. The UVA Department of Art brings together art and architectural historians distinguished by their broadly diverse research specializations alongside a dynamic and engaged faculty in studio art, and curatorial teams at the Fralin Museum and The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. This postdoctoral fellowship builds upon our recent Studio hire which put creative inquiry into Blackness and race in a central position in the Studio program. 

 

The Department of Art is committed to providing our Postdoctoral Fellow with the mentorship and support essential for achieving their research and teaching goals. The Postdoctoral Fellow will also have the opportunity to join a rich interdisciplinary community with especially pertinent interlocutors in the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African StudiesCaribbean StudiesIndigenous StudiesGlobal South StudiesEnvironmental Humanities, in addition to Charlottesville community institutions such as the Jefferson  Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center. Additional opportunities for the support of superb teaching and research at UVA include the Center for Teaching ExcellenceEquity CenterInstitute of Humanities and Global Cultures, and the digital humanities community at DH@UVA

 

Application deadline: February 1, 2022 

Application through the website: https://graduate.as.virginia.edu/rising-scholars

Please contact Sarah Betzer, Interim Chair, Department of Art, with questions:  sbetzer@virginia.edu