African American Studies Program

Dr. Faye V. Harrison

GREETINGS FROM THE
NEW DIRECTOR OF THE UF
AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES PROGAM!

Welcome to the African American Studies homepage! We are starting the new academic year with a renewed sense of purpose and direction. After experiencing a crisis that forced us to re-examine the strength of our commitment to advancing African American and African Diaspora studies at the University of Florida, we have emerged from the storm with a clearer vision of the exciting posibilities for making our program more vital and vibrant. The African American Studies Program represents a dynamic interdisciplinary space in which to educate students, produce critically meaningful knowledge, and relate the praxis of our pedagogy and scholarly research to salient issues of public engagement.

The varieties and permutations of what was originally established as Black Studies in the 1960s--namely, African American, Africana, African Diaspora and Black Atlantic studies--have reached a level of maturity resulting in the development of graduate curricula and master's and doctoral degree programs all around the country. This signals that an increasingly coherent body of knowledge has been accumulated to provide the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools for designing and implementing innovative resarch; for analyzing, interpreting, and explaining the collected results; and for applying the implications of newly reintegrated knowledge and understanding within concrete contexts of problem-solving for social change and the increased well-being of Black communities here and in other diasporic situations.

African American Studies owes a great deal to its predecessors who forged the way to emancipatory knowledge well before the 1960s Black student protests that demanded that universities provide courses and hire faculty who could address issues of relevance to their past, present and future. Programs like ours also owe a debt of gratitude to contemporary sources of support, primarily the students who enroll in our courses, participate in related extra-curricular activities, and--as we witnessed this past spring--publicly demonstrate their desire and demand for a world-class education that includes exposure to and guided critical thinking about the kinds of diversity, identities, lived experiences, epistemologies, knowledges, aesthetic sensibilities, and struggles for human dignity and empowerment that Black people represent in their gendered, classed, and ethnically and nationally plural complexities.

The possibilities for creating a critical learning community that affirms the significance of understanding local, national, and transnational Black experiences are really exciting. I encourage all our friends and allies to join us in making 2007-08 a truly memorable turning point in the 38-year history of African American Studies at the University of Florida.

NEW ASSISTANT PROFESSOR POSITION
IN AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
http://www.hr.ufl.edu/

Position Information

Requisition Number	0704254
Classification Title	AST PROF
Working Title	Assistant Professor
Position Number	00024176
Salary: (Starting salaries for positions may be negotiable based on qualifications and experience.)	Salary is negotiable. Commensurate with education and experience
Pay Grade Level Definition
Job Type	Full-time
FLSA Status
Job Category	Faculty
Work Location (County)	Main Campus (Gainesville)
Department	16620000-LS-AFRO AMERICAN STUDIES
College/Unit	COLLEGE-LIBERAL ARTS/SCIENCES (16000000)
Job Description:	The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' African American Studies Program invites applications for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor rank. We are interested in candidates with primary research foci in the humanities, particularly those that include a concern with some aspect of the history and politics of ideas, culture, the arts, and representation within the African American experience. Candidates with strong theoretical and methodological expertise in analyzing the interplay of African American culture, power, and knowledge within the comparative or transnational context of the African Diaspora and Black Atlantic are also encouraged to apply. The position will begin in August 2008 and may be a joint appointment with an appropriate department in the College. The development of interdisciplinary research is one of the University of Florida's strategic goals, and the African American Studies Program is an active participant in this endeavor. We especially seek candidates with previous experience working across disciplines, particularly in history, religious studies, and philosophy. Beyond teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the successful candidate will be expected to continue an active research agenda, including seeking external funding, participating in interdisciplinary research projects, and exploring the outreach potential of those efforts for African American and other African descendant communities.
Minimum Requirements:	Candidates must have a Ph.D. by August 2008.
Preferred Qualifications:
Special Instructions to Applicants	Applicants should submit a letter of application, a curriculum vita, and the names and addresses of three references via regular mail to: Dr. Willie L. Baber, Search Committee Chair African American Studies Program P.O. Box 118120 University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611-8120 The application deadline is January 5, 2008 and should reference job number 00024176. The University of Florida is an Equal Opportunity Institution with a strong commitment to diversity. As part of the application process, applicants are invited to complete an on-line confidential and voluntary self disclosure card. This information is stored within GatorJobs and accessible by job number to Faculty Development (when needed to fulfill reporting obligations). For searches not using GatorJobs as a means of recording or tracking candidate applications, a self disclosure form can be found at: http://www.hr.ufl.edu/job/datacard.htm.
Job Open Date	11-20-2007
Job Close Date	01-05-2008

Welcome to the Renewed African American Studies Program (AASP)
at the University of Florida.

The four core principles of the program combine excellence in scholarship with experiential learning. This structure honors the applied roots of African American Studies and recognizes the broad range of perspectives in the African Diaspora.
AASP's four principles are:

Interdisciplinarity: This principle encourages a broad base of disciplinary theories, methodologies, and methods. This approach allows each faculty member to begin from their own position of expertise and systematically tie their work to other necessary areas of social science and humanities.
Community-based learning: This focus honors the applied, experiential, and activist model from which Black Studies programs originally developed. Pedagogies of community service-learning and advocacy scholarship are central to the engaged nature of the program.
African American experience in a transnational context: With this program foundation, the faculty grounds our main study in the United States, but also understands the imperative to connect the U.S. experience to the African and the wider African diaspora.
Critical thinking, writing, and research presentation skills development: The AASP faculty introduce students from all disciplinary areas to African American intellectual history, critical theory, and professional development. Students who enroll in our courses or graduate with an AASP minor will be versed in academic and scholarly administrative skills needed to succeed in the next levels of research, teaching, and service in the field.

Welcome

***Dr. Faye V. Harrison***

Dr. Faye V. Harrison