African American Studies Program 3323 Turlington Hall
PO Box 118120
Gainesville, FL 32611
Phone: (352) 392-5724
Fax: (352) 294-0007
Email: sburney@clas.ufl.edu
Welcome
***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.
Salary
is negotiable. Commensurate with education and experience
Full-time
Faculty
Main
Campus (Gainesville)
16620000-LS-AFRO
AMERICAN STUDIES
COLLEGE-LIBERAL
ARTS/SCIENCES (16000000)
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.
Candidates
must have a Ph.D. by August 2008.
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.
11-20-2007
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.