Application Deadline: February 1, 2024
Apply now: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09065/apply
View this position online: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09065
The UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies and UCLA American Indian Studies Center are pleased to announce a postdoctoral fellow position that is part of the “Race in the Global Past through Native Lenses” project funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project will initiate a substantive collaboration between UCLA and California Native and Indigenous communities, with the goal of creating disciplinary pathways and improving institutional climate to counter the lack of Native epistemes in academic disciplines and improve conditions for recruitment and retention of Indigenous faculty in the university.
One essential component of the project goals for institutional change is the epistemic and disciplinary rearticulation of museum and curatorial approaches and practice, including comparative historical-legal research on the processes and effects of racialization through collecting. Accordingly, one postdoctoral fellow will be housed within the UCLA Fowler Museum. The Fellow’s activities will concern the broader epistemic work of the grant, through interdisciplinary and comparative research focusing on the interaction of long histories and new theorizations with institutional practices, with the focus on the Native and Indigenous communities in the Pacific Rim. The Fellow will have access to the museum’s extensive collection, among whose many strengths are arts of the Northwest Coast and Oceania. Utilizing in-house archives, decades of university and community research on objects, and long-standing connections with international museums and arts agencies specializing in these arts, the Fowler staff will serve as an indispensable resource for the Fellow’s research.
The Fellow will be part of the larger cohort of postdoctoral fellows (3-5 fellows) and a key participant of a collaborative cohort composed of Native American, Pacific Islander and/or other Indigenous community scholars-in-residence, members and representatives of Indigenous communities, faculty and staff, graduate and undergraduate students. This cohort will explore comparative historical, legal, ethical and racial aspects of access to cultural heritage, ownership, and the articulations of heritage through quarterly research workshops. In addition to participating in the co-learning aimed at working simultaneously with histories of academic concepts and disciplines and Indigenous knowledges, the Fellow will serve as a liaison between the museum and academic/research units and will interface with the Native and Pacific Islander and other Indigenous communities with whom the grant will collaborate.
The postdoctoral fellow will be appointed for two academic years (2024-2025 and 2025-2026), with the start date of July 1, 2024. The Fellow will work under the direct supervision of the grant PI and be housed at the Fowler Museum.
Minimum requirements: Ph.D. in a related field in hand by time of appointment; a research agenda that aligns with the “Race in the Global Past through Native Lenses” project themes and premodern and comparative focus; and the ability to work with collaborative cohorts and California Native and Indigenous communities. Fellows are expected to be in residence for the duration of the fellowship period, and to maintain active research and publication programs. (Note: Applicants who have not yet but will be completing the PhD by June 30, 2024, may attach a letter from their dissertation chair confirming that they will be graduating by June 30, 2024, as evidence of planned completion).
Apply now: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09065/apply
View this position online: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09065