Postdoctoral Fellow at Berea College’s bell hooks center

Berea College, home of the new bell hooks center, invites applicants for a one- to three-year postdoctoral fellowship (11 months each year) to begin August 2021. In addition to engaging dr. hooks’s works in ways that advance their own research and scholarship, the fellow will take the lead in designing and planning, in collaboration with the bell hooks Teacher-Scholar in Residence, two symposia to be hosted by the bell hooks center in Summer 2023 and Summer 2024. The fellow will also provide overall support to the center Director and Chair of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department, while teaching two to three courses each year in the department or in Berea’s General Education program. Required: completion of a Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies or a related field prior to the beginning of the fellowship. Experience with conference planning preferred. Appointment is for one year with the possibility of renewal for one or two additional years based on satisfactory performance.

Applicants should submit (1) a cover letter that details how the applicant’s teaching and research experience align with dr. hooks’s works; their plans to further this research and pedagogy while at Berea; an indication of what courses they might teach; and their experience, if any, with conference programming; (2) a curriculum vitae; (3) a statement of teaching philosophy; (4) a one-page diversity statement describing how the applicant’s scholarship and teaching promotes diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as the applicant’s plans to contribute to the College’s Great Commitments (found at https://www.berea.edu/the-great-commitments/); (5) graduate transcripts; and (6) three letters of recommendation to: https://tinyurl.com/24cd7s42. Review of candidates will begin May 15, 2021 and will continue until the position is filled. 

Founded in 1855, Berea College achieved national distinction as the first coeducational and interracial college in the South. Berea has a longstanding commitment to interracial education, and is one of the most racially diverse private liberal arts colleges in the United States. With an emphasis on service to Appalachia and beyond, Berea enrolls 1,650 students from 43 states and U.S. territories and 76 countries. Berea College only admits students who are unable to afford tuition and provides all of them a no-tuition promise, valued at more than $178,000 over four years. Berea’s students excel in the College’s supportive yet demanding academic environment, and many are the first in their families to graduate college. As one of nine federally recognized Work Colleges, all Berea students hold a position in which they work 10-12 hours weekly. Washington Monthly ranked Berea College No. 1 as the Best National Liberal Arts College in 2016, 2017, 2018, and the No. 1 College in the country in terms of affordability from 2016 to 2019. Berea’s recognition comes from success in educating and graduating academically talented, low-income students who become service-oriented leaders in their professions and communities.

Located where the Bluegrass Region meets the Cumberland Mountains, the town of Berea (pop. 16,000) lies forty miles south of Lexington and is approximately two hours from Cincinnati, Louisville, and Knoxville. More information about Berea College is available at www.berea.edu.

Berea College, in light of its mission in the tradition of impartial love and social equality, welcomes all people of the earth to learn and work here.