Sanctuary Spaces Postdoctoral Fellowship
SANCTUARY SPACES POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the University of California, Los Angeles, a Sawyer Seminar grant for the theme, Sanctuary Spaces: Reworlding Humanism. Led by Ananya Roy, Leisy Abrego, Gaye Theresa Johnson, and Maite Zubiaurre, the seminar will support the gathering of a diverse range of scholars, artists, and activists from different disciplines and theoretical traditions in shared inquiry. Such work, taking place over the course of a year (from spring 2020 through winter 2021), will include public events, faculty and graduate student reading groups, artistic performances and exhibitions, and academic and public scholarship.
Thinking across Europe and the United States, the UCLA Sawyer Seminar will examine sanctuary policies and practices at the scale of cities. Situated at the present historical moment of resurgent white nationalism and xenophobia, Sanctuary Spaces will cast a light on migration regimes and state power as well as on the forms of local and transnational activism that create spaces of refuge. With a critical lens around histories of colonial dispossession and racial capitalism, this seminar series is ultimately concerned with the place of racial others—the border-crosser, the asylum-seeker, the refugee—in the liberal democracies of the West. What are the terms of inclusion, integration, community, and hospitality through which protection is extended to such racial others, and what are the enduring limits of such protection? How does a critical understanding of Western humanism make possible frameworks of redress, justice, and democracy that take account of colonialism and imperialism?
The Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA, Luskin, which will house the Sanctuary Spaces Sawyer Seminar, invites applications for a postdoctoral fellowship. The postdoctoral fellow is expected to be in residence at the institute for the entire duration of the fellowship and to be a core part of the seminar. In addition to a research agenda that contributes directly to the Sanctuary Spaces Sawyer Seminar, the postdoctoral fellow will work closely with the faculty leaders to ensure the success of the year-long program. This will include convening faculty and graduate student reading groups, organizing public events in collaboration with university and community partners, mentoring graduate students, and conceptualizing and contributing to academic and public scholarship that disseminates the work of the Sanctuary Spaces Sawyer Seminar. Community partnerships are central to this endeavor, and the postdoctoral fellow will be expected to build and deepen alliances in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
The Sanctuary Spaces postdoctoral fellowship will commence on 1 January 2020 and end on 30 June 2021. To be eligible for consideration, applicants must provide evidence of completion of a doctoral degree by 31 December 2019 and within the past ten years and must have no more than five years of cumulative postdoctoral research experience, including postdoctoral service at other institutions.
Applicants must confirm that they will be in residence at UCLA during the entire duration of the fellowship. The postdoctoral fellowship will be supervised by Ananya Roy, the faculty director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA, Luskin, and will also be connected to other faculty mentors, identified by applicants, at UCLA. Salaries for postdoctoral fellowships are set by UCLA and details on appointment types and scales can be found here.
Click here to apply via the institute’s Web site with the following materials: A full CV; a 2–3-page statement outlining plans for postdoctoral research as well as potential contributions to the Sanctuary Spaces Sawyer Seminar; a relevant publication or writing sample; the names of, and contact information for, three references, including e-mail addresses and phone numbers; evidence of completion of doctoral degree by 31 December 2019 and within the past ten years.
Applications must be completed by 15 November 2019 at 5:00 p.m. PST. References for short-listed applications will be contacted between 15 November and 25 November 2019.