Position Summary

The Department of English at Michigan State University invites applications from writers of any genre (including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and graphic or transmedia narrative) and those who undertake cross-genre and multi-disciplinary literary practices. We are eager to support a writer who, through their literary practice, inventive curation, editing, and/or scholarship, is actively nurturing the political and cultural work that literature can accomplish. We are seeking a writer who is poised to contribute to the transformative potential of literary practice in and for Native and American Indigenous communities and advance important innovations in the field of American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Our future-colleague will join us at either the Assistant or Associate Professor rank, in a position supported by the Audrey and John Leslie Endowment. The endowment advances research and creative production in North American Literary Studies.

The course load for tenure system faculty would be 2/1 on a semesterly system. Our colleague would teach courses in the Creative Writing program, where self-expression lives alongside political expression, and where we view writing both as a tool of personal inquiry and growth, and as a tool for critical, social investigation. They would also teach Literary Studies courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in both the English Department and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program. We are particularly eager to hear from writers whose literary practice and creative citizenship engages tribal communities, and those whose publications, performance, and cultural work are cultivating new growth in the fields of North American Indian literary studies, heritage language revitalization, translation, environmental and ecocritical studies, social justice studies, popular culture, gender studies, digital humanities, or film studies.

We are excited to work with a writer who will foster their own visionary capacity in shaping the Department’s aims of democratizing access to liberal education and generating knowledge that enriches life and makes a social difference. They will be supported in imagining meaningful and funded collaboration with the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program, the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, and the Native American Institute. They can also rely on long-standing relationships between the Department and other MSU units that value creative interdisciplinarity and research towards an expansive vision of literary studies that centers cultural and linguistic diversity, including the Residential College of Arts and Humanities’ Center for Poetry, the Department of African and African American Studies, Global Studies, the Asian Pacific American Studies, the Chicano/Latino Studies and Muslim Studies programs, the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, and The Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures (WRAC).  

The salary for this position is competitive, commensurate with rank and experience. Along with well-facilitated access to internal grants, ample start-up funding for travel and research, and access to funding to create literary readings and symposia, our colleague’s creative and programming activity would be financially enriched by the Audrey and John Leslie Endowment.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, age, disability or protected veteran status.

Required Degree

Doctorate

Minimum Requirements

Successful applicants will have earned either an MFA or PhD, or will have an MA and a robust body of creative and/or scholarly publication and/or performance. They will also have significant teaching experience in higher education and/or in Indigenous communities.

Required Application Materials

Applications should include:

• a letter describing their creative and pedagogical practices;
• a current curriculum vitae;
• a writing sample (in any genre) of approximately 25-30 pages;
• the names and email addresses of 4 advocates or witnesses of their professional/communal work and practice;
• and a statement on leading and teaching in diverse pedagogical, communal, and institutional environments.  This statement should also include evidence of a demonstrated record of active engagement with North American Indian tribal communities

Special Instructions

Review of applications will begin October 1, 2024, and will continue until the position is filled. Applications must be submitted electronically to the Michigan State University Human Resources website (https://careers.msu.edu/). Posting #968641. For more information, contact Divya Victor, Chair of the Search Committee at victordi@msu.edu.

Persons with disabilities have the right to request and receive reasonable accommodation

Review of Applications Begins On

10/01/2024

Department Statement

The College of Arts & Letters recognizes that only an academic and organizational culture which actively seeks out and strengthens diverse voices and perspectives among its members results in true excellence. The College of Arts & Letters is particularly interested in candidates of all backgrounds who are committed to the principle that intellectual leadership is achieved through open access and pro-active inclusion.

The Department of English at Michigan State University champions teaching practices that acknowledge difference and advance equal access to education. Through the study of literature and film, our curriculum inspires discussions about race, ethnicity, gender, class, sex, sexuality, ability, and religion. Our teaching, scholarship, and service are explicitly committed to advancing equity and justice and questioning established power structures. We foster curiosity through the study of literature and film and through creative production. We endorse the principle of education for institutional change, aimed at ending exclusionary practices and creating a more equitable academic environment.

We teach critical thinking and creative problem solving—skills essential to democratic social engagement. We value research that informs public debate and empowers future scholars and artists to generate transformative methodologies. By going beyond conventional approaches to the arts and humanities, our faculty and students examine the political and social power of language and images, and analyze how cultural expression can serve to reproduce injustices. We also explore how pedagogy, literature, film, and art often expose and resist systemic inequalities.

Our professional service and community outreach are grounded in the principle of social awareness, and guided by honesty, transparency, integrity. We support efforts that urge the University to examine its institutional practices and values, and that address historical biases and ongoing discrimination. When appropriate we engage the broader community in conversations concerning cultural and political inequities. Our aim is to foster an educational experience that is wholly informed by upholding equity and justice.

MSU Statement

Michigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for more than 160 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery and forges enduring partnerships to solve the most pressing global challenges while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.