Description: The University of Delaware Library and the College of Arts and Sciences invite applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow of Special Collections and Digital Humanities. We seek an untenured scholar in the humanities (PhD received January 2010 – June 2016). The mission of the Fellow is to promote primary sources related to African American culture found in Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library through collaborative instruction, programming, creative outreach, and project development. The fellowship is a residential one-year academic appointment (September 2016-August 31, 2017), renewable up to three years. The PhD is the only eligible terminal degree. We are looking for an engaged humanist whose educational background suits her or him to work at the intersection of the classroom, the museum and/or archive, and the digital realm. Relevant training in programming, library sciences, computer graphics, computational linguistics, or other fields relevant to digital humanities research is desirable but not required.
This is a dual reporting line assigned to an academic department in the College of Arts and Science and Special Collections in the University of Delaware Library. The SC/DH fellow will pursue his or her own research project and teach one class per academic year that engages students with UD’s special collections materials and showcases those materials. The SC/DH fellow will also serve on and work with a budgeted committee made up of library staff and UD humanities faculty designed to coordinate classes, projects, exhibitions, lectures, and public events related to UD’s special collections.
The successful candidate will demonstrate a deep working knowledge of UD Library’s Special Collections holdings, particularly African American sources http://library.udel.edu/spec Applicants must submit a plan for two classes (one undergraduate and one graduate class) that will make use of these sources, particularly the Alice Dunbar Nelson papers and the Gregory C. Wilson collection of African-American postcards and trade cards. The letter of application should be specific in describing the intersection of personal research interests with primary sources available in Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library.
Qualifications: PhD in a humanities discipline received January 2010–June 2016; experience with archival research and use of primary sources in personal scholarship; experience with digital platforms and technologies, especially in the area of teaching; experience in teaching undergraduates; strong computer skills, including fluency in platforms such as Omeka, Scripto, WordPress, Adobe Creative Suite, and video and audio editing software.
General Information: The University of Delaware has a long tradition of excellence beginning in 1743 and extending to the research-intensive, technologically advanced institution of today. The University provides a broad range of academic programs at the undergraduate, master, and doctoral levels. There are over 1,100 full-time faculty and 4,000 staff serving a student body of over 21,000. Located in Newark, Delaware, with its 970-acre campus, the University of Delaware is situated one hour from Philadelphia and two hours from New York and Washington, D.C.
The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) encourages and supports innovative interdisciplinary collaborations and engagement with local, national and global audiences through research and creative activity. Humanities departments include Art Conservation; Art History; English; History; Languages, Literature and Cultures; and Philosophy. CAS includes numerous interdisciplinary Programs and Centers, such as the renowned Center for Material Culture Studies, the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and Museum Studies. http://www.cas.udel.edu
Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library houses the rare books, special topical collections, manuscripts, archives, photographs, maps, graphic materials, ephemera collections, audio-visual materials, and electronic records that comprise the primary historical sources and special collecting areas of the Library. Special Collections has significant holdings related to History and Delawareana; Chemistry; history of Science and Technology; the fine, decorative, and applied Arts; English, American, and Irish literature; and Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. These collecting areas focus on the University’s program strengths of the such as Chemistry, Engineering, the Hagley Graduate Program in History, the Longwood program in Public Horticulture, the Winterthur programs in American Material Culture and Art Conservation, and more. http://library.udel.edu/spec/
The University of Delaware Library collections, which are broadly based and comprehensive, include over 2.8 million volumes. The Library (http://library.udel.edu) makes accessible a broad range of electronic resources, including approximately 50,000 electronic and print journals, over 370 databases, and over 26,000 videos. In 2014, the University of Delaware Library became the first member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to replace its traditional Library Information System with OCLC’s WMS (WorldShare Management Services) cloud-based system. The Library is a member of ARL, Center for Research Libraries, Coalition for Networked Information, Council on Library and Information Resources, Digital Library Federation, OCLC Research Partnership, SPARC, HathiTrust, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, and the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL). Recent projects at the Library have included the use of Omeka for online exhibits and support for the Colored Conventions digital humanities project. Ongoing projects include enhancements to the institutional repository UDSpace and direct linking to digital collections stored in Artstor and UDSpace. For information about DH at UD, please visit http://www.ihrc.udel.edu and http://guides.lib.udel.edu/digitalhumanities
Benefits: Vacation of 22 working days. TIAA-CREF or Fidelity retirement with 11% of salary contributed by the University. Tuition remission for dependents and spouses, and course fee waiver for employee. Full information about University of Delaware benefits is available online: http://www.udel.edu/Benefits/
To Apply: Please submit the following in a single document (PDF) following University of Delaware application instructions at http://www.udel.edu/udjobs/
- Complete curriculum vita
- Letter of application that discusses areas of research and teaching, along with experience with digital tools and pedagogy. Please be specific in noting the platforms and tools (software, applications, interfaces) with which you have experience and the level of your experience (no more than 2 pages)
- The names and contact information of three employment references
Equal Employment Opportunity: Employment offers will be conditioned upon successful completion of a criminal background check. A conviction will not necessarily exclude you from employment. The University of Delaware is an Equal Opportunity Employer which encourages applications from Minority Group Members, Women, Individuals with Disabilities and Veterans. The University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination can be found at http://www.udel.edu/aboutus/legalnotices.html library.udel