Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Digital Humanities, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, MIT

MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences announces a one-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Digital Humanities to begin September 1, 2020.

Founded in 2018 with a $1.3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the MIT Programs in Digital Humanities (https://digitalhumanities.mit.edu) aim to advance computational methods and digital approaches to humanistic inquiry through code, communication, and community. Taking advantage of MIT’s rich STEM expertise, the DH lab is centered on a diverse group of undergraduate research associates (over 70% female and 35% underrepresented minorities) who work closely with postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, faculty, and staff on groundbreaking research and teaching projects in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Position

We seek a dynamic teacher-scholar who complements existing research and teaching excellence in the lab and SHASS. Applicants for the 2020–21 fellowship are welcomed from the following areas:

• African American Studies
• History
• Linguistics
• Musicology and Music Theory
• Philosophy
• Theater and Performance Studies

This position is the equivalent of a half-time teaching load. Fellows are expected to divide their time equally between pursuing their own research projects and supporting the work of the lab. Fellows will also be active members of our intellectual community, invited to present on their research during the tenure of their fellowship and to attend other lab-hosted events.

Annual salary is $70,000, plus benefits. Additional funding for research and travel may be available by application.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in any of the relevant humanities disciplines or a related field: African American Studies, History, Linguistics, Music, Philosophy, or Theater and Performance Studies.
• Prior experience uniting computational methods with humanistic applications is essential. Possible areas of technical interest include but are not limited to machine learning; natural language processing; computer vision and image processing; spatial humanities, mapping, and GIS; data visualization; creative computing; computational textual study and topic modeling; network analysis; digital editing; and cultural analytics.
• Experience in undergraduate teaching and demonstration of pedagogical innovation desirable.
• Excellent analytical and writing skills; experience addressing non-academic audiences welcome.
• Desire to work collaboratively and across disciplines.
• Flexibility and the capacity to learn quickly.

• Ph.D. granted between January 1, 2017 and June 30, 2020. Only candidates with degree in hand will be considered.
• Only US citizens and those with permission to work in the US are eligible.
• This position is based in Cambridge, MA but flexible homeworking will be considered for the current academic year (2020–21).

Please submit the following application materials to Academic Jobs Online no later than July 6 for full consideration:

• Cover letter addressing qualifications and indicating a proposed research project to be pursued during the fellowship.
• CV.
• Excerpt from the dissertation or other relevant publication of no more than 5,000 words.
• Portfolio of any online or computational projects or publications.
• Two letters of recommendation.

Any questions may be directed to Nicole Fountain at digitalhumanities-admin@mit.edu. Further information about MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences can be found here: https://shass.mit.edu/.