Postdoctoral Fellowship

Literature, Film, or Cultural Studies

Lakehead University, Orillia Campus

2 Year Contract

Application Deadline: Thursday, June 16, 2022 – 4:30pm

A Canadian-based environmental humanities research team invites applications for a two-year full-time postdoctoral researcher to contribute to a collaborative research project entitled “Racialized Ecologies in and Beyond Settler-Colonial Canada: Documentary, Speculative, and Poetic Texts and Contexts.”

Qualifications:

Candidates must have:

1. Specialized knowledge in an area of Indigenous, Black, Asian, Latinx, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, global, postcolonial, or diasporic literary, film, or cultural studies relevant to Canada. Period open.
2. Specialized knowledge in documentary, speculative, narrative, and/or poetic modes of cultural production (at least one)
3. Demonstrated expertise with Indigenous, race, ethnic, and/or settler-colonialism studies;
4. A PhD in English, Cultural Studies, Film, Indigenous Studies, or cognate field received no earlier than July 1, 2017
5. An interest in environmental justice.

These additional qualifications are preferred:

1. A background in the environmental humanities (training will be provided)
2. Familiarity with digital projects (training will be provided).

Responsibilities:

• Develop and undertake research for a case study that brings one of your own areas of expertise into understanding the racialized ecologies that subtend the Canadian nation-building project, including, where relevant, material or contexts sited outside Canada.
• Contribute to theorizing how the team’s studied creative texts and research questions may present new approaches to the documentary, poetic, and speculative in literature and film and to the methods and contexts studied in the environmental humanities.
• Contribute to gathering and interpreting a mixed-source archive of literary, cultural, and policy texts on periodized conjunctures of colonialism, labour and immigration management, technoscience, and ecological transformation.
• Contribute to team knowledge-sharing and research mobilization efforts, including planning team workshops, helping the preparation of a digital archive (training provided), managing and co-editing a journal special issue, and writing, presenting, and publishing a paper and co-written chapter.

Research team: Dr. Cheryl Lousley (Lakehead), primary supervisor; Dr. Tania Aguila-Way (Toronto), Dr. Renae Watchman (McMaster), Dr. Anita Girvan (Athabasca), Dr. Susie O’Brien (McMaster), Dr. Nandini Thiyagarajan (Acadia), Dr. Joanne Leow (Saskatchewan)

• We commit to providing mentored support and a collaborative academic environment in which to do research and to develop experience in project management and knowledge mobilization. We aim to support emerging researchers launch their careers, including through the opportunity to work with Indigenous and racialized scholars with expertise across the identified areas of literature and film.
• We are prioritizing racialized and/or Indigenous researchers for this position.

Location: English Department, Lakehead University, Orillia, Ontario, Canada (1.5 hours north of Toronto)

Salary: CAN $40,000 p.a., plus full health benefits, vacation, conference and professional development travel, book fund, laptop computer, cost of living increase. Full-time employee at 35 hours/week for 24 months. Possible option to teach a course as an additional paid contract.

Start date: September 1, 2022 (negotiable)

Application:

In one pdf file, please send to Dr. Cheryl Lousley at clousley [@] lakeheadu . ca

• Cover letter outlining qualifications, as listed above, and why you think this position is a good fit for your expertise and interests (a case study proposal is not required or expected)
• Curriculum Vitae
• One relevant writing sample (e.g., journal article, conference paper, or dissertation chapter)

Please also arrange three academic letters of recommendation to be sent to Dr. Cheryl Lousley at clousley@lakeheadu.ca by June 23, 2022.

Deadline: Applications will be considered on a rolling basis beginning June 16th, 2022.

Feature Image: Orillia Ontario Canada ~ Leacock Museum ~ Boat House by Onasill ~ Bill. Flickr Commons.