ASPECT Political Theory Positions
-----Position 1
The Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech invites
applications for a tenure track appointment in the field of Political
Theory for an open rank, tenured or tenure-track position, depending
upon qualifications, at rank of Full Professor, Associate Professor, or
Assistant Professor, beginning August 10, 2005.
Required qualifications: Earned doctorate in political science, or a
closely related field, at the time of application with a clearly
defined specialization in the area of political theory and demonstrated
effectiveness in both research and teaching at the undergraduate and
graduate level. Applicants at the Full or Associate Professor level
must have a widely recognized reputation for excellence at research,
teaching, and service.
Desired qualifications: Preference will be given to candidates whose
research specialization is political theory, but the candidate must be
able to teach our undergraduate core courses on the history of
political thought.
Position: The successful candidate will be expected to have a
substantial established research record that can help anchor Virginia
Tech's planned interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in the humanities and
social sciences, ASPECT (Alliance for Social Political Ethical and
Cultural Thought). Secondary areas outside theory that are potentially
desirable (but not necessary) include politics of science and
technology, environmental affairs, public law, and international
relations/comparative politics.
Applicants must submit a cover letter, current CV, graduate
transcripts (for Assistant Professor level applicants only), a writing
sample, and teaching evaluations. Those applying at the Assistant
Professor rank also should obtain three letters of recommendation,
while those applying at the tenured Associate or Full Professor rank
should send a list of three professional references with complete
contact information. Screening of applications will begin January 15,
2005 and continue until the position is filled. Send materials to:
Timothy W. Luke, Political Theory Search Committee, Department of
Political Science, Virginia Tech, 531 Major Williams Hall (0130),
Blacksburg, VA 24061.
For information regarding the position contact Professor Luke (email:
twluke(a)vt.edu; phone: 540-231-6633)
----- Position 2
The Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech invites
applications for a tenure track appointment in the field of Political
Theory at the level of Assistant Professor, beginning August 10, 2005.
Required qualifications: Earned doctorate in political science at the
time of application with a clearly defined area of specialization in
political theory, and demonstrated experience in both research and
teaching.
Desired qualifications: Preference will be given to candidates whose
research specialization is political theory, and the candidate must be
able to teach our undergraduate core courses in the history of
political thought.
Position: The successful candidate will be expected to have an active
and substantial research program, and to contribute to Virginia Tech's
planned interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in the humanities and social
sciences, ASPECT (Alliance for Social Political Ethical and Cultural
Thought). Secondary areas outside theory that are potentially desirable
(but not necessary) include the politics of science and technology,
environmental affairs, public law, or American political thought.
Applicants must submit a cover letter, current CV, graduate
transcripts, a writing sample, teaching evaluations, and three letters
of recommendation. Screening of applications will begin January 15,
2005 and continue until the position is filled. Send materials to:
Timothy W. Luke, Political Theory Search Committee, Department of
Political Science, Virginia Tech, 531 Major Williams Hall (0130),
Blacksburg, VA 24061.
For information regarding the position contact Professor Luke (email:
twluke(a)vt.edu; phone: 540-231-6633).
**************************************************************
ASPECT: Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought
An innovative new interdisciplinary Ph.D. program is being launched at
Virginia Tech in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences in
collaboration with the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and
the Pamplin College of Business. It has been has approved by the
Provost's Office as well as Society, Culture, and Environment:
Administrative Coordinating Council for the Arts, Humanities, and
Social Sciences (SCE/ACCAHSS) at Virginia Tech for full implementation
in 2004-225 and will enroll students as early as 2006.
ASPECT, or the Alliance for Social Political Ethical and Cultural
Thought, allies together a multi-disciplinary coalition of departments:
History, Interdisciplinary Studies, Philosophy, and Political Science.
This program, however, will be as much, or even more, engaged with the
arts and humanities, as it will be, with the social sciences. And, it
must engage with other faculty members from outside this
interdisciplinary departmental cluster who wish to get involved.
Faculty and students in this program will conduct research and
participate in graduate seminars about new interesting theoretical
problems developing at the intersections of political theory, ethical
philosophy, cultural studies, and intellectual history as researchers
in these fields of scholarship grapple with such issues as state
sovereignty, religion and politics, comparative ethics, security and
democracy, material culture, science and technology, global change,
identity and otherness, environmental crisis, networks and states, or
corporate power.
As a new scholarly project, ASPECT will not neglect the rich
traditions of earlier approaches to cultural analysis, intellectual
history, ethical philosophy, social theory, or political philosophy,
but it also will not preoccupy itself with the small conversations that
have often sidetracked, or even sidelined, these fields to the confines
of their nineteenth century academic beginnings in the first research
universities of Europe and North America. For example, with regard to
ethical or political philosophy, ASPECT will not fixate upon the
typically more narrow engagements with highly specialized academic
debates about abstract normative imperatives, collective choice models,
post-positivist methodological skirmishes, or traditional historical
exegesis. Instead, it should return to broader concerns with values and
power and their various effects in contemporary states and societies.
ASPECT, then, will involve its participants in such larger aspirations
to mobilize all of the arts, humanities or humanistic social sciences
to analyze vital pressing public and private questions of governance,
identity, order, and purpose in the post-9.11.01 world. Wealth, race,
knowledge, gender, class, and power remain active as the mental and
material means of creating inequality and order. Yet, these forces
often are not truly at the center of serious critical reflections in
contemporary universities that have academic programs or disciplinary
departments meant to understand and alter their effects. The ASPECT
program will work to find that center, and then use the tools of
social, political, ethical, and cultural theory to engage its faculty
members and graduate students in new interdisciplinary efforts, first,
to understand how these forces work and, second, to develop theoretical
and practical alternative paths for changing their outcomes.
At the same time, as ASPECT returns to more engaged involvements in
the everyday world to face these intellectual and practical challenges
head-on, it will be ecumenical about what constitutes a meaningful text
for analysis. Print documents cannot be ignored, but systems of thought
operate through many other material modes of action, articulation, and
authority. Whether symbolic expression, philosophical textuality,
power/knowledge, or evaluative order are discovered in artifacts,
artworks, buildings, codes, commodities, environments, films,
ideologies, institutions, machines, networks, organizations, religions,
or technics, almost any symbolic system or structure will be regarded
as worthy of careful scholarly analysis by ASPECT faculty and students.
The ASPECT project will examine and evaluate all of these collective
sites, structures or systems as instances for the critical analysis of
social, political, ethical, and cultural thought in action.
It is expected that the ASPECT program will cooperate extensively with
Virginia Tech's other equally interdisciplinary programs in the arts,
humanities, and social sciences. These potential collaborative
partners are to be found in the departments and programs that offer
existing and/or new doctoral degrees in Sociology, Science and
Technology in Society, Public Administration and Public Policy,
Management, Governance and Globalization, Environmental Design and
Planning, Economics as well as Architectural Design and Representation.
This year the ASPECT program at Virginia Tech will be hiring seven
positions -- 1 in Political Philosophy, 1 in Ethical Theory [contact:
Anne Margaret Baxley or ambaxley(a)vt.edu] 2 in Political Theory
[contact: Tim Luke, or twluke(a)vt.edu] 1 in History [contact Dan Thorp,
or wachau(a)v.tedu] 1 in Interdisciplinary Studies [contact: Betty Fine,
or bfine(a)vt.edu] and 1 in Government and International Affairs
[contact: Krystal Wright, or krystal(a)vt.edu]
Please watch for future announcements.
Jeremy Hunsinger
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
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