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@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@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@vt.edu]; 2 in Political Theory [contact: Tim Luke, or twluke@vt.edu], 1 in History [contact Dan Thorp, or wachau@v.tedu], 1 in Interdisciplinary Studies [contact: Betty Fine, or bfine@vt.edu], and 1 in Government and International Affairs [contact: Krystal Wright, or krystal@vt.edu]. 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