Assistant Professor of Art, affiliated with African American Studies

Application deadline: Monday, February 20, 2023 at 11:59pm (Pacific). Apply by this date to ensure full consideration.

The Claire Trevor School of the Arts is seeking candidates to fill one Assistant Professor of Art affiliated with African American Studies position. We are seeking a visual artist exploring the multidimensional experience of Black life in the United States. The artist’s practice may be studio-based (painting, sculpture, photography, video. etc.), interdisciplinary or performative. Some dimension of the ideal candidate’s creative research should engage audiences through participatory, collaborative, or community-based projects.

The Assistant Professor will develop and teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Art. We are seeking a candidate to design some courses to be cross-listed with African American Studies, and engage with the Black Thriving Initiative and other research cluster faculty in other schools. The successful candidate will serve as an artist-in-residence at UCI Langson Institute and Museum of California Art during the first three years of the Poetic Justice Initiative and work with cluster faculty to develop relationships and programming with community-based arts organizations.

About the Department of Art. A heterogeneous group of artists and scholars, the Art Department values inquiry and experimentation over specific ideologies and intellectual methods. The faculty’s research and instruction investigate how art is made in contexts ranging from the personal to the collective, from art institutions to broader definitions of the public. The department-affiliated University Art Galleries present public exhibitions of critically engaged art and artists from both local and international art communities. The department’s curriculum emphasizes that art is not a freestanding category, but instead takes shape through its intersection with other creative practices, knowledge formations, and social domains. The Art Department has a commitment to cultivating racial justice through artistic production. Current faculty engage in a broad range of artistic practices, with strong emphases on interdisciplinary practice, experimental materiality, performance art, queer theory, post-colonial critique, and political intervention.

About the Poetic Justice Initiative & UCI’s Black Thriving Initiative. At every crucial juncture in our nation’s history, Black authors, artists and other creative workers have produced new narratives, images and social practices that challenge systemic anti-black racism and affirm Black life and humanity. This position is part of a BTI Faculty Cluster Hiring Initiative on Poetic Justice, which mobilizes a whole university approach to transform UCI into the preeminent place of higher education where black and system-impacted students, faculty and staff thrive while producing new visions of social justice. Leveraging campus-level cultural infrastructure, including the Langson Libraries and Institute and Museum of California Art, the Poetic Justice initiative is a collaboration between the Departments of African American Studies and Comparative Literature in the School of Humanities; the Department of Art in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts; the Paul Merage School of Business; and the Department of Criminology, Law and Society in the School of Social Ecology. Faculty hired as part of the cluster will develop the Poetic Justice initiative, including innovating how we study the racial effects of slavery, segregation and mass incarceration; and leading community-based activities that support the economic and cultural well-being of black communities in Southern California and beyond.

Launched in 2020 during the racial reckoning, the UCI Black Thriving Initiative mobilizes the entire university to transform UCI into the nation’s foremost destination for Black people to thrive as students, faculty, staff, and communities served by the university. To this end, it consists of three action platforms that seek to inform choices, decisions, and priorities as a great public research university. These are: change the culture, leverage the mission, and engage with communities. For more information, consult the BTI website.

Institutional Reference Check. The University of California is committed to creating and maintaining a community dedicated to the advancement, application, and transmission of knowledge and creative endeavors through academic excellence; where all individuals who participate in University programs and activities can work and learn together in a safe and secure environment, free of violence, harassment, discrimination, exploitation, or intimidation. In support of this commitment, and as a means to address all forms of academic misconduct, UC Irvine will conduct an institutional reference check on recruitment finalists of Senate Ladder-Rank Professor and Professor of Teaching series, at all ranks (i.e. assistant, associate, full), prior to extending a formal offer of appointment. Applications submitted via AP Recruit must include a signed copy of the Authorization to Release Information Form for consideration.

Basic qualifications: (required at time of application) MFA or equivalent training, and experience teaching at the post-secondary level.

Application requirements: Cover letter; Curriculum vitae; Artist statement; Teaching philosophy statement; Inclusive excellence activities statement; Portfolio; Authorization to release information form; and three references and contact information.

The University of California, Irvine is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer advancing inclusive excellence. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, protected veteran status, or other protected categories covered by the UC nondiscrimination policy.