[Air-l] ASPECT Political Theory Positions at Virginia Tech

[jeremy hunsinger]

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

Please watch for future announcements.


Jeremy Hunsinger
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
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