Lehigh University seeks applications for a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Research Scholar in digital humanities and community engagement beginning August 2016. The annual salary is $50,000 with full benefits.

For more than a century, mighty Bethlehem Steel anchored Lehigh University’s hometown, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Now that the Steel is gone, Bethlehem is experiencing the economic, social and cultural transformations of a city in transition to a post-industrial future. Lehigh faculty, staff and students have begun telling the city’s story using new digital media forms, chronicling the near universal themes of a community grappling with compelling issues of social justice and its own evolving history.

We seek a postdoctoral scholar well-versed in digital media, methods and technologies, with scholarly interest in one or more of the following areas: documentary studies, community engagement, urban studies and social justice. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in documentary film or digital storytelling. The scholar will pursue digital humanities scholarship, teach one undergraduate course each semester, contribute to workshops in partnership with the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, and work one-on-one to help faculty integrate digital media into their courses. The scholar will also take the lead in organizing a conference at Lehigh during the Spring semester of 2018 that will provide a showcase for student, faculty and community work and a forum for interaction with nationally and internationally recognized figures in digital humanities.

The goal is to drive expansion of an undergraduate humanities curriculum that engages the local community, equips more faculty with enhanced skill sets in digital humanities forms, amplifies undergraduate humanities research, and leads to the development of an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in documentary studies.

The position is open to candidates with a Ph.D. received between August 2013 and August 2016. We seek scholars from a wide range of humanities disciplines as well as the humanistic social sciences.

Please submit to this website:

• a cover letter
• vita dissertation abstract
• project description
• contact information for three academic references who will be prompted via email to submit letters electronically.

The deadline for receipt of all materials is March 15, 2016. Inquiries should be directed to Professor Edward Whitley.