Schusterman seeks director

The University is engaged in a search for a new director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies to replace Prof. Ilan Troen '63 (NEJS), who is stepping down after eight years as director. Troen will continue to serve on the faculty of the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department.

In an email to the Justice, Troen explained his plan to continue teaching and mentoring students. "I have concluded two terms as director and explained at the beginning of my second term that I would not wish to serve further. I will continue with a phased retirement so I will continue to teach for a number of years. I have outstanding doctoral students and wish to continue to work with them," he wrote.

Troen also mentioned that upon stepping down from the directorship, he will serve as president of the Association for Israel Studies, of which he currently serves as the vice president.

"I graduate[d] with a B.A. from Brandeis and relish my connection with the university. In one way or another I will continue to be connected for some time," he wrote.

Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman (NEJS) chairs the search committee for a new director. In an interview with the Justice, she reported that the search committee was in the middle of the search process. The final candidate, she said, will not necessarily be hired into the NEJS department but rather the department most relevant to the new director's research interests.

AAAS and WGS search for joint assistant prof

As part of a cluster hiring initiative around the theme of the African diaspora, the African and Afro-American Studies department and the Women's and Gender Studies program are jointly conducting a search for a tenure-track faculty member to specialize in women's and gender studies in relation to the African or Afro-American community.

The new professor will divide his or her time equally between the AAAS department and the WGS program, according to Prof. Wendy Cadge (SOC), chair of the Women's and Gender Studies program.

Prof. Chad Williams (AAAS), the chair of the AAAS department and co-chair of the search committee, said in an interview with the Justice that the committee has narrowed down its original applicant pool of almost 250 applications to three finalists, who will be visiting campus and delivering lectures in the next couple of weeks as a part of the interview process. The lectures are open to the campus community.

Williams stated that each of the three finalists fills "a gap in our curriculum ... particularly in sociology, performance and the creative arts, [and] queer studies. These are all areas that we feel very strongly about, that students need to be exposed to."

Cadge also addressed the importance of having a joint appointment between AAAS and WGS. "[The] WGS and AAAS programs saw an opportunity to greater combine their research and teaching by sharing a faculty member with expertise in both areas. It also adds to the commitments in both programs/departments to address issues of intersectionality," she wrote in an email to the Justice.

Cadge also wrote that the new faculty member is expected to "teach core courses in WGS in both the undergraduate and graduate programs and actively advise and mentor students" alongside new electives which will be "determined based on their expertise."

Williams expressed a similar expectation for the professor's involvement in the AAAS department. "We would like for the person who accepts the position to be able to teach our Introduction to African-American Studies course, which is one of our foundational courses. But we're really leaving it open to the person that we hire to shape their own courses according to their expertise and their interests as well," he said.

Williams said that he expects the new professor to begin teaching at the University in the coming fall. According to Cadge, the three finalists are as follows: Jasmine Johnson of Northwestern University, will give a lecture, entitled "Choreographing Return: West African Dance Tourism and the Politics of Diaspora," on Jan. 15 at 12 p.m. in Mandel 328. Kai Green of the University of Southern California will give a lecture, entitled "In the Presence of a Future Past: Black Los Angeles' Queer Recoveries," on Jan. 22 at 12 p.m. in Pearlman Lounge.
Kiana Cox of the University of Illinois at Chicago will give a lecture entitled "Visible but Out of Place: Black Women and Gender in Assessments of African-American Inequality" on Jan. 24 at 2 p.m. in Mandel 328.

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Hebrew language program looks to fill vacancy

The Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department is conducting a search for a new director of its Hebrew language program following the departure of former Director Prof. Vardit Ringvald (NEJS) at the end of last year. In an email to the Justice, Ringvald wrote that she was invited by the president of Middlebury College to create a research institute at Middlebury "for the advancement of Hebrew and to become a research professor." She has also been serving as the director of the Brandeis University-Middlebury School of Hebrew, which is a part of the Middlebury Language Schools. Ringvald had taught at Brandeis since 1985, having served as the director of the Hebrew language program since 1995. This year, the program has been co-directed in the interim by Profs. Ilana Szobel (NEJS) and Sara Hascal (NEJS). A job posting online for the position indicates that first consideration would be given to applications submitted by Jan. 6.

Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman (NEJS), the chairwoman of the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department, said that a search committee is gathering applications and beginning to look at applications received. The position requires teaching four courses each year and supervising the Hebrew language program. The Hebrew language program is larger than other language programs on campus because it provides instruction for both the undergraduate program in Hebrew and several graduate programs, including the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership program, the NEJS graduate programs and the DeLet graduate program for training Jewish day school teachers.

The job description says that candidates holding doctoral degrees are preferred, and the committee is willing to hire a professor either inside or outside of the tenure structure. Ringvald wrote that she was not a tenured faculty member at the University.

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Search for new historian in final stages

The History department is conducting a search for a new tenure-track historian of Latin America as a part of an ongoing cluster hire initiative around the theme of the African diaspora.
Prof. David Engerman (HIST), the chair of the search committee, wrote in an email to the Justice that the committee read through over 100 applications and has narrowed the pool down to three finalists, who will be visiting campus and delivering lectures over the next three weeks.

The lectures will be open to the campus community.

Engerman explained that the new professor will fill a vacancy created by the retirement last year of Prof. Emerita Silvia Arrom (HIST).

Arrom specialized in Latin American women's history, although Engerman wrote that the search committee expressed a "preference for scholars who focus on the Caribbean or African diaspora in any part of Latin America."

The position will be entirely within the History department and will not have formal responsibilities within the African and Afro-American Studies department. However, Prof. Chad Williams (AAAS), the chair of the AAAS department, said in an interview with the Justice that he expected the new professor to have some degree of involvement with his department. "It's entirely reasonable that some of the courses that individual teaches would be cross-listed in AAAS. I don't think they'll have an expectation to teach courses that are directly in the department, but that might change in the future," he said.
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