POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE

Rutgers University • New Brunswick, NJ

40d • $70,000

About The Position

The Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University-New Brunswick seeks to appoint two external Postdoctoral Associates for a year-long residential fellowship during academic year 2026-27. Successful candidates may come from any relevant discipline. All requirements for the PhD or other terminal degree in the relevant field must be completed by August 1, 2026. A record of publication and scholarly engagement relevant to the seminar's topic is required. During the academic year, Postdoctoral Associates will attend a bi-monthly research seminar, present their own work, and organize a symposium. CCA Postdoctoral Associates receive a salary of $70,000.00, health benefits, a private office, and administrative support. Fellows normally teach 1 undergraduate course during their fellowship year. Since the CCA Postdoctoral Associate position is considered a residential appointment, candidates must agree to establish residency within a forty-mile radius of the New Brunswick campus during the 2026-27 academic year. Please submit a cover letter, CV, 250-400 word abstract of your research project, a research statement (no more than 4 single-spaced pages), and a brief description of an undergraduate course you would like to teach. Three confidential letters of recommendation must be uploaded by your references. Theme for 2026-27: Translation Directed by Preetha Mani and Jeffrey Lawrence Translation has been central to the global history of cultural exchange, and translators pivotal to navigating social, political, and religious divides. While professionalization and advocacy movements have brought greater visibility to the field, recent scholarship has put pressure on the concept of translation, arguing that we should move beyond traditional understandings of the term as the simple rendering of one language into another. In this seminar, we plan to build on this exciting intellectual entry point by focusing on the role that translation has played across academic, artistic, and everyday spaces. How does translation function in each of these environments? How do different disciplinary engagements with translation relate to and inform one another? How do daily practices of translation shape literary, visual, and political culture? Our approach to what counts as translation is chronologically and conceptually open-spanning ancient to modern periods as well as plurilingual sites and more contingent zones of linguistic fluidity (for example, spaces such as Rutgers itself, where 68% of undergraduates speak a language other than English at home, or geographically contingent regions such as diasporas or "the Americas"). We hope that deeper attention to practices of translation-including (but not limited to) translingualism, code-switching, AI-generated translation, literary translation, legal translation, ethnographic transcription, film subtitling, intermedial adaptation, religious exegesis, and even acts of political and cultural representation-will allow us to consider how seemingly monolingual spaces are often, at heart, constituted through translation. At the same time, we suggest that foregrounding processes of translation can radically revise the conventional view of translation as a straightforward transfer of meaning between two linguistically equivalent cultural systems.

Requirements

• All requirements for the PhD or other terminal degree in the relevant field must be completed by August 1, 2026.
• A record of publication and scholarly engagement relevant to the seminar's topic is required.
• Candidates must agree to establish residency within a forty-mile radius of the New Brunswick campus during the 2026-27 academic year.

Responsibilities

• Attend a bi-monthly research seminar
• Present their own work
• Organize a symposium
• Teach 1 undergraduate course during their fellowship year

Benefits

• health benefits
• private office
• administrative support
• Medical, prescription drug, and dental coverage
• Paid vacation, holidays, and various leave programs
• Competitive retirement benefits, including defined contribution plans and voluntary tax-deferred savings options
• Employee and dependent educational benefits
• Life insurance coverage
• Employee discounts programs

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Industry: Educational Services
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees