Here on SM we don’t normally post job openings, and of course as anthropologists we find exoticizing far away places both politically suspect and pretty boring, since for many of us places like Vanuatu or Mauritius don’t seem that exotic. However at the risk of denying coevalness with my trans-caucasian colleagues I do have to pass along this one:
JOB: Visiting Assistant Professor, Cultural Anthropology and/or Archeology
American University – Central Asia, Bishkek, KyrgyzstanThe Department of Cultural Anthropology and Archeology of “American University – Central Asia”:http://www.auca.kg/ invites applications for a one-year position with the possibility of renewal, made possible with funding from the Soros Foundation HESP Academic Fellowship Program.
We request that applications be directed to the HESP address given (online or by mail), but please also submit a brief description (~! 3-4 paragraphs) describing research interests, publications and courses taught, along with a CV, to the department of CAA by email at CAA@mail.auca.kg with AFP APPLICATION in the subject line.
Full application information for the International Scholars Fellowship program is “available online”:http://www.soros.org/initiatives/hesp/focus/afp/grants/isfp
Contact Info:
Open Society Institute
Higher Education Support Program
Academic Fellowship Program
P.O. Box 519
H-1397 Budapest
Hungary
As an Owen Lattimore fanboy I’ve always been interested in Central Asia — my “first novel”:http://www.lulu.com/content/128306 is set in Xinjiang and Bukhara. I think it would incredibly cool to teach there, especially at a place which is (as far as I can tell) getting off the ground and making things happen. While I am not sure exactly what it would be, I am certain it would not be boring.
So: Bishkek anybody? If you get hired as a result of a Savage Minds posting then drop us a line to let us know — we’ll make tshirts to celebrate the occasion.
Mennonites as a plot device! an overlooked gambit in most novel-writing. While in Paraguay I read _Escape Across the Amur River_ — a first-hand Mennonite account of an actual journey across the Russian/Chinese Siberian border — which I’d be happy to pass along should a second novel be in progress and in need of additional source material.
Actually AUCA has been around for a while now. It used to be AUK. Out of 75 jobs I applied to last year it was the only place that even gave me an interview. Needless to say I still did not get the job. Even American universities abroad value teaching over publication.
There were Mennonite settlements in Kygyzstan. But, most of them converted to Baptism in the years after WWII. By 1 September 1981 there were only 602 Mennonites living in Kyrgyzstan in registered congregations versus 4,175 German Baptists. Soviet records show another 232 Mennonites in unregistered, i.e. “underground” congregations in Kyrgyzstan at this time. Over 60% of Baptists in Kyrgyzstan were ethnic Germans by this time almost all of them converts from Mennonitism since WWII or their descendents.
Source G.K. Krongradt, *Nemtsy v Kyrgyzstane 1880-1990 gg.* (Bishkek, Ilim, 1997), table 10, p. 326.