Great Books in Political Thought and Constitutionalism (Assistant Professor)

Position description

The School of Civic Leadership at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), in partnership with the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, invites applications for full-time tenure-track faculty positions at the assistant professor level in the Great Books, with a field in political thought and constitutionalism. Successful candidates' primary appointments will be in the School of Civic Leadership, with affiliations in the Thomas Jefferson Center. The possibility of partial appointments in the disciplinary department may also be explored. Appointments will begin in Fall 2027.

Successful candidates will combine teaching in the School's discussion-based Great Books curriculum, with teaching in the University's core curriculum. Courses are conducted as small seminars and discussion sections in which students engage directly with foundational, wisdom-seeking works in and between a range of disciplines: political thought, philosophy, literature, religious studies, history, and the liberal arts broadly. Instruction emphasizes careful textual analysis, sustained inquiry into enduring questions, and thoughtful conversation among students and faculty.

The School of Civic Leadership is a new interdisciplinary school at UT Austin dedicated to preparing students for leadership in a free society. Its dual mission is to equip students with the knowledge and aptitudes necessary to lead the public and private institutions of a free society, and to produce academic research at the highest levels of scholarly excellence.

Building on its Civics Honors major, the School will launch a Great Books major in Fall 2027 in partnership with the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas. The School is also developing an interdisciplinary PhD program in Civic Thought.

Housed in the College of Liberal Arts, the Thomas Jefferson Center advances the close study of foundational texts through its Jefferson Scholars Program, Core Texts and Ideas Certificate, and Civic Thought Initiative. Its programs encourage students to examine their beliefs, broaden their understanding of others, and engage in thoughtful, respectful dialogue.

Qualifications

We seek outstanding candidates with a Ph. D. in a field related to the Great Books whose pedagogy and scholarship speak to the School of Civic Leadership's core mission of educating citizens for freedom in its multiple senses: economic, political, and intellectual.

We are especially interested in work in the history of political thought from antiquity to the present:

• The founders of ancient and modern political philosophy;
• The medieval traditions of political thought;
• The Renaissance and early modernity;
• Critiques of modernity; and
• The essential documents of American constitutionalism (for example, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, The Federalist, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates); together with the broader tradition of American political thought, read in light of enduring questions of political life and human nature.

More broadly, we are interested in work that inquires into expressions of Western civilization that have become central to the American civic experience:

• The roots of the West in Athens and Jerusalem;
• Roman law;
• American letters;
• Works of literature, art, architecture, music, and science;
• Reflections on politics and civic life; and
• Moral reflection.

Application instructions

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