Great Books (Associate or Full Professor)

The School of Civic Leadership at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), supported by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, invites applications for full-time tenure-track faculty positions at the associate or full professor level in the Great Books (disciplinary specialty open). Outstanding senior candidates will be considered for endowed professorships and chairs.

Considering the responsibility public institutions of higher education have to prepare students for leadership in a free society, the University of Texas System Board of Regents established the School of Civic Leadership at UT Austin. The School of Civic Leadership is an interdisciplinary school whose dual mission is to equip students with the knowledge and aptitudes necessary to lead in a free society, and to produce academic research at the highest levels of scholarly excellence.

The School of Civic Leadership is expanding its major offerings. In addition to the Civics Honors major, in Fall 2027 the school is starting a Great Books major in partnership with the Thomas Jefferson Center and a Strategy and Statecraft major offered in partnership with the Clements Center. It is developing a conceptually interdisciplinary PhD Program in Civic Thought.

Successful candidates will teach in a discussion-based Great Books curriculum centered on close reading of primary texts. Courses are conducted as discussion sections and seminars in which students engage directly with foundational, wisdom-seeking works in and between a range of disciplines: political thought, philosophy, literature, religious studies, and the liberal arts broadly. Instruction emphasizes careful textual analysis, sustained inquiry into enduring questions, and thoughtful conversation among students and faculty.

Qualifications

We seek outstanding candidates with a Ph.D. in a field related to the great books whose pedagogy and scholarship speaks 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 that inquires into the deep roots of the West in the wisdom-seeking literature of Athens and Jerusalem; into the political inheritance of Roman law; into American letters; into the major works of strategic thought; into works of literature, art, architecture, music, science, reflection on politics and civic life, and moral reflection.

Ideal candidates will (1) have excellent records of scholarship with robust research agendas, (2) provide evidence of exceptional teaching and a commitment to the pedagogical idiom of discussion oriented toward clarifying fundamental questions, and (3) show a readiness to contribute to the intellectual life, governance, and programmatic development of the School of Civic Leadership.

Application Instructions

The School of Civic Leadership invites applicants to submit a cover letter and curriculum vitae, and the names of three recommenders. Letters will only be asked for later. Cover letters should give a brief overview of the candidate's research agenda, highlight areas of teaching competence, and concisely describe how the candidate would contribute to developing the School of Civic Leadership.

Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until open positions have been filled.