Associate Professor in Contemporary Art and Architecture

The Department of Art History at Northwestern University invites applications for a full-time tenure-track appointment in Contemporary Art and/or Architectural History at the Associate Professor level, to begin September 1, 2027. Applications from advanced Assistant Professors approaching tenure will also be considered. The geographic focus is open, but ideal candidates would complement and expand the current geographic strengths of our faculty, including Africa and African diaspora, the Middle East, South Asia, Europe and the Eastern bloc, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States.

We especially welcome candidates whose research and teaching critically disrupt Eurocentric and colonial axes of global exchange or challenge conventional methodological or theoretical approaches to the study of contemporary art. We seek to hire a scholar with interests that could include the connections of art and architecture to colonial and postcolonial political contexts and decolonial struggles, liberation movements, critical spatial theory, ecology and landscape, socialism, transnational socialism and post-socialism, Indigeneity, migration, diaspora, exile, and belonging.

The successful candidate will pursue a research agenda, collaborate with faculty in the Department of Art History and other units in the College and University, and teach in both the undergraduate and graduate curriculum. This position carries a teaching load of four quarter-long courses.

A doctoral degree is required by the time the appointment begins. Applications received by October 15, 2026 will be assured of full consideration.

Preliminary interviews will be conducted online in November and December. Inquiries about the position may be directed to Mel Keiser, mel.keiser.

Salary
The expected base pay range for this position is $120,000-$150,000. This base pay range is for a nine-month academic appointment, does not include summer salary, and is subject to negotiation.

Northwestern University has provided a pay range representing its good faith estimate of what the university reasonably expects to pay for the position. The pay offered to the selected candidate will be determined based on factors including (but not limited to) the experience and qualifications of the selected candidate including years since terminal degree, training, and field or discipline; departmental budget availability;

internal comparators; and external market pay for comparable jobs.

• meaningful, competitive, high-quality health care plans
• retirement benefits
• tuition discounts

Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics, including disability and veteran status. Job applicants who wish to request an accommodation in the application or hiring process should contact the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance.