Description

William S. Dietrich Professor of Premodern Arts and/or Architecture (Tenure Stream)

The Department of History of Art and Architecture (HAA) in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh seeks to appoint an accomplished historian of premodern art, architecture, or related fields to the William S. Dietrich Professorship, with an ideal start date during academic year 2026-27, pending budgetary approval. We seek a colleague who will use the prominence of this endowed professorship to advance HAA's mission of enhancing and diversifying the histories of art and architecture through their teaching, research, mentorship, and leadership. The position provides an opportunity for its holder to undertake significant scholarly initiatives at the departmental, university, and extra-institutional levels. The successful applicant will be asked to develop and teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels, supervise doctoral students, undertake service, participate actively in the life of the department and university, and develop connections with national and international communities of scholars. We particularly welcome candidates whose work and teaching engage with the structural inequalities that art and architectural history have perpetuated, and we invite them to describe how their pedagogical approach addresses those concerns.

Dietrich Professors at the University of Pittsburgh serve as thought leaders within the department, the university, and the field(s) in which they participate. The Dietrich professorship carries substantial research support and a teaching load of three courses per year at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Applications are invited from tenured professors at the Associate and Full Professor ranks (or their international equivalents), i.e., those who have attained prominence within their own specialization, and whose intellectual trajectory offers evidence that they are already, or soon will be, considered a leading voice in the discipline and more broadly in the humanities.

HAA recently appointed Prof. Huey Copeland as Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art and Black Studies. With the Dietrich Professorship, HAA seeks to appoint another leading scholar who will expand the geographical scope of our department, this time with a focus on the art of the premodern world in any region that complements our existing strengths. While European framings of pre-modernity have defined it as the period before about 1750, we recognize that the processes of modernity unfolded along varied chronological axes around the world. We invite applicants to articulate their own definitions of pre-modernity as it pertains to their area of expertise.

HAA recently received a large grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which aims to reshape the discipline of art and architectural history through new research that foregrounds reparative methodologies. We invite applicants to consider how their own work - and the study of premodern topics more generally - intersects with the themes of this grant. We also encourage applicants to address how their intellectual interests fit within the Constellations framework that structures our department, and how their work is situated within the broader field of premodern studies, as it looks increasingly to highlight the regional and global interconnectivity of diverse cultures. We seek a colleague who will lead our department in new directions and who will help us highlight how the study of humanity's deeper past has entailments in the present.

About HAA

The Department of History of Art and Architecture is based in the Frick Fine Arts Building on the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland campus, which occupies the ancestral territory of the Adena culture, Hopewell culture, and Monagahela peoples, who were later joined by refugees of Delaware, Shawnee, Haudenosaunee, and other tribes, driven here from their homelands by colonizers. Our mission is to expand our field, which has entrenched an elitist and exclusionary worldview. 24 full-time faculty members work together to serve the needs of our approximately 30 PhD students; post-baccalaureate Hot Metal Bridge fellows; over 300 majors and minors in our undergraduate programs in Architectural Studies, the History of Art and Architecture, and Museum Studies; and the hundreds of undergraduate students who enroll in our courses to fulfill General Education requirements. The University Art Gallery, Visual Media Workshop, and Fine Arts Library, all of which are housed within the Frick Fine Arts Building, function as situated learning environments for department members.

Centers, Programs, and Initiatives at Pitt

Beyond HAA, several interdisciplinary programs, departments, and centers offer avenues for connection and growth across the Dietrich School and the University. The University Center for International Studies (UCIS) houses several thematic and area studies centers.

Pitt's Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program has a capacious understanding of both chronology and geography and has served as the incubator for several large research projects that foreground the role of the past in shaping the present. These include the Genealogies of Modernity project and the Gun Violence and its Histories research collective, both of which have involved HAA faculty and graduate students.

HAA is one of five departments associated with Pitt's Interdisciplinary PhD in Film and Media Studies. HAA faculty and students contribute to and participate in the Graduate Program for Cultural Studies (CLST) and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS) Program. The Humanities Center is a locus of intellectual activity for faculty and graduate students from HAA and across the university.

Requirements

Minimum Requirements

• Ph.D. in the history of art, architecture, or a closely related field
• Tenure (in the US academic system) or its professional equivalent in the candidate's region of practice.
• Record of publications demonstrating original insight and sustained engagement with innovative methodological approaches
• An active, forward-looking research agenda that will have a substantial impact within the field of premodern studies and with the potential to attract graduate students
• Demonstrated experience in university-level teaching in the history of art, architecture, or a closely related field
• Openness to innovative pedagogical practices

Preferred Requirements

• A robust research and publication agenda for the next 5 to 10 years.
• Experience teaching graduate-level courses and directing or serving on Ph.D. committees
• Experience mentoring faculty colleagues
• Record of university and/or disciplinary service
• Potential to engage collaboratively on strategic initiatives at the university and extra-institutional levels
• Evidence of leadership within the applicant's subfield

To Apply

To learn more about the position and to apply, visit: https://cfopitt.taleo.net/careersection/pitt_faculty_external/jobdetail.ftl?job=25005722

Applications should include:

• Cover letter addressed to Prof. Christopher Nygren, Chair, HAA Department, that discusses the applicant's approaches to research, teaching, and mentoring (of peers, graduate, and undergraduate). Please include a discussion of your current and future research programs.
• Current CV. Please include a list of students mentored and courses taught.
• Two sample publications (in the case of a single-authored book, please send the introduction, table of contents, and one sample chapter).

Review of applications will begin on 15 January 2026, and will continue until the position is filled. Questions may be directed to Christopher Nygren, Chair, HAA Department (cnygren@pitt.edu) or Evan Zajdel, Department Administrator, HAA Department (ewz5@pitt.edu).

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