ANDREW W. MELLON CHAIRThe Andrew W. Mellon Chair is an endowed position that provides an opportunity for its holder to undertake significant initiatives in historical scholarship, with departmental, decanal, and wider institutional support. The professorship carries a substantial research-travel fund and a teaching load of three courses per year. The vacancy arises from the retirement of Professor Patrick Manning, President of the American Historical Association, who has held the chair for the past decade.

As part of a strategic investment in the history of Asia in the world, the Department wishes to appoint to the Mellon Chair a historian of Asia broadly defined, to start in fall 2017 or as soon as possible thereafter. This distinguished position enables an outstanding scholar (at the full or advanced associate professor level) to provide intellectual leadership within the graduate, undergraduate, and research programs in Asian history and the department more broadly.

Over the past five years, the department has recruited a series of outstanding early and mid-career Asianists:

Raja Adal (modern Japan, Asia, and world)Vincent Leung (intellectual history of early China)Ruth Mostern (Song China; environmental, spatial, digital, and world)James Pickett (Central and South Asia, 18th to 20th centuries)

We expect to advertise at least one further position in Asian history in the near future.

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORYOver the past decade, the department of circa 30 T/TS-faculty has adopted a distinctive collective mission, within which regional, transnational, and world historical approaches flourish in highly productive dialogue. Faculty and graduate students produce research that is at once regionally grounded and globally aware, fusing foreign language expertise and in-depth fieldwork and archival exploration with sustained attention to large-scale world historical contexts. The program––a pioneer in the historical discipline’s “transnational turn”––promotes research in small-scale dynamics and regional developments as well as large-scale patterns and global change. The highly selective graduate program is committed to training area specialists with a global perspective, emphasizing comparative, cross-cultural, transnational, and world historical approaches. Generous funding through teaching and research fellowships supports doctoral studies. Graduate students participate in international exchanges, including with the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. The placement rate ranks among the highest of comparable schools.

WORLD HISTORY CENTERFounded in 2008, the World History Center supports research, teaching, and international collaboration on the global past, with attention to policies for the global future. Within the Department of History, the World History Center has aided the transformation of undergraduate and graduate teaching curricula and furthered faculty engagement in transnational, transregional, and global subjects and perspectives. The center has established multidisciplinary collaborations within the University, nationally, and globally. The center sponsors research and travel awards for faculty and graduate students and one full-year graduate fellowship. It also hosts postdoctoral fellows in world history, world history of science, and big data; visiting scholars; and national and international conferences. The projects and collaborations of the World History Center include the Collaborative for Historical Information and Analysis, the Alliance for Learning in World History, NOGWHISTO (Network of Global and World History Organizations) and its affiliates.

In the University, the World History Center collaborates closely with the Global Studies Center and the University Center for International Studies, home to six area and thematic studies centers, four of which have been designated National Resource Centers (NRC) by the U.S. Department of Education.

ASIAN STUDIES AT PITT

ASIAN STUDIES CENTERFounded in 1969, the Asian Studies Center is Western Pennsylvania’s regional resource for research, teaching, learning, and building connections about Asia. It is widely recognized as one of the best and most comprehensive in the country for programs in Chinese and Japanese language and culture studies, with growing strengths in Korean and South Asian Studies.

Through more than one hundred affiliated faculty across multiple disciplines, it fosters multidisciplinary academic programming, research, and community engagement in China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, and Southeast Asia Studies.

The center is nationally recognized as one of the best and most comprehensive in research, public service, and teaching about East Asia.The East Asian Library houses one of the most prominent collections of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean media from books and periodicals, to microfilms, multimedia resources, and online databases. The library ranks

Department of History University of PittsburghThe Department of History in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh seeks to appoint a distinguished historian of Asia to the Andrew W. Mellon Chair.

This brochure introduces you to this endowed position, the Department of History, Asian Studies at the University,

and the wider University and city of Pittsburgh.

Wesley W. Posvar Hall

13th in size among the 80 East Asian libraries in North America. Area Studies councils exist for all three countries.

South Asia Studies has been identified as an area of strategic growth by the center. South Asia Studies benefits from the University’s membership in the American Institute of India Studies; the University Center for the Performing Arts of India; and community engagement from the ninth-largest Indian population in the U.S. The center will begin a three-year initiative in 2016–17 on South Asian Studies focused on a special speaker series, community events, and new faculty hires.

The Indo-Pacific Council coordinates and promotes the scholarly activities of two dozen faculty members and their students whose research engages South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands across departments at the University.

Pitt offers extensive training in many of the languages of East, South, and Southeast Asia. It also hosts a diverse and extensive array of pre-approved study abroad programs, including to Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and India. The center offers certificate programs, both graduate and undergraduate. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education designated the center as a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship-granting institution for both graduate and undergraduate students.

CENTER FOR RUSSIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIESScholars working on Eurasia benefit from the resources of this Title VI National Resource Center (NRC) funded by the U.S. Department of Educa-tion. The interdisciplinary center supports research on the region as well as student programs focused on foreign language acquisition, cultural immer-sion, and interdisciplinary area studies certificates to complement traditional disciplinary degrees. Domestic and international partnerships support study abroad programs, visits by scholars, and community engagement locally as well as technical and economic development in the target region.

THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT THE FOREFRONT OF RESEARCH The University of Pittsburgh, founded in 1787, is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States and is internationally recognized as a center of learning and research. Pitt is a member of the Association of American Universities, a prestigious organization of 62 preeminent doctorate-granting research institutions in North America. From research achievements to the quality of its academic programs, the University of Pittsburgh ranks among the best in higher education.

THE KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES constitutes the liberal arts core of the University of Pittsburgh, enrolling more than 10,000 undergraduate and some 1,400 graduate students in fall 2015. The Dietrich School aspires to translating the expertise of its faculty into superb curricula and aims to provide a challenging education in the liberal arts for the highly selective undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh. The Dietrich School is a vibrant community of learners committed to promoting diversity and the understanding of diversity among faculty and students, and across curricula.

Facts: The top three countries of origin of the circa 3,100 international students at the University of Pittsburgh in 2015 were China, India, and Korea. Pitt’s University Library System holds 6.8 million volumes. Over the past nine years, Pitt has been one of only four public universities to have at least four undergraduates named Rhodes Scholar.

Reputational Rankings The 2016 edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings of the world’s top 800 universities ranks the University of Pittsburgh among the top 10 percent in teaching, top 20 percent in research, and top 10 percent in citations. Academic Performance Laboratory ranks Pitt 7th among U.S. public universities (and 16th among all universities nationally) for quality and quantity of scholarly publications.

The Princeton Review ranks Pitt among the most environmentally responsible colleges in the United States and Canada.

Saviors of Our Cities: A Survey of Best College and University Civic Partnerships ranks Pitt the top public university measured by schools’ economic and developmental impacts on neighboring regions.

PITTSBURGH: OUR CITY, OUR CAMPUSPittsburgh is internationally recognized as a hub of education, culture, and technology offering affordable urban living; racial and ethnic diversity; and a thriving sports and arts community. Pittsburgh is an extraordinary American city in so many respects. The striking geography of bridges and rivers. The rich tapestry of 89 distinctive neighborhoods—including the University of Pittsburgh’s own, Oakland—that give Pittsburgh its genuineness and warmth. With a booming economy fueled by intellectual capital, Pittsburgh is a globally renowned success story. It is home to major corporate and nonprofit organizations, including eight Fortune 500 companies; research centers and offices from powerhouses such as Google, Apple, Disney, and Microsoft; and a variety of strong small businesses and non-profits. Combine this wealth of opportunity with an affordable cost of living and it is no surprise that Forbes Magazine ranked Pittsburgh one of the most livable and affordable cities in the United States.

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT

Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History. The Department of History in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for an endowed chair, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History. The appointment will begin with the 2017 fall term or as soon as possible thereafter. As part of a strategic investment in the history of Asia in the world, the department wishes to appoint a historian of Asia broadly defined, whose work might focus on Western, Central, East, Southeast, or South Asia, or the Indian Ocean World. We welcome applications from single sub-region specialists as well as from scholars whose work embraces trans-regional approaches. Applications are invited from scholars at the level of advanced associate or full professor who have demonstrated exceptional scholarship and teaching as well as leadership in their field and the profession. Applicants should submit a letter of interest, a complete C.V. including list of publications, and the names and contact information of three academic referees to https://facultysearch.as.pitt.edu/apply/index/MTUz. The review of applications will begin on September 6, 2016, and continue until the position is filled. For informal inquiries, please contact the chair of the search committee, Holger Hoock, J. Carroll Amundson Professor, at: hoock@pitt.edu. The University of Pittsburgh is an AA/EOE and values equality of opportunity, human dignity, and diversity.

View of campus and downtown Pittsburgh