What are the responsibilities and job description for the Instructor position at Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies?
Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies invites proposals for in-person and online graduate-level seminars for our Autumn 2026 and Spring 2027 programming. While we invite proposals in all academic fields, areas of priority for us include:
- 19th Century Utopianism
- American History and Politics
- Art History
- African and/or Black Diaspora Philosophy, Political Thought, and/or Literature
- African-American Philosophy and/or Literature
- Ancient Chinese Philosophy and/or Literature
- Ancient Indian Philosophy and/or Literature
- Feminist Theory and/or Practice
- Film Studies
- Indigenous Philosophy and/or Literature
- Queer/LGBTQ Studies
About Brook Farm Institute
Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies is an independent, non-degree-granting institute offering rigorous, discussion-based seminars in the humanities and social sciences, taught by scholars who hold terminal degrees in their fields. Our seminars run online and in person in the Boston area and draw participants from diverse backgrounds united in their shared commitment to serious intellectual inquiry.
We name ourselves after the Transcendentalist utopians of the original Brook Farm community, founded in West Roxbury in 1841, and we share their conviction that learning is best pursued in common, outside the constraints of conventional institutions.
Format
BFI seminars are short and focused: four sessions of three hours each, either in-person in Boston area venues or online via Zoom. Sessions run once a week on weekday evenings or Sunday afternoons.
What We're Looking For
BFI seminars are small, discussion-based, and built around close engagement with primary texts. They are not undergraduate-style survey courses or lengthy traditional lectures followed by brief Q/A.
We seek instructors who can design a seminar around an expertly curated set of readings, suited to high-level non-specialists.
Proposals can take a few different forms. A seminar might center on a specific canonical or para-canonical text, or on the ideas of a seminal figure (for example, Amílcar Cabral's Political Thought, Brecht's Aesthetics, Aristotle's Poetics). Or your seminar might offer a scholarly "take" drawn from your own current research or intellectual interests.
Recent seminars include:
- Justice and the Good Life: Plato's Republic
- After Auschwitz: Adorno's Political Thought
- Death, Desire, and the City: Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil
- Fascists and Fascism
- After Troy: The Odyssey
- Thinking Palestine
- Eros, Again: Sappho and Archaic Greek Lyric
Further examples of past and current BFI seminars are available at brookfarminstitute.com for further reference on tone, scope, and format.
Requirements
- Prospective instructors must hold a PhD, ABD, or analogous terminal degree in their field.
- Teaching experience at the graduate level is a bonus, but not required.
- We especially encourage contingent or unemployed colleagues to submit proposals.
- U.S. work authorization is not required for online instruction, provided you are physically located outside the United States at the time of teaching. In-person instruction in Cambridge requires either U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, or valid U.S. work authorization.
Compensation
Tuition is $300 per participant, with 20 standard seats per course plus 2–3 additional seats offered on an income-based sliding scale.
BFI instructors work as independent contractors. Instructors earn 70% of course tuition generated by their seminar. BFI uses the remaining 30% to cover overhead expenses. BFI handles registration, payment processing, and promotion; instructors retain full autonomy over their classroom content and reading list.
How to Apply
Please submit your proposal directly through our website: https://brookfarminstitute.com/teach-at-brook-farm/
- CV
- A single 300-400-word course description written in a style that could be posted to our website, including the seminar's central questions, the texts or materials it will engage, and how the course will be structured.
- A short cover letter briefly narrating your: (1) teaching experience, if any (2) areas of expertise, and (3) titles for additional seminars you envision being able to teach in the future, and (4) your preferred modality (online or in-person).
Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis through the end of August 2026. For full consideration for our Autumn 2026 schedule, please submit proposals by July 31, 2026. Later submissions will be considered for Spring 2027.
AI Policy
Please do not send us proposals created with generative AI.
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Questions? Contact: admin@brookfarminstitute.com