lisajay

it is! well, actually, it's a reference to murakami's "what i talk about when i talk about running," which is a reference to carver. wheels within wheels...

in the past several years, i've become much more attuned to representations of suicide in books, film, television, &c. then this past semester, one of my professors joked that literary theory & criticism is logically progressing toward death, so i say, why not specialize in suicide studies? this is outside the scope of my SOP, but it's definitely something gnawing away at the back of my brain. if you're really interested (& at the risk of overdisclosure), here.

haven't seen it, & haven't read it yet. but now i'm all intrigued! thus far i've read IJ, which figures into my writing sample, broom, everything & more, & some of the stories from girl with the curious hair, but not all of them yet. i also used clips from an interview he did on the charlie rose show for a video project & paper. i predict that suicide studies is the wave of the future.

as i suspected!

you *think* or you *know* ...

he's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. & he's pretentious as hell. but when you're that good, you sort of have license to be as pretentious as you want to be. broom of the system is a good read. & i lied, i have read some of his nonfiction—everything & more: a compact history of infinity. so, so good. but i'm a math geek from way back, so that might be why i like it.

not at all. in fact, i didn't engage with any secondary sources during my undergrad. that being said, now that i work with theory, turns out i really dig (some of) it. & *that* being said, my preference for primary texts is why i threw a novelist in there (who admittedly wrote criticism, but i've only read his fiction to date).

this is hard, but for shits & giggles: barthes agamben (meets haraway, meets deleuze & guattari) mcluhan DFW

hard to tell on my screen, but you appear to be a ginger, so i'd say you classify as marginalized yourself.

your prof reminds me of my friend's ex-wife. "keeess keeess keeess" also: i now want to go home & watch the goonies.

bah, out of upvotes! [insert clever/appropriate gif here]

FWIW, your post was in response to a post rems made specifically referring to people who didn't pursue a phd, but who also (1) say "i could've gotten a phd if i wanted to" & then (2) get snarky when talking to rems about the phd application process. so while donthate raises a valid point about us/them, the "them" you were addressing was more specific than everyone who isn't pursuing a phd. it just got removed from context.

ditto

eh, being a nice man & thinking you should try to get published aren't mutually exclusive. maybe split the difference & present it at a conference?

if i were a betting man, i'd make the same bet as rems. hard to say without having seen a WS, but based on previous posts, i imagine that yours is quite good (although i seem to remember you saying you weren't all that pleased with it in another post somewhere, although i could be wrong/if i'm not wrong, then i suspect you may have been selling your WS short). at any rate, i'd bet you get some offers. i'd also be willing to bet that rems gets some offers, based on my uncanny ability to extrapolate WS quality from forum posts.

ETA: well played...

tyler curtain at UNC chapel hill was just elected to the MLA science fiction/utopian & fantastic literature discussion section's executive committee, so maybe look into that?

you get an upvote just for "PhD in Pretentious Bullshit" love.

ditto.

also, diversity statements are typically taken into consideration by the university with respect to funding, so in some cases, not submitting one automatically puts you out of the running for at least one fellowship for which you might otherwise qualify.

hey, i'm 30...

i got all 7 of my apps in (3 on the 1st, 4 on the 10th). on the fence about a possible 8th, but funding is dicey so not sure if it's worth it. harumph.

[procrastinating] working on my last paper before winter break officially begins. le sigh...

i can empathize

yes, i'd say they want you to choose from this list: A1. Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Literature and Culture A2. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Iberian Literature and Culture A3. Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Iberian Literature and Culture B1. Colonial to Nineteenth-Century Latin American Literature and Culture B2. Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Latin American Literature and Culture B3. Luso-Brazilian Literature and Culture C. US Latin/Chicano Literature and Culture pick up to 3, & make sure all 3 aren't from the same group, as that's the process for both coursework & comps.