dogsplayingpoker

As most of us know, the Fulbright Program announced on 21 April 2020 that the 2020-21 cohort would be truncated and in some case cancelled – Indonesia and Israel has already cancelled its entire ETA cohort, with Turkey following by announcing a severely curtailed schedule. Meanwhile, Japan and India have announced they will defer the program into 2021, allowing for the full 10 month program to go forward – this despite Fulbright Central's refusal to accommodate such requests for finalists to other countries. We are assembling a data package to send to the Fulbright Commission explaining the impact of this instability, inconsistency, and the lack of a clear, logical response (for example, like every other institution on earth, simply moving online until travel could resume on a country by country basis. Finalists are invited to respond to a survey on the impact of this action. There is also a free-writing space to add any thoughts you may have. Anonymised results will be sent in aggregate to Fulbright Commission. Here's the link: https://bit.ly/358z8oC

This is not at all meant in an unkind way but the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland is not welcoming international scholars right now, particularly in the hard humanities. The Fulbright was a tiny tiny stream of funding compared to Erasmus, MSCA, and DAAD, now all lost to Brexit. The UCU is on a staggered strike this week, students, faculty, and contingents. Glasgow is a rubbish city, overpriced and unfriendly with a disproportionate rate of violence. If you are studying a specifically Scottish subject, think about Edinburgh which is the art history/architecture powerhouse, but there will not be a funding stream for an MA program. The British system MA is research-only and very isolating for international students, in addition to being vastly overrated. Almost any R1 in the United States, any land grant, any public ivy with an art history MA (particularly combined with good MFA programs, such as at a lot of the NY, CA, and MI systems) would offer a better program and better chance of a scholarship, plus you'd be able to get experience as a TA or GTA at some point. Good luck.

This is a visual culture topic, in the same vein as game design. Look for state systems that have a strong "new" ethos (for example open to dissertations written as "auto-ethnographies", such as the University of California nexus of campuses. Canada is also on the forefront of visual culture PhDs.

Dear Decaf, About the German schools (in Germany), you might want to make contact first with a prospective Doktorvater or Doktormutter, because if you do a "traditional" PhD (as opposed to one of the newer cohort programs) you will need an individual supervisor anyway, and that person can provide you with some guidance about administrative procedures. Humboldt and FU-Berlin have a very streamlined process for international applicants, but email culture is very different in the German uni system than in the U.S., so in addition to writing to the Ausländerberatung / Prüfungsamt offices at each school (and be persistent when you do), having some non-anonymous contacts is quite helpful. The American schools you name are very competitive generally, but they all seem open to students with interdisciplinary backgrounds and interests within the various language departments. This is just my opinion, but for "nontraditional" students seeking to enter PhD language programs, the matching of research interests -- amid yourself, the individual faculty members, and the department(s) [since you might had advisers from more than one] is crucial, so it might be a good idea to be very aware of which faculty you are likely to be able to interest in your research. Good luck and best wishes. - DPP

Thank you for this kind and thoughtful reply. I think my prospective "doktor {parents}" are going to be wonderful, but so far the various office staffs have been a bit ... resistant ... more like in a Francophone country. It is actually very useful to know that this is a "normal" experience.

Likewise for me...I am a humanities scholar applying to PhD programs in theology/history/visual culture. PM if you'd like to give and receive critiques...

Hello. I am an aspiring PhD candidate and have had some preliminary contact with Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich. I'm just wondering if there are any other PhD program students from LMU (or actually and German Uni) in this forum and what kinds of experiences you have encountered. I speak/read German and am not worried about communication issues, I am more curious about the administrative and procedural cultures of the LMU (or any German) uni. Thank you in advance for your willingness to share.