thepriorwalter

David Halperin (Michigan) is a Foucault expert (and still regularly teaches classes on Foucault) but the program itself is more of a literature program than a cultural studies program. Michigan does have an American Culture cultural studies program, however, and you could take classes with Halperin (if anyone else on their faculty interested you). You might also look at comp lit at Michigan (and at other schools)--several comp lit programs have become "theory" programs. To that end, Antoine Traisnel (cross-appointed English/Comp Lit) might interest you. I hear he is wonderful.

I did my BA and my MA at the same institution (with time off in between) and had a successful application season when applying to PhD programs. I redid my MA (because I chose a program that wouldn't take my MA credits), but it didn't hinder me from getting in places. This is unlikely to be something that holds you back!

The first week of every semester, I make a plan for what work I am going to get done every day for the rest of the semester. I use an agenda, then I put all the requirements for each course in the syllabus (including at the level of what readings are due for which classes on which days). Then, I work backwards from deadlines to give myself a reading or writing assignment for each day. This usually works out something like follows: Mondays: Class One Tuesdays: Lesson planning, office hours, teaching responsibilities Wednesday: Class Two Thursday: Night Off Friday: Class Three Saturday: Class Three Sunday: Class Two The benefit of this, for me, is that if I have an emergency, or decide to go out of town for a weekend, or get sick, I know exactly what work I missed and how missing that work impacts the rest of the semester. What has to be made up, when it has to be made up by, and what the consequences are for other assignments. For example, if I miss a Monday reading assignment, then I might not be able to make it up later in the week if I have to get started on a paper due the following week by Friday. It also means that I have built a break into my schedule (which can be hard to enforce but is necessary).

The joint programs involve coordination between two departments; if you were in English and Gender Studies or English and Education (which is even further removed from the English Department than E&GS is), you'd have a different DGS than English Language and Literature. They're very much joint degrees. In fact, people in the joint program tend to spend more time in GS or Ed than in English. The non-English department structures your coursework and coordinates your teaching, so it makes sense that things would shake out this way. E&GS students also have a GS faculty member on their review committees (and E&E has a different procedure altogether). So if you're hearing conflicting things, that's because things vary very much depending on which program you're in. Within L&L, there's no differentiation between subfield.

I don't know anything either way about English and Gender Studies! I'm sorry! I have reason to believe they've notified their acceptances but I can't say for sure that they're done.

I'm a student in the English Department (not in the joint program) -- professor told me two weekends ago they were making their calls for E&E. Can't totally confirm they're all done but figure it's worth tossing out there.

I am an F15 applicant, and I heard about my acceptance from Alberta on February 4th, so I imagine that their decisions are coming any day now!

Happy reminder that OSU's first round of acceptances generally means consideration for an additional university-wide fellowship. ☺️

my sample was a 16-page portion of one chapter of a multi-chapter work, so i included a reader's guide as bhr suggests, giving a small abstract of what i sent (what its aims are, what it argues, etc), context for what the project overall was, where the excerpt comes in the larger work, and a few takeaways and areas for extension. if your sample is a self-contained work, this 1-page document may be less important. (i will also note that i did not include a document like this the first time i applied to schools, despite the fact that i was excerpting from the same work, so i would strong rec a document like this if your writing sample is an excerpt from a larger work.)

all i have is anecdotal evidence, but i will share my experience: the first time i applied to grad schools, all my schools asked for a sample in the 20-25 page range, so i sent all of my schools the same 25-page sample. i ended up having a fairly unsuccessful application season, but i was fortunate enough to end up in a funded master's program. when it was time to apply to schools at the end of my MA, rather than use anything i wrote during my MA, i used the same sample from the first round of applications (what was i doing? where were my advisers?), except this time i trimmed the sample down from 25 pages to 16. i sent the 16-page sample everywhere i applied, including schools that asked for 20-25 pages, and i was accepted to 6/8 programs i applied to (including a few offers with some extra fellowship money on top). so, in summary, if you can get away with it, i would have one sample (to save yourself time/headache, even if you end up playing with the page lengths), and i would be sure i needed every page i sent to schools. i used a lot of the same application materials (including recommenders) between cycles and i really believe having a shorter, more concise sample aided my application. (and, for what it's worth, the two the rejections came from the schools that asked for the shortest samples, so i don't believe "sample too short" was a factor anywhere i applied) hope this helps!

I owe you a reply to a PM, and I would say this there, but you put your reading list together. There aren't a set of defined reading lists. So you can ask something else in place of that.

Please do!

I see that a few of the Michigan acceptances are starting to roll in! If anyone has questions at any point, I'm happy to answer as best I can.

AHHH, I almost approached you after your panel discussion to ask if it was you and to thank you for all the questions about OSU you answered for me last year. Thought your panel was productive and great. Glad you enjoyed the conference.

I just finished helping to organize the Crip Futurities conference at UM, which occurred the last two days and was a truly wonderful experience. We didn't allow organizers to submit papers, So I got to just listen for two days! Such thoughtful, productive discussion that really has me feeling energized about my field. In June, I'll be presenting at the Children's Lit Association conference, and I'm pumped!