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!

[whispers] look up the rackham merit fellowship (and how one qualifies). as far as i can tell, that's why they want a second personal statement. if you meet any of those criteria, make sure it comes across in your personal statement. both the funding and non-teaching fellowship years (3 of 6) are very generous under the rmf. *flies away*

I got a 151 quant (170 verbal), and this did not prevent me from getting into good programs, nor from being awarded fellowships at large state schools where your combined GRE score is used to qualify you for these university-wide awards. My suggestion is to put it out of your mind!

For the record: I'm at Michigan this year, and I named names in my SOP (I also made a list of questions I was interested in thinking about for my dissertation that took up about the last third of my SOP, so unconventional styles can work!). Someone I named as wanting to work with died between when I submitted and when acceptances were sent out, one of the profs is going on sabbatical, and a third prof is not taking new students because they are likely retiring. Still, they thought I was a good fit. I think whether or not to name names becomes something to stress yourself about that doesn't actually matter that much to the admissions committee. It can be a good way to demonstrate fit, but if you fit, they'll likely see that whether you do or do not name names.

I submitted 18 pages to every school I applied to and most were asking for approximately 25. I had a pretty successful application season, so I don't think the page count will hinder your application. Someone in my cohort also revealed (during cohort happy hour) that they submitted two 10-page papers, which also leads me to believe that quality is more important than any other factor in the writing sample.

1Q, I went to full view on my phone to upvote, and as the arrows are about a quarter of the size of my pinky, I accidentally hit the wrong one. I am so sorry! Completely unintentional down vote.

You can keep saying that you "mean no offense," but that doesn't mean you're not committing it. There are historic reasons why it has been primarily in relatively recent times that gender studies have proliferated. It's popular now because of marginalization and, whether you consciously mean to dismiss it or not, the effect of your post is dismissal because it hasn't passed a litmus test of time ("millennia") that is seemingly ignorant to historical realities. You have received some good, thoughtful advice from a community with more experience in (1) getting into English PhD programs and (2) what finding a committee looks like once you are there than you currently possess, which is surely why you asked the question to begin with. The vast majority of people in this thread have not wanted to dismiss your project at all but have wanted to help you find ways to frame yourself, at least on the admissions side, so that you can get in the door, where more flexible opportunities are in general open to students, because they have shown they can, at least, "talk the talk." It is valuable advice, and I suggest not dismissing it because you are certain of the originality of your project or because you had success getting into MA programs. A lot of this is advice I wish I had the first time I was applying to grad school, when I chose an MA program, and I'm grateful to the expertise of the community of scholars here (in addition to the two years I had to grow in my MA program), as it was invaluable to me during my PhD applications last fall.

Yesh, definitely. It was common in my MA program, and I did confirm that the course is one that can be repeated multiple times for credit (up to 9 credits). I just meant it wouldn't necessarily show up as a rhet/comp course even though it is also one of those (at least the course offered in the fall), but I agree that it is unlikely to be an issue anyway. I'm sure I'm doing my tried and true "worrying about nothing" anxiety pattern and I appreciate the perspective from others. It has eased my mind.

Thank you, hypervodka! (1) I will look into this, though it's slightly complicated by the two courses being offered under the same course number. But the content of the courses is different, so it does provide breadth in the field, at the very least. (2) It is! Is that a recommendation?

I had a question about course selection and I figured this was one of the better threads to ask it in! To preface, one of my main research interests is trauma and disability studies. In the Fall, a professor in my department is teaching disability studies with a focus on rhetoric and composition. Though I am not a rhet/comp scholar, the class seems pretty interesting to me, and I am unfamiliar with every text on the syllabus. In the Spring, the professor I want to serve as my advisor--who is going on sabbatical my second year in the program--is also teaching disability studies (same course number but coming at it with a different focus). There is a strong possibility that this class is the only class I will be able to take with said professor while I'm in coursework, and it's definitely the only one I would get to take with them before I need to have selected an advisor. The department has students undergo a "third-term review," during which a student's progress in the program is evaluated; one of the categories by which students are evaluated is whether they used the first year to study a broad range of topics. Given this information, should I forego the disability studies class in the fall? Does the fact that it's from a rhet/comp perspective help categorize my studies in the first year as having been "broad," indicating that I can take them both? Should I take the class in the fall just in case I can't get into the one in the spring? And, in keeping with the thread as a whole, the other courses I am taking are a required intro to grad studies class, a class on Henry James, and a class about education and literacy. If I don't take the disability studies class in the fall, I'll replace it with a class on Latino trans culture. Thanks for the help!

The University of Michigan received 226 applicants for Fall 2011, 408 applicants for Fall 2012, and 305 applicants for Fall 2015 (I don't think Fall 2013 and Fall 2014 data is available, as they had the Fall 2012 information on their site until this year). I thought it looked like a collapse when I only had Fall 2012 and Fall 2015 data but it's interesting to see 2011 there too.