chaucerettescs

I'm also at Florida if anyone has questions. Personally, I find Florida's program to be very well-rounded (and the faculty here are amazing, especially if you're interested at all in Children's Literature or genre studies). The department is also hell-bent on professionalization and you will rack up a huge amount of teaching experience in the program. With the new 6-year track (which I'm on), you start teaching your first year (composition mostly) and begin teaching in-department lit courses in your third year. I know several 4th and 5th years (in excellent standing, of course) who have taught 3000- and 4000-level literature courses in the department. I'm very happy that I finally reconciled myself to look beyond top 20 programs; as a result, I'm here at Florida and much happier than I think I'd have been elsewhere.

Start early and give yourself time to remedy errors should they arise. This is elementary advice, but do follow-up and check your application's status to make sure all your materials have been received because schools make mistakes, too. I sent my GREs to Florida early, but they were never attached to my application. I had to get in touch with the department and ended up having to send the scores again and it's only because I left myself such a large window of time before the deadline that I was able to do so. Luckily, it ended up being worth the extra fuss.

Whoops, part of that entry got deleted. Don't know why GC won't let me edit. Meant to say: "Rowling chose to present them [her ideas] to a broad audience (and to a young audience) in the form of fiction and that choice to use the form of fiction as a vehicle for her ideas automatically makes this matter a literary one for me. The conscious decision to convey ideas through fiction is always a literary decision."

I think that's a solid perspective, it just isn't one I subscribe to. Form and prose matter, but, to me, they are not all that matter and certainly not the ultimate gauge of literary merit. Yes, the ideas in the books could have been presented in another form, but they weren't. They were presented in a novel. Rowling chose to present them to a broad audience (and to a young audience) in the form of fiction and that choice makes Novels are used as vehicles for ideas and to discuss the Novel while stripping it of that function is strange to me, especially when novels are one of the most effective means of delivering ideas because of the exercise in empathy that they present to the reader. To me, a discussion of literature is not complete without taking all of literature's functions into consideration. Transmission of ideas is still one of the main reasons why writers write and readers read and is, to me, every bit as important as form and art for the sake of itself. "IMO specifically literary merit, value and interest lies in the way a writer uses words and raises ideas in a way that simultaneously explores and questions the possibility of the form of writing itself." See, but, to me, Rowling does do this. She loves playing with the limitations of the form. One of the most obvious examples I can think of her choice to stick with a single third person perspective (Harry) throughout nearly the entire duration of a series filled with hundreds of characters. The limitations of Harry's perspective (and thus our perspective as readers) work to her advantage when it comes to plotting, but, more importantly, play a major role in the text and often serve to reinforce many of themes threaded through the series. Example: one of the messages in the series that I noted above is "the are dangers inherent in keeping children ignorant in order to protect them". Many adults in the series lie to Harry and/or keep him uninformed of the danger unfolding around him in order to protect him. Because we, the reader, know only what Harry knows, we are also kept in the dark. When Harry's ignorance has disastrous consequences, it's a gut punch for the reader because chances are we, given our limited perspective, have jumped to many of the same conclusions that Harry has. We make the same mistakes. When Harry realizes he's been lied to, the reader feels equally betrayed because we have also been lied to - not just by the characters, but by the form of the novel itself. The limited third person perspective gives the message about lying to children much more impact because it provokes an emotional response out of us. It makes us live through that injustice and hypocrisy ourselves, even if only in a small way. The same applies for many of the other themes of the work. The way the series handles prejudice is especially tied up in the limited perspective. The series deals with prejudice both explicitly and implicitly. We see the world through Harry's sometimes prejudiced perspective and, more often than not, discover in the end that he was wrong, forcing the reader to 1) face up to their own prejudices and expectations (because, again, readers often finds themselves siding with Harry), 2) points out the insufficiency of any one single perspective on any situation, which 3) points out the limitations of a single perspective in a work of fiction, and 4) reinforces the series' explicit messages about prejudice. And when you take into consideration that one of the most major themes of the work is the encouragement of children's skepticism, the fact that characters/the text regularly withhold crucial information from Harry/the reader only to reveal it later is pretty damn smart. If Rowling had chosen an omniscient narrator or alternating POVs, not only would the structure of the series be very different, but many of its themes would not be as impactful. Rowling choice of a limited third person POV is ostensibly a simple one, but it is a literary one. And I could literally rant and ramble about all the ways form and content do mesh in these books, but that's just going to end up being unpleasant for everyone involved because I just.have.so.many.feelings.

We'll have to agree to disagree on what defines "literary" merit, as I found the lectures and discussions on each of the bullets in that list to have plenty of both intellectual and literary merit. The literary merit of the series admittedly isn't found in Rowling's prose (which is not stellar, but is not as bad as everyone seems determined to make it out to be), but in the series' themes, characters, and the maturity with which the series (especially from Book 3 onwards) handles topics like war, personal autonomy, and racism. It has literary merit in that both expands on and plays with tropes, imagery, and themes from Dickens, Carroll, and centuries of folklore. Rowling may not have fabulous prose, but she isn't a bad storyteller. She knows her folklore, she knows her children's lit, she understands fantasy. She understands form. Does she make mistakes? Holy shit, yes, and those failings are worth discussion, too, if not more so. The series has literary merit in that it doesn't talk down to it's young audience, which is something that is far too frequent in a lot of children's literature and YA since the 1980s. It has literary merit in that it has ignited many discussions about both the censorship of literature and the representation of women, the LGBT community, and disabled community in popular fiction, something that does tie into the form and language of the work, not just its characterizations, as something as subtle as poor word choice can easily make positive representations fall apart. I don't separate any of this from the series' literary merit and am puzzled about where you're drawing the line between literary merit and value. Is it form? Because I don't see how many of the things I mentioned in my list aren't inextricably linked to form. It's a 4100 page series. You read 100 pages. That's less than a third of the first book and less than 2.5% of the full series. You are certainly entitled to your opinion if you didn't like those 100 pages, but that doesn't mean the series is without literary merit. I'm not trying to be snarky, but this distinction between value and merit bewilders the hell out of me.

To throw my two cents into the ring, when we studied Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at Michigan, we explored and/or deconstucted: - the trope of the Boy Hero - the duality of good and evil - the banality of evil - Neo-Medievalism and Neo-Victorianism - Dickensian influence on Rowling's work - parallels to true life examples of genocide and racial hatred - questions about children's autonomy - questions about what defines humanity and monstrosity - the dangers of inefficient bureaucracy - the dangers of a Draconian and biased justice system - the dangers inherent in believing everything you read/everything adults tell you - the dangers inherent in keeping children uninformed in order to protect them - The Sorting and tribalism - the nature of forgiveness - gender - queer narratives - disability narratives and ableist prejudice (Remus Lupin) - child soldier narratives - animal symbolism - Jungian archetypes - Biblical symbolism - censorship, both within the world of text itself and the real-life drama surrounding the publication of Rowling's work - the reemergence of children's lit and YA as a powerful commercial force - adaptation and simulacrum - the history of children's publishing since the Edwardian period I can go on and on and on and that was only for one book out of a series of seven. At this point I'm convinced that if you find nothing worth discussing when it comes to Harry Potter, you either have only seen the films (or just trailers for the films) or you're being the worst kind of canonical fanatic or both. Also, it's worth noting that when we studied Potter, everyone in the class had read it before. Everyone. In fact, during many of my classes at Michigan, Potter was often used as a touchstone to better explain themes and theories because, again, 9 out of every 10 students had read it. Explain to me how exploring the themes of one of the most widespread literary phenomena ever is not worthwhile or at least of some interest to us folks who plan on studying literature for a living. Stop assuming everything popular is inferior. Stop assuming works written for younger audiences are inferior. You want to bash Twilight? Fine. But don't do it because it's a YA novel. Do it because it's an irredeemably bad YA novel.

My call came from Leah Rosenberg, which surprised me (she wasn't one of my POIs, but someone I'll probably end up studying under), but my call also came on Saturday and I don't think Dr. Dobrin was in his office, so she was doing the calls (though I would've thought that Kathy Williams would do them then? At any rate, Dr. Rosenberg was very nice.) I probably would've geeked out and made an idiot of myself if Dr. Kidd had called me as he was one of my POIs. As it was, I barely remember anything about the phone call. I had to have her repeat her phone number twice before I got it right. Waiting for the e-mail is making me antsy. It's almost like I can't believe it until I have it in writing? Also, I just want more solid funding details.

And I'm so sorry this happened to you! The same thing happened to me last cycle when I applied to Chapel Hill (and, oh, how I wept), so I was super paranoid this time around.

I'll definitely be attending the visit weekend. Leah Rosenberg said it would probably be the 29-30th, but wasn't 100% positive. If nothing else, I want to scout housing options. UGH I had a HELL of a time with this application. About two weeks from the due date I saw that my GRE scores still hadn't been received (which I sent way, way in advance), so had to rush to send them again. Saw they were received about two days before the deadline. This one really stressed me out, but thankfully ended up being worth the hassle.

Bringing this thread back to life as acceptances as going out. 99% sure I will be attending in spite of not-so-stellar funding this year.

Hooray! I've also been accepted to Florida and am pretty excited as I'm also a Victorianist (sub-specializing in children's lit, so Florida is perfect). Yeah, the thing about funding is disheartening. Financially, I know I can make it fly, it'll just be really tight. *also crosses fingers for Kirkland* I got my phone call from Leah Rosenberg who implied that e-mail acceptances are going out a bit late as they're trying to get us a bit more funding?

In my courses at Michigan, we used Literary Theory: An Anthology (ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan) and it was pretty solid... in more ways than one. Seriously, that book was heavy.

For anybody with experience applying to UFL, where on earth did you send your GRE scores? I sent mine in back in November and they still aren't being shown as received. I sent them with the institution code and department code, which seems to be what the English dept.'s site is suggesting to do, but now two months later they aren't there? All my e-mails asking for help have received radio silence and I'm starting to get frustrated with the deadline 10 days away. I'm going to try to call Kathy again tomorrow. Any suggestions? Should I have sent them with just the institution code?

Also, for anyone accepted to Michigan who enjoys writing, enter the graduate division of the Hopwood Awards. Enter ALL the creative writing contests UMich offers (there are many). I snagged a creative writing fellowship through the Hopwoods in my final semester as an undergrad which will mean I don't have to panic about loan payments/moving expenses this summer as I look for a job.

Me too. Off the top of my head, mine had Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Julia Kristeva, Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, and Anne Sexton on it. The rest of it was mostly either Beat poetry or medieval literature. I fared all right, but, as a Victorianist, I was pretty annoyed. I sincerely hope this post was a troll. Most of us would probably find it funnier if we didn't routinely hear this kind of crap from even respected scholars.

My plan was originally to reapply this Fall. However, now I'm debating because my family is moving to Charleston and the College of Charleston has a joint program with the Citadel that offers a funded MA (with a late deadline; if I got in, I could start this Fall). I was apprehensive about potentially committing to an MA instead of just reapplying for PhD programs, but have now talked to one of my letter writers (who's a well-respected prof at my uni and has served on admissions committees in the past) and she is saying that, if I get funding, to go for it (but only if I get funding). If I don't get into that or don't get funding, then I am definitely reapplying for PhDs this Fall to a much, much larger pool of schools.

University of Michigan. I plan on discussing it with a couple of my professors/LOR writers this week to see what their advice is. I'm also pretty lacking in the teaching/conference department, so the possibility of a teaching assistantship in the second year of the program is attractive. However, I think the results board has shown that an MA, teaching experience, and conferences aren't always enough to give you an extra push into being accepted (which is frustrating to say the least), so, in a sense, it could be a waste of valuable years. On the other hand, at least I'd have my MA and would be back in school come August instead of being out of academia for the next 18 months (which, if I'm not accepted next cycle either could turn into much longer).

I'm seriously considering applying. My family is (hopefully) moving down to Charleston in April and I really love it down there. However, I'm having all these paranoid apprehensions about a) committing to a Master's program instead of reapplying to PhD programs next cycle and b ), and this will sound ridiculous, but I just earned my BA at a Top 20 school and I'm worried that now getting an MA from anything less than a Top 20 school (or even a Top 50) will hurt my chances of ever getting into a Top 20 school again (which is probably stupid because where I got my BA didn't help me this time around). All that said, however, the campus at College of Charleston is gorgeous, Charleston is awesome, there's a possibility of receiving funding through an assistantship, and, in my case, there are a lot of professors there for my fields of interest, and it would mean actually returning to school in August. So I am sorely tempted.

The thing is I've already figured my shit out. I had two years off between high school and college because of financial reasons and had plenty time to think about things then. I decided then that grad school was what I wanted to shoot for and my years as an undergrad only confirmed that. I know there are plenty of things one can do to professionally bolster one's self during a gap year that don't require money (I'm trying my damndest to get published/attend conferences/get more teaching experience under my belt), but it gets tiresome when professors tell you things like "Go to Europe! Take time off! Relax!" Haha, well, she didn't tell me to go get married and have kids right now, she just meant that if that is something I think I'll want ("if that even is something you'll want"; she did acknowledge the "if") I need to stop and think about it now because, according to her, she's had many experiences with her colleagues turning forty and having these mini-crises: "Oh my God, I never did the things I wanted to do when I was young blah blah blah". Go be young was her advice, I guess. It was definitely not fun, especially because Fall was my final semester. I think it definitely affected my application. I'm already looking at my SOP and writing sample, KNOWING I could do better. That would be sound advice to wait a year before applying: simply that it is very difficult to put together the best app you possibly can when you're also focusing on trying to graduate. This whole cycle has been hilariously bad. I just found out that my UNC application was never processed because the admissions office never bothered to contact me (they were supposed to send a form letter) to let me know that my fee waiver had been rejected. Reality is becoming far more creative than my nightmares at this point.

And here is Neil Gaiman's library: http://blog.shelfari.com/ronbrinkmann/2009/08/gaimans-bookshelf-details.html The pics are high-def enough that you can actually browse through the titles. It's a pretty impressive collection to say the least (with lots of Terry Pratchett, of course, aw). Also, jackalope!

I got that perspective a lot from professors. From what they told me, it's less an issue of not knowing what you want to do (obviously you do know what you want to do. You want to go to grad school.) and more an issue of the fact that once you're in academia, you're in it for a long haul. It makes things like traveling for pleasure, romantic relationships, having children, etc. a lot more complicated and so people often suggest that you take some time off to go do some of the things you want to do before you sign up for such a serious commitment. The issue with the concept of a gap year, however, is that it just isn't an economic possibility for most people anymore. Would I love to spend the next year wandering around Europe or even just England? Absolutely, but I do not have the money to do it. To me, not going straight into grad school means spending the next year(s) working a job I'm not crazy about to pay bills until I can get accepted somewhere.

It is going to break my heart into little pieces when Michigan rejects me (not just because it's my last shot, but because it's Michigan). Judging by your interests in your signature, Michigan definitely seems a good fit for you.

Oh, yeah, if I do this again this Winter, I am casting a massive net. A net the likes of which even Finnick Odair has never seen!

Ok, so, I just checked my UNC application and suddenly it's listing my application as "incomplete", saying that I never paid the application fee and I swear I am actually about to have a stroke. I submitted a fee waiver long before the application was due and the admissions office is either supposed to mark your application as "paid" OR contact you, telling you to fork over the dough. They apparently never did either (I just SCOURED my e-mail looking for something I might have missed and there's nothing).