silvercat

Thank you, GeoDude and bSharpe, for your responses. I appreciate it. You are right: there are a lot of options, and sticking it out is probably the most prudent one. And the good thing is that I love my dissertation topic, because it isn't history! The relationship I have with my advisor isn't damned, but she is just a bit flaky and doesn't respond to emails for months (sometimes never at all) -- both mine and her other students'. She has had difficulties with all her advisees. I just sent her an email notifying her a month in advance that I will be applying to a Fulbright and I asked if she might write on my behalf...no response. I missed out on a travel grant in the past because she didn't reply soon enough. I just can't imagine how reliable she'll be when I'm on the job market and I need her to recommend me and introduce me to people. Last semester I scheduled a meeting with the Director of Graduate Studies and addressed these issues in a very professional way, and he said that it would basically be impossible for me to switch advisors at this point. (Yet, I have a very good friend for whom the same DGS made it very easy to switch advisors...). On the other hand, I don't know how accurate it would be to describe a professional career change as "going behind" my advisor's "back." I applied elsewhere two years ago. It was an honest decision I arrived at from a sincere conviction that I was in the wrong field. I was not happy with what I was doing and could not see myself being happy as a professor of history. I informed her of my vocational difficulties in a very professional way. I let her know I was applying elsewhere, and she kindly "forgot" to write me a recommendation and then asked to forgive her for being "another flaky professor." If anything, I was the one who was honest and straightforward, and she was the one who was not. If I apply elsewhere, I will not inform her, nor would it be prudent of me to ask her for a recommendation. I don't think I would characterize this as dishonest, nor is it that unheard of. I believe many students follow through on a decision like this (though, of course, it is less frequent than not).

I have a quandary. I was hoping some of you may have also been in my situation at one time and may know from experience what to do. I am going on my fourth year in the History department at Notre Dame. I passed my qualifying exams and have now begun to write my dissertation. However, there are two enormous mental blocks which have been standing in my way from the beginning and which keep me from making progress on my dissertation. First, I have never felt as though history is the profession best suited to my interests and talents. It is not something I am intrinsically interested in. Second, I have a very poor relationship with my advisor. It is so bad that I cannot rely on her to follow through with a recommendation when I need one to apply for grants and fellowships. I could continue in the program, complete my dissertation and submit it for defense. But at this point I don't know if she'll even pass me, and if she does, I believe that my eligibility on the job market will suffer as a result of my relationship with her. So, I am considering to apply to other programs this coming fall semester (either to literature or classics departments). But I don't know what admissions committees will think of an application from a student who is leaving one Ph.D. program to start another and, further, without a recommendation from his advisor. Has anyone ever done this or heard of someone doing this? Is it completely unheard of? Must I explain the irregularity of my situation in my personal statement?

You know, that was the initial intuition I had, Angua. It wasn't until I started seeing words like "sabotage" and "shady" that I started to reconsider. Whatever the case, the admissions committee will decide as it decides. Hypothesizing over the results is as effective as burning a leg of calf on a spit to propitiate Apollo hoping to change the direction of the sun. Though I like barbecues, I wonder if they really work. So, I'll do as all must and...wait. Thanks!

Thanks for everyone's instructive feedback. The only content of his letter that I know about are his misgivings. For all I know, he could have relegated these to a hesitation clause at the end of a long letter full of praise. Or not, I just don't know. He spent is entire career at Oxford and was bred in the sort of sickle-tongued culture of cordial disagreement and brutal wit that Hugh Trevor Roper and his ilk flourished in. He's written upwards of sixty books, and I think he feels that he can say exactly what he thinks. When he praises he lays it on thick; when he criticizes you wish you didn't exist. In fact, a friend of mine was a teaching assistant for him last year and told me that he once wrote nothing on a student's paper until at the very bottom it said: "valueless." I agree that it is a bit presumptuous of him to assume that he can discern my vocation better than I can -- that is, to say that my judgment is misguided is to assume that he is in a correctly informed position from which he can make a judgment in my stead. It doesn't matter; if I am not admitted this time, I will simply opt for the masters and apply to a bunch of comp. lit. programs next year. In that case, no one will be able to question my motivation. He also told me that, in his experience, I wouldn't find Harvard amiable unless I am "cozy among vipers." I said that I've never met a viper but I can't imagine that he or she would be friendly company. I should have said, "and what kind of recommendation does a viper write?"

I am currently in a PhD program in History, but I have long realized that my real passion is for literature and languages and that I cannot see myself as a professional historian. Part of this decision was sparked when a professor of history advised me not to refer to some of my favorite poets in a paper, even though these references were quite appropriate to my argument. There is a professor in Comparative Lit. in Boston who has urged me on a number of occasions to apply to his institution. When I told this professor I was going to apply he was happy and assured me that he would give it the utmost attention. In other words, I have a great shot of getting in. After submitting his recommendation for this application, my professor told me that he had voiced serious misgivings in his letter. The misgivings were twofold: 1.) he thought the professor who advised me away from literary references was wrong to do so, which means I am basing my decision to apply elsewhere on misinformation and 2.) he thinks I can do the same project I plan to do at the other institution where I am now with the comp. lit. professor as an external adviser. He also said that the department would hate to lose me. This, according to him, would be the "best of both worlds." Personally, I think that these misgivings are, at least partly, motivated by departmental territoriality on his part and also partly by his lack of knowledge about how serious I actually am in my vocational questions. My query has two parts. First, I would like to know, generally speaking, how much weight recommendations carry with respect to the whole package (I know this is an impossible question to answer). Second, I want to know if my professor's misgivings seem to be a deal-breaker. I know this professor thinks very highly of my work and wants me to stay, so the misgivings were not directed at me or the quality of my work but at my motivation and the conditions under which I applied. All other parts of my app. are in top condition: very high GRE scores, 2 forthcoming publications, two other good recs., many international conferences, and so forth. Given the whole app. and the professor at the receiving school and his avowed support, what weight do you think my professor's recommendation will hold among all the other considerations? Thanks for your help!