Phedre

One thing I would recommend to have your "diversity" factor work in your favor is to apply for the Andover IRT program (institute for the recruitment of teachers). I can't recommend it highly enough. There are 80+ schools which have all signed a commitment to try to accept IRT alumna into their graduate programs (including all of the schools you listed). Therefore, doing IRT will absolutely give you a huge boost. Your application fees are waived or reduced (a HUGE financial help when you have 8+ applications) and they give you step-by-step SOP editing, a GRE bootcamp class over the summer, and more. It's really an amazing program, totally free, and you just have to show commitment to teaching excellence and diversity. Apply this year for sure (deadline should be in early april 2011).

Hi all, So although I started out studying dramatic literature (in the English and French early modern period) i've become increasingly enthralled with rhetoric and I'm trying to beef up my knowledge in this area, especially early modern rhetoric. Reading about catachresis, apostrophe, metaphor, etc makes me infinitely happy and I think I really want to make this a major component of my research. So, I was just wondering if anyone had any books to suggest as a background for this period? I'm mostly interested in theoretical applications of these tropes/rhetorical devices (like De Man) as well as any info on the cultural history of rhetoric in the early modern period. Thank you in advance! PS I don't have any latin or greek but I read English/French/Italian in that order, so if you know of the best translations of the ancients that would be wonderful too.

I agree with the above poster in that faculty on the admissions committee DO read and remember your writing sample, and when I came to visit, some were like "How wonderful that you took x and y approach to this text, did you think about adding z?" and it was really flattering (and important) to see how their thinking engaged with MY thinking on a real, professional level. That said, I did have to apply to a few schools with a non-area of focus paper, because I split my applications between French and Complit and my French paper was NOT in my field. What I did was to send the off topic sample along with a shortened version of the long and a note expressing my interest in the real field of interest. Lastly, people know your fields will change! it'sokay to be a Renaissance person moving forwards to 18th century. I say send the best piece of writing possible.

YES! It took me a while to figure this out but Newark is definitely your best bet. Check the times of the Amtrak train, however-- you may end up waiting a long time. The advantage to Newarks is that you can pick up the amtrak from within the Newark airport (amazing!) and then the train drops you off at Union station downtown in New Haven. Then it's a short cab ride (probably $7-10) to wherever you have to go!! Otherwise you'd have to take a bus from LGA or JFK to grand central and then the metro north-- extra hassle if you're traveling with bags.

Thanks for the advice (ah, the memories of being poor in France)! I'll find out tomorrow if the job is manageable.. yikes... at least the pay is good. I actually lucked out in my exchange and my professor arranged for amazing afforable housing (knock on wood) so overall i think it'll be okay. Just nervous about the idea of a rapidly-dwindling bank account...

Hey, So I just found out (very late, like one month ago) that I'll be going to Paris next year on a teaching exchange. I'm really psyched, but I didn't plan for this so I didn't set aside a huge pile of savings. I have a summer fellowship, but I also decided to get a summer tutoring job, in case things get really expensive in France, i'd like to have a cushion. People seem to think I'm nuts for wanting to work this summer when we have this cushy fellowship, but I'd rather play it safe. However, I'm also supposed to be reading for my comprehensive exams this summer too! Do you think I shot myself in the foot? Also does anyone have tips for organizing a huge amount of reading (like 300+ books spread out over 1.5 years...)? Thanks!

Hey all, My house is not longer available for rent!! sorry to let you all know. I had to do the house search too from abroad-- I was living and teaching in Paris when I was accepted, and it was hard. I picked out three of my favorite craigslist places and convinced people I met during my visit weekend to go look at them for me. And I chose blindly (and it ended up being great!) You can sometimes find great deals at the last minute in August. But one caveat-- DON'T live by the mall (Lansing area) or the airport (Sapsucker woods) unless you have kids or something. It's really far away and the buses come only every 30 minutes, also it's very hard to go out and have a social life. best, J

Hi all, I'm a current Cornell Grad student and I am leaving my beautiful house next year. There will be two bedrooms opening up in this four-bedroom house, and it's an amazing steal for the quality and the location. We have two living rooms, a huge kitchen, fully equipped with all of the appliances you could want and with a dishwasher, basement with washer/dryer and lots of storage space, a dining room, a small porch and a big, lovely patio out back overlooking a gorge with a grill-- perfect for summer/fall parties. Everything is fully furnished and the rent is a very low $485/month. The house is ery close to the downtown area but you can also walk to campus. http://ithaca.craigslist.org/apa/1644158022.html Please PM me if you have any questions. and no, don't do University housing!! it sucks and it's really too far away from anything social, from campus, and it's overpriced and dingy. dont' do it!!

Hi all, I'm a current Cornell grad student and thegradcafe.com definitely helped me a lot through my decision process. My roommate and I are leaving our rooms next year (I'm moving in with my bf-- yes, one CAN find true love in Ithaca! and my roommate wants to bring her cat over from France). We live in the best house in Ithaca, it's a gorgeous historic property, fully furnished, ideal location downtown (ie walking distance to the bars and also to campus, 3 min from the bus stop) and we have two cool Ph.D roommates who are staying. There are two living rooms, a dining room, plenty of basement storage space with washer/dryer included, a huge kitchen with dishwasher, beautiful patio in the backyard overlooking a gorge-- it's basically the best house ever. Rent is extremely reasonable and I actually haven't found anything cheaper in Ithaca: $485/month. Here is the craigslist posting with info and pictures: http://ithaca.craigslist.org/apa/1644158022.html PM me if you are interested or if you have any questions about the house or Cornell in general!

They take about half of the interviewed students. You will go through "rounds"-- about one hour per professor (sometimes two on one) and they will also make a schedule just for you-- you will visit classes that appeal to you or visit specialty programs (archives, language depts, etc) which appeal to your research. THe interviews are taken very seriously so be prepared to talk about your research and where you plan to go with your ideas. On the other hand, everyone is super nice there and it's actually fun meeting other applicants! and when I went they treated us to a really fancy dinner, catered lunches, etc. PM me if you have more questions. I did the interview and I got in (but declined my spot) in a past admissions cycle

most (90%) of Comparative Literature programs do not require the Lit GRE. The regular GRE should suffice. Make sure you check with each indiividual school though. Good luck!!

Some schools don't necessarily test you and some do. Brushing up is a good idea, but if you have four semesters on your transcript, you may not get tested. Another option is to also start a new language that would actually be useful, and then stress that you plan to continue study of said language during grad school

I had the same experience-- but i solved the problem by asking my Study Abroad program to make me a "Transcript" listing the schools, courses, and the grades and the contact info for the school. This way the study abroad program takes responsibility for attesting my grades. it worked for all of the schools i applied to...

FYI Many complit departments nowadays treat "comparative" in its broadest sense-- not necessarily comparing between national tradtions but also between disciplines (historiography, new media, music) and approaches (queer theory, literary theory, psychoanalysis, etc). Basically if you're interested in "theory" these days, then complit is the general catch-all house for you. Some schools are more traditional in their approach and require 3-4 languages (Harvard and Yale-- Michigan, U Chicago, and NYU are also pretty big on the language requirement, i think). Other schools are more flexible, but they would treat your expertise in an "interdisciplinary" field as another "language." Duke, Cornell, and Berkeley are in this camp. The best idea would be to discern what theoretical approaches you are interested in and then find a school that suits you (as well at matches your literary field and perhaps century interests). For myself, I had to choose a school that boasted both strong queer theory, psychoanalytic, and French depts-- which meant ruling out a bunch of schools and casting my net wider than i had anticipated.

Hey guys, How is everyone already in grad school dealing with stress?? I lived through my first year last year, no problem-- but this year I'm teaching AND taking classes and I think my brain is going to explode. Also being a perfectionist means that I'm constantly down on myself for only being able to give "pretty good" effort across the board. Any good thoughts/secrets/organization tips? I'm trying to avoid the shameless-drinking lifestyle but it looks like I'm headed that route.

You might also look at classes being offered. If there is only one class being offered on, like "Feminist perspectives on literature" and that's it, then if gender theory is your thing, you might want to go elsewhere. Also-- often professors move into different fields and will teach classes/work with students based on their LATEST research interests. Just be aware!

Something else important to take into account: 1) are summers funded or not, are they competitively funded (ie schools can trick you into thinking that they are funded equally but school a offering 20,000 plus a 4500 summer package is different from school b who is also offering 20,000 but "forgets to mention" summer funding. 2) COST OF LIVING is huge. I had a choice between nyc and my current school and I realized that I could not live a happy, stressfree life on the comaprative stipends. Talk to friends who are at those schools or take a look on craigslist and see what the average rent is. 3) will they fund you beyond your 5th year? Most places will offer you a five year package, but who really finishes and gets a job in five years? no one! so see if the 6th and even 7th years are covered, do depts make sure people get through, do 6th year students have to take part time jobs at Staples to make ends meet (I do know a school where that happens!!)

I think that most programs allow you to pick up proficiency as you go, but youshould have a good start already (ie a couple of semesters of a language). Don't let it deter you, though-- I didnt apply to some programs because I was afraid of the language requirements, but then my friend who had the exact same language background got into said programs. So you never know!

I took five courses each term this year-- it wasn't terribly hard, but I did feel really busy! Other depts you might consider: Brown Theatre Arts and Performance Studies WashU Theater and Performance Studies Cornell Theatre, Film and Dance Ph.D UC Berkeley Performance Studies

Kfed-- totally! I was so engrossed in The Road that I actually read it driving (gasp!) UCLA actually has pretty great reading lists, for any genre/field. http://www.english.ucla.edu/academics/g ... _lists.asp I am still firming up the list, so any suggestions would be most helpful. Basically, this is the list of books that I ought to have read, but didn't :0 The Price of Salt-- Patricia Highsmith Well of Loneliness--Radclyffe Hall Giovanni's Room--James Baldwin Orlando--Virginia Woolf At Swim: Two Boys-- Jamie O'Neill Nightwood -- Djuna Barnes

Hey all, I'm doing two reading lists this summer (French canon classics, for you comparatists out there) and LGBTQ classics. I was thinking this could be a thread where people could share their reading lists and their thoughts on summer getting into "literary shape"-- how much are you reading, what types of books, any theory? etc. I'm trying to go for at least two books per week, and then 3 articles for "fun research" (think JSTOR safari). Any thoughts? If anyone would like to do my reading list game plan WITH me, that would be great too! PM me and I'll get an email group started. I was thinking of having people write short responses/questions per book per week to the list, maybe posting them on google docs or emailing to the group. Are there any more tech savvy people who can think of better ways to facilitate online reading groups? Talk soon! J

Hey all, Is anyone entering in the Spring 2010? I live in a wonderful house with three other grad student girls. One of my roommates is getting married in the spring, so we need to find a tenant. If you have fall housing secured but still are looking for someplace in the spring, or are entering in the spring, please PM me. My house is absolutely wonderful, fully furnished/equipped, and we have the best location ever! THanks, J

If you're more complit than English, then maybe you should consider applying to Duke Lit instead of Duke English-- it will give you more flexibility with your Franco-Euro influences. Plus they don't require as many foreign languages as other complit programs. Have you also considered UPenn? They have some cool 19th c stuff going on there. And you definitely aren't interested in any of the Cali schools? I have a friend at Cornell in English who is doing something similar to you-- influences of French literature on Decadent writers (the chair of the dept. Ellis Hanson, is an expert in this field). She actually got a lot of money from the school to spend a summer and now a year abroad in France doing research! so jealous. There's also a recent hire, Dagmawi Woubshet, who is a up-and coming rising superstar in Baldwin studies. If you're doing American, though, Shirley Samuels is another good person to look at. FYI, almost everyone who graduated this year in Afam/English got jobs (U Toronto, Stanford, UC Davis, Smith)--even in these tough times! Cornell has a stellar placement record. I actually intended to apply to 10, but I ended up only applying to 8 because I ran out of steam and I KNEW that my last two schools were just not good fits for me. I would say no more than 10, if possible. I also didn't have any "safeties" on my list, which was probably a mistake looking back on things, but I told myself why apply to somewhere where I definitely would not want to go? If you know what you're doing (and it sounds like you have a pretty good sense of things) don't apply to the M.A. It will be a waste of energy if what you really want is a Ph.D. PM me if you have more questions. I had almost the exact same application list!

I don't think that one would dramatically help you over the other, but if you want to be in the U.S. for grad school, it might be interesting to have a change of pace to see how the UK system works, broaden your understanding of different pedagogical approaches, because you probably wouldn't have a chance to do that again for a long time (unless you arranged an exchange semester or something). Plus, traveling in Europe sounds amazing-- and with cheap tickets from Ryanair, you could go ANYWHERE! That said, my friend did a master's at Oxford after her undergrad and she said the workload was a "joke"-- in that, you don't have to do very much at all (= good for travel) and it was a nice and necessary break before digging into a Ph.D program-- while still beefing up her credentials and writing a wonderful master's thesis, which is actually going to serve as one of her diss chapters. Also she met her (now)husband there, so i think it was overall a good experience. One advantage to being at Columbia is that you could travel to U.S. conferences more easily and get a taste of some of the other departments and programs. I would say do Columbia only if there is a particular professor you really want to work with, or if you would REALLY want to go to Columbia specifically. Otherwise, I don't think going to one program over the other would dramatically change your chances of getting into a Ph.D program.

I would only put things that I would be proud talking about or discussing (even just a few short sentences). I don't think that professional membership would count. But I did attend a women's leadership series of workshops and I could, in an interview, tie that into academic professionalism, being a role model and a minority, etc. So add things that you would ONLY be proud of talking about. I also had to review a bunch of CVs when part of a committee hiring for summer interns. It's VERY, VERY clear if you add just to fill up space. Even if you think that the CV-reader couldn't kow the difference-- he or she will. I promise.