Stingermania

To echo SumEsseFuiFuturus:

My hand is mostly in philosophy, but I can say that translation is not simply a matter "changing the words into English." No random bilinguist on the street can translate a difficult piece of literature across their languages, even if they are fluent. There is a reason that translators of difficult texts are almost always active scholars of what they are translating: because meaning and translatability is elusive with texts, and requires a certain mastery of the material to do it well.

Logistically, translating is a mixed bag. I've known people who have regretted the effort they put into a translation, but I also know of some major thinkers in philosophy who made their name through important translations. Gayatri Spivak made her name translating Derrida; Alphonso Lingis made his name translating Levinas.

Probably the best outcome of a translation like the one you're talking about would be to not merely translate it and let it be consumed, but rather to translate it with a meaningful introduction (to sell its significance) and to also devote the next few years of your career publishing articles or books of your own to foster an interest in this author you've translated. If people begin to take notice of this figure (because you subsequently write on him/her), then they will suddenly look to your translation, your introduction, and begin to think you're a genius for having translated the work so soon. Or, to read cynically into this, you effectively switch the cause and effect of this author's significance to the English speaking world.

All that to say: If you're going to do it, do it with the right context for your trajectory as a scholar. Otherwise, you'll waste your time and just end up frustrated that no one else sees the brilliance you see.

Man, I seriously expected this to get at least one upvote...

I don't love literature, but as far as I have seen that is not a prerequisite for graduate study.

Haha, well, hello there! I'm hoping to reread A Storm of Swords before Season 3 of Game of Thrones starts up.

The Woman In White is pretty awesome! I'm reading the Song of Ice and Fire series. Again. Not exactly Heidegger, but... in my opinion, much more fun
 
By the way, what do people think of Proust's In Search of Lost Time? I took what was supposed to be a survey course on Modern French Lit, but the visiting professor decided that Proust represented ALL of Modern French Lit, so we were supposed to read all the volumes for the class and nothing else... I'm pretty sure no one in the class read more than 20 pages.

I wrote up an exhaustive--and exhausting--list of questions before my visit last year and am pasting it below. Keep in mind that encoded within these questions are assumptions and preferences that are likely specific to me and what I was looking for. Also, though I asked many of these questions during my visits, I also found that, in the scheme of things, most of these questions--or, I should say, most of the answers--didn't really matter in my decision-making process. In much the same way that stats tell you something, but not necessarily something useful, about what programs are looking for and what your fellow applicants are like, these questions often tell you structural things about a department but not what it actually feels like to be there. Everyone's mileage will vary, of course, but I found myself not caring if, say, prelims were written or oral (though I had a preference) if everything else about the program was appealing. In the end, if it's a program you love, you'll jump through whatever hoops it presents. I highly recommend visiting schools, as there were programs at which my instinctive reaction told me everything I needed to know after about 5 minutes of being there. Additionally, visiting schools lets you make contact with people who will be important to your work regardless if you end up working with them directly. Good luck! It's an exciting, if unnerving time, and as difficult as it was last year to weigh the options, I found myself missing the sense of possibility after I had made a decision that I was (and am) very happy with.


-PLACES TO STUDY AND WORK
-Where do most people do their writing and reading?
-What study spaces are available? Do students get a carrel? Do those who teach get or share an office?

-LIBRARY
-What is the library system like? Are the stacks open or closed?
-What are the library hours?
-Are there specialized archives/primary sources that would be useful to my research?
-Are there specialist librarians who can help me with my research?

-FACULTY
-Are the faculty members I want to work with accepting new students? Are any of those faculty members due for a sabbatical any time soon?
-Are professors willing to engage you on a personal level rather than just talking about your work?
-Are there any new professors the department is hiring in areas that align with my interests?
-Students’ relationships with their professors – are they primarily professional, or are they social as well?

-FUNDING
-Is funding competitive? If so, do students feel a distinction between those who have received more generous funding and those who haven’t?
-How does funding break down among the cohort? i.e., how many people receive fellowships?
-How, if you don’t have much savings, do you make enough money to live comfortably?
-Are there external fellowships one can apply to? If so, what is available? Does the program help you apply for these fellowships? How does receiving an external fellowship affect internal funding?
-If people need more than five/six years to finish, what funding resources are available? (For instance, Columbia can give you an additional 2-year teaching appointment.)
-Do you provide funding for conferences or research trips?
-How often is funding disbursed? (i.e., do you get paid monthly or do you have to stretch a sum over a longer period of time?)

-COHORT
-Do students get along with each other? Is the feeling of the program more collaborative than competitive?
-Do students in different years of the program collaborate with each other, or are individual cohorts cliquey?
-How many offers are given out, and what is the target number of members for an entering class?
-Ages/marital status of people in the cohort – do most people tend to be married with families? Are there younger people? Single people? What sense do you have of how the graduate students interact with each other socially?
-Do people seem happy? If they’re stressed, is it because they’re busy or is it because they’re anxious/depressed/cynical/disillusioned?
-Is the grad secretary/program administrator nice?
-What is the typical time to completion? What are the factors that slow down or speed up that time?
-I’ve read that there are two kinds of attrition: “good” attrition, in which people realize that the program, or graduate study, isn’t right for them and leave early on, and “bad” attrition, in which people don’t finish the dissertation. What can you tell me about the rates of each, and of the reasons why people have chosen to leave the program?

-JOB MARKET/PROFESSIONALIZATION
-What is the placement rate? How many of those jobs are tenure-track?
-What are examples of institutions in which people in my field have been placed?
-How does the department prepare you for the job search? Are there mock interviews and mock job talks?
-Are the people helping you navigate the job search people who have recently gone through the process themselves?
-If you don’t get placed, is there anything the department can do for you? (e.g., can you stay an extra year?)
-How does the department prepare you for and help you attain conference presentations and publications?

-SUMMER WORK
-What is encouraged/required?
-If there separate funding/is the year-round funding enough to live on during the summer?
-Do people find themselves needing to get outside work during the summer in order to have enough money?
-Am I expected to stay in town in the summer, and what happens if I don’t?

-LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
-What is done to help people who don’t have language proficiency attain it? Does the university provide funding?
-What is the requirement, and by when do you have to meet it?
-Given my research interests, what languages should I study?
-When do you recommend doing the work necessary to fulfill the language requirement? (i.e., summer before first year, summer after first year, while taking classes, etc.)

-LOCATION REQUIREMENTS
-How long are students required to be in residence?
-How many students stay in the location for the duration of the program? (i.e., how many dissertate in residence?)
-How is funding affected if you don’t stay?

-Incompletes on papers at the end of the term: What is the policy, how many students take them, and how does this affect progress through the program?

-TEACHING
-What sort of training is provided?
-What types of courses do people teach?
-Does teaching entail serving as a grader? Serving as a TA? Developing and teaching a section of comp?
-How are students placed as TAs? Is there choice about what classes you teach and which professors you work with? Do classes correspond to your field?
-How many courses do you teach per semester/year?
-How many students are in your classes?
-How does the school see teaching as fitting in with the other responsibilities/requirements of graduate study?
-How do students balance teaching with their own work?
-Is the department more concerned with training you as a teacher/professor or with having cheap labor to teach their classes?
-How, if at all, does the economic downturn affect teaching load/class sizes?
-What are the students like? Can I sit in on a course a TA teaches to get a sense of them?

-METHODOLOGY
-Is a theory course required?
-What methodology do most people use?
-Where, methodologically, do you see the department – and the discipline – heading?
-Is interdisciplinarity encouraged, and what sorts of collaboration have students undertaken?

-Typical graduate class and seminar sizes

-What should I do to prepare over the summer?

-Ask people I know: What are the questions – both about the program itself and about the location – I should ask that will most help me get a feel for whether this is the right program for me?

-Ask people I know: What do you wish you knew or wish you had asked before choosing a program?

-Is the school on the semester or the quarter system, and how does that affect classes/teaching/requirements?

-What is the course load for each semester, and how many courses are required?

-What kind of support is provided while writing the dissertation? I worry about the isolation and anxiety of writing such a big project. What does the program do to help you break the dissertation down into manageable pieces, and to make the experience less isolating?

-What do writing assignments look like in classes? Do they differ based on the type/level of class and/or based on whether you intend to specialize in the field?

-Ask professors: what have you been working on lately?

-Ask professors: What is your approach to mentoring and advising graduate students?

-How long are class meetings?

-How often do professors teach graduate courses?

-Are course schedules available for future semesters (10-11, etc.)?

-Can I see the grad student handbook? Are there any other departmental documents – such as reports on the program prepared for accreditation – that I can see?


-QUALITY OF LIFE
-Prices – how does the cost of gas, milk, cereal, etc. compare to other places I've lived in?
-Cost and quality of typical one-bedroom apartment.
-What does the university do to provide you with or help you find housing?
-When (i.e., what month) do people start looking for an apartment for the fall, and where do they look?
-Is it easy to find a summer subletter?
-How close to campus can—and should—one live?
-What grocery stores are there in town?
-How late are cafes, bookstores, malls, restaurants typically open?
-What do people do to make extra money?
-Does the town have more of a driving or a walking culture? What is parking like near campus (availability, ease, cost)?
-Where do most English grad students live? Most other grad students? Most professors? Where is the student ghetto? Do most students live near each other, or are they spread out far and wide?
-How far does the stipend go in this location?

Also, check out U. Southern California's comp lit. The school in general is big in media and video games (a professor there now is "translating" Walden into a videogame). They offer a track in comparative media and culture. 

You sound well educated and driven, as well as self-aware. I am willing to bet you will absolutely be accepted. Best of luck!

Hello everyone.
 
I am an Iranian student of English literature. I want to apply to a PhD comparative literature program and I wanted to ask all of you what you think of my chances. I want to ask you some specific questions as well. But before that let me get to the main point: full funding is mandatory for me. I don't know if you have followed the Iranian news or not but let me tell you that in the previous two years the sanctions and incompetent trynaical regimes have worked together and now our currency is less valuable than toilet paper. I was always in a lower middle class category but now I'm deep under the poverty line. So, I will never afford paying tuitions ANYWHERE. Not only that, it will mean paying application fees and travel costs and things like that will also be a massive pain in the neck. Apart from that we need to pay a lot of money to the government to have access to our BA and MA certificates. GRE and TOEFL are going to be really expensive too. I will need to work for a year or two just to earn the money needed for application costs.
 
So let me give you a little information about myself.
 
Good things about me:
- My graduate school is one of the top 2 in Iran and it's internationally famous (and sanctioned, hehe).
- My graduate professors love me and I'm sure they will write me shining letters of recommendation. They are internationally respected too, I guess.
- I have only As and my GPA is 4.0 in graduate school.
- I don't have any publications yet, but I am sure I will have one or two papers published before my application time comes. (They're under review now).
- I have worked as an English teacher for 5 years now. But even better, I'm in negotiations with some schools and I'm positive I will have some academic teaching experience too before applying. I might also become a faculty member somewhere but that's a 50/50 chance.
 
Bad things about me:
- I have some Cs, Ds, and Fs in BA. All of them except one are the grades of stupid lessons unrelated to the English literature forced on us by the government - Islamic thought, family values, things like that - or teaching or translation lessons. My only F in literature is a lesson I didn't take the exam out of protest to the teacher. At that time I was reckless and stupid and didn't think ahead.
- I'm only fluent in two languages, English and Persian. I can also read Arabic but I can't write or speak or listen to it. I can take classes but I don't think I would be able to study so extensively to be able to be fluent in a third language before the time comes.
- I'm a bit controversial. I'm a radical atheist and I am against social institutions like family and marriage, I politically support WikiLeaks and things like that. I have extreme liberal views. So if someone searches my name they might some angry comments on the internet from me they might deem too radical and crazy. I can stand by the content of those comments and defend them but the tone was angry. Again, I was reckless and stupid.
- Grammar errors- ugh. No matter how many times I proofread and revise my writings I will still find errors in them the next time.
 
Now, my main interest is the comparative study between video games and literature. My MA thesis the comparison between Alice in Wonderland books and their video game adaptations. I am knoweldagble in both fields and I have been a freelance video game blogger for years. I think I can prove my competence in both areas.
 
I am also very competent in Persian and Islamic literature so I can go down that road too.
 
So this is my situation. Now I want to confess something: the main thing that I want is to get out of Iran. If I could use any other way I would, but I can't because literature and politics are the only things I know how to do. So getting accepted is the main thing I want. So these are my questions:
 
1) How do you assess my chances overall?
2) No matter how hard I google comparative literature, I find only the best universities. Can you suggest some universities which are lower in rankings? I will have more chances of acceptance and the application fee is lower and funding is guaranteed.
3) The country I want to go to is the USA. Are the universities in that country too good for me? I also love to go to Canada and any other English speaking country except Australia, or European countries (that I unfortunately don't speak the language of).
 
I know this was a very long post and thanks a lot for reading it.

Hello everyone.
 
I am an Iranian student of English literature. I want to apply to a PhD comparative literature program and I wanted to ask all of you what you think of my chances. I want to ask you some specific questions as well. But before that let me get to the main point: full funding is mandatory for me. I don't know if you have followed the Iranian news or not but let me tell you that in the previous two years the sanctions and incompetent trynaical regimes have worked together and now our currency is less valuable than toilet paper. I was always in a lower middle class category but now I'm deep under the poverty line. So, I will never afford paying tuitions ANYWHERE. Not only that, it will mean paying application fees and travel costs and things like that will also be a massive pain in the neck. Apart from that we need to pay a lot of money to the government to have access to our BA and MA certificates. GRE and TOEFL are going to be really expensive too. I will need to work for a year or two just to earn the money needed for application costs.
 
So let me give you a little information about myself.
 
Good things about me:
- My graduate school is one of the top 2 in Iran and it's internationally famous (and sanctioned, hehe).
- My graduate professors love me and I'm sure they will write me shining letters of recommendation. They are internationally respected too, I guess.
- I have only As and my GPA is 4.0 in graduate school.
- I don't have any publications yet, but I am sure I will have one or two papers published before my application time comes. (They're under review now).
- I have worked as an English teacher for 5 years now. But even better, I'm in negotiations with some schools and I'm positive I will have some academic teaching experience too before applying. I might also become a faculty member somewhere but that's a 50/50 chance.
 
Bad things about me:
- I have some Cs, Ds, and Fs in BA. All of them except one are the grades of stupid lessons unrelated to the English literature forced on us by the government - Islamic thought, family values, things like that - or teaching or translation lessons. My only F in literature is a lesson I didn't take the exam out of protest to the teacher. At that time I was reckless and stupid and didn't think ahead.
- I'm only fluent in two languages, English and Persian. I can also read Arabic but I can't write or speak or listen to it. I can take classes but I don't think I would be able to study so extensively to be able to be fluent in a third language before the time comes.
- I'm a bit controversial. I'm a radical atheist and I am against social institutions like family and marriage, I politically support WikiLeaks and things like that. I have extreme liberal views. So if someone searches my name they might some angry comments on the internet from me they might deem too radical and crazy. I can stand by the content of those comments and defend them but the tone was angry. Again, I was reckless and stupid.
- Grammar errors- ugh. No matter how many times I proofread and revise my writings I will still find errors in them the next time.
 
Now, my main interest is the comparative study between video games and literature. My MA thesis the comparison between Alice in Wonderland books and their video game adaptations. I am knoweldagble in both fields and I have been a freelance video game blogger for years. I think I can prove my competence in both areas.
 
I am also very competent in Persian and Islamic literature so I can go down that road too.
 
So this is my situation. Now I want to confess something: the main thing that I want is to get out of Iran. If I could use any other way I would, but I can't because literature and politics are the only things I know how to do. So getting accepted is the main thing I want. So these are my questions:
 
1) How do you assess my chances overall?
2) No matter how hard I google comparative literature, I find only the best universities. Can you suggest some universities which are lower in rankings? I will have more chances of acceptance and the application fee is lower and funding is guaranteed.
3) The country I want to go to is the USA. Are the universities in that country too good for me? I also love to go to Canada and any other English speaking country except Australia, or European countries (that I unfortunately don't speak the language of).
 
I know this was a very long post and thanks a lot for reading it.

Hello everyone.
 
I am an Iranian student of English literature. I want to apply to a PhD comparative literature program and I wanted to ask all of you what you think of my chances. I want to ask you some specific questions as well. But before that let me get to the main point: full funding is mandatory for me. I don't know if you have followed the Iranian news or not but let me tell you that in the previous two years the sanctions and incompetent trynaical regimes have worked together and now our currency is less valuable than toilet paper. I was always in a lower middle class category but now I'm deep under the poverty line. So, I will never afford paying tuitions ANYWHERE. Not only that, it will mean paying application fees and travel costs and things like that will also be a massive pain in the neck. Apart from that we need to pay a lot of money to the government to have access to our BA and MA certificates. GRE and TOEFL are going to be really expensive too. I will need to work for a year or two just to earn the money needed for application costs.
 
So let me give you a little information about myself.
 
Good things about me:
- My graduate school is one of the top 2 in Iran and it's internationally famous (and sanctioned, hehe).
- My graduate professors love me and I'm sure they will write me shining letters of recommendation. They are internationally respected too, I guess.
- I have only As and my GPA is 4.0 in graduate school.
- I don't have any publications yet, but I am sure I will have one or two papers published before my application time comes. (They're under review now).
- I have worked as an English teacher for 5 years now. But even better, I'm in negotiations with some schools and I'm positive I will have some academic teaching experience too before applying. I might also become a faculty member somewhere but that's a 50/50 chance.
 
Bad things about me:
- I have some Cs, Ds, and Fs in BA. All of them except one are the grades of stupid lessons unrelated to the English literature forced on us by the government - Islamic thought, family values, things like that - or teaching or translation lessons. My only F in literature is a lesson I didn't take the exam out of protest to the teacher. At that time I was reckless and stupid and didn't think ahead.
- I'm only fluent in two languages, English and Persian. I can also read Arabic but I can't write or speak or listen to it. I can take classes but I don't think I would be able to study so extensively to be able to be fluent in a third language before the time comes.
- I'm a bit controversial. I'm a radical atheist and I am against social institutions like family and marriage, I politically support WikiLeaks and things like that. I have extreme liberal views. So if someone searches my name they might some angry comments on the internet from me they might deem too radical and crazy. I can stand by the content of those comments and defend them but the tone was angry. Again, I was reckless and stupid.
- Grammar errors- ugh. No matter how many times I proofread and revise my writings I will still find errors in them the next time.
 
Now, my main interest is the comparative study between video games and literature. My MA thesis the comparison between Alice in Wonderland books and their video game adaptations. I am knoweldagble in both fields and I have been a freelance video game blogger for years. I think I can prove my competence in both areas.
 
I am also very competent in Persian and Islamic literature so I can go down that road too.
 
So this is my situation. Now I want to confess something: the main thing that I want is to get out of Iran. If I could use any other way I would, but I can't because literature and politics are the only things I know how to do. So getting accepted is the main thing I want. So these are my questions:
 
1) How do you assess my chances overall?
2) No matter how hard I google comparative literature, I find only the best universities. Can you suggest some universities which are lower in rankings? I will have more chances of acceptance and the application fee is lower and funding is guaranteed.
3) The country I want to go to is the USA. Are the universities in that country too good for me? I also love to go to Canada and any other English speaking country except Australia, or European countries (that I unfortunately don't speak the language of).
 
I know this was a very long post and thanks a lot for reading it.

Hello everyone.
 
I am an Iranian student of English literature. I want to apply to a PhD comparative literature program and I wanted to ask all of you what you think of my chances. I want to ask you some specific questions as well. But before that let me get to the main point: full funding is mandatory for me. I don't know if you have followed the Iranian news or not but let me tell you that in the previous two years the sanctions and incompetent trynaical regimes have worked together and now our currency is less valuable than toilet paper. I was always in a lower middle class category but now I'm deep under the poverty line. So, I will never afford paying tuitions ANYWHERE. Not only that, it will mean paying application fees and travel costs and things like that will also be a massive pain in the neck. Apart from that we need to pay a lot of money to the government to have access to our BA and MA certificates. GRE and TOEFL are going to be really expensive too. I will need to work for a year or two just to earn the money needed for application costs.
 
So let me give you a little information about myself.
 
Good things about me:
- My graduate school is one of the top 2 in Iran and it's internationally famous (and sanctioned, hehe).
- My graduate professors love me and I'm sure they will write me shining letters of recommendation. They are internationally respected too, I guess.
- I have only As and my GPA is 4.0 in graduate school.
- I don't have any publications yet, but I am sure I will have one or two papers published before my application time comes. (They're under review now).
- I have worked as an English teacher for 5 years now. But even better, I'm in negotiations with some schools and I'm positive I will have some academic teaching experience too before applying. I might also become a faculty member somewhere but that's a 50/50 chance.
 
Bad things about me:
- I have some Cs, Ds, and Fs in BA. All of them except one are the grades of stupid lessons unrelated to the English literature forced on us by the government - Islamic thought, family values, things like that - or teaching or translation lessons. My only F in literature is a lesson I didn't take the exam out of protest to the teacher. At that time I was reckless and stupid and didn't think ahead.
- I'm only fluent in two languages, English and Persian. I can also read Arabic but I can't write or speak or listen to it. I can take classes but I don't think I would be able to study so extensively to be able to be fluent in a third language before the time comes.
- I'm a bit controversial. I'm a radical atheist and I am against social institutions like family and marriage, I politically support WikiLeaks and things like that. I have extreme liberal views. So if someone searches my name they might some angry comments on the internet from me they might deem too radical and crazy. I can stand by the content of those comments and defend them but the tone was angry. Again, I was reckless and stupid.
- Grammar errors- ugh. No matter how many times I proofread and revise my writings I will still find errors in them the next time.
 
Now, my main interest is the comparative study between video games and literature. My MA thesis the comparison between Alice in Wonderland books and their video game adaptations. I am knoweldagble in both fields and I have been a freelance video game blogger for years. I think I can prove my competence in both areas.
 
I am also very competent in Persian and Islamic literature so I can go down that road too.
 
So this is my situation. Now I want to confess something: the main thing that I want is to get out of Iran. If I could use any other way I would, but I can't because literature and politics are the only things I know how to do. So getting accepted is the main thing I want. So these are my questions:
 
1) How do you assess my chances overall?
2) No matter how hard I google comparative literature, I find only the best universities. Can you suggest some universities which are lower in rankings? I will have more chances of acceptance and the application fee is lower and funding is guaranteed.
3) The country I want to go to is the USA. Are the universities in that country too good for me? I also love to go to Canada and any other English speaking country except Australia, or European countries (that I unfortunately don't speak the language of).
 
I know this was a very long post and thanks a lot for reading it.

Hello everyone.
 
I am an Iranian student of English literature. I want to apply to a PhD comparative literature program and I wanted to ask all of you what you think of my chances. I want to ask you some specific questions as well. But before that let me get to the main point: full funding is mandatory for me. I don't know if you have followed the Iranian news or not but let me tell you that in the previous two years the sanctions and incompetent trynaical regimes have worked together and now our currency is less valuable than toilet paper. I was always in a lower middle class category but now I'm deep under the poverty line. So, I will never afford paying tuitions ANYWHERE. Not only that, it will mean paying application fees and travel costs and things like that will also be a massive pain in the neck. Apart from that we need to pay a lot of money to the government to have access to our BA and MA certificates. GRE and TOEFL are going to be really expensive too. I will need to work for a year or two just to earn the money needed for application costs.
 
So let me give you a little information about myself.
 
Good things about me:
- My graduate school is one of the top 2 in Iran and it's internationally famous (and sanctioned, hehe).
- My graduate professors love me and I'm sure they will write me shining letters of recommendation. They are internationally respected too, I guess.
- I have only As and my GPA is 4.0 in graduate school.
- I don't have any publications yet, but I am sure I will have one or two papers published before my application time comes. (They're under review now).
- I have worked as an English teacher for 5 years now. But even better, I'm in negotiations with some schools and I'm positive I will have some academic teaching experience too before applying. I might also become a faculty member somewhere but that's a 50/50 chance.
 
Bad things about me:
- I have some Cs, Ds, and Fs in BA. All of them except one are the grades of stupid lessons unrelated to the English literature forced on us by the government - Islamic thought, family values, things like that - or teaching or translation lessons. My only F in literature is a lesson I didn't take the exam out of protest to the teacher. At that time I was reckless and stupid and didn't think ahead.
- I'm only fluent in two languages, English and Persian. I can also read Arabic but I can't write or speak or listen to it. I can take classes but I don't think I would be able to study so extensively to be able to be fluent in a third language before the time comes.
- I'm a bit controversial. I'm a radical atheist and I am against social institutions like family and marriage, I politically support WikiLeaks and things like that. I have extreme liberal views. So if someone searches my name they might some angry comments on the internet from me they might deem too radical and crazy. I can stand by the content of those comments and defend them but the tone was angry. Again, I was reckless and stupid.
- Grammar errors- ugh. No matter how many times I proofread and revise my writings I will still find errors in them the next time.
 
Now, my main interest is the comparative study between video games and literature. My MA thesis the comparison between Alice in Wonderland books and their video game adaptations. I am knoweldagble in both fields and I have been a freelance video game blogger for years. I think I can prove my competence in both areas.
 
I am also very competent in Persian and Islamic literature so I can go down that road too.
 
So this is my situation. Now I want to confess something: the main thing that I want is to get out of Iran. If I could use any other way I would, but I can't because literature and politics are the only things I know how to do. So getting accepted is the main thing I want. So these are my questions:
 
1) How do you assess my chances overall?
2) No matter how hard I google comparative literature, I find only the best universities. Can you suggest some universities which are lower in rankings? I will have more chances of acceptance and the application fee is lower and funding is guaranteed.
3) The country I want to go to is the USA. Are the universities in that country too good for me? I also love to go to Canada and any other English speaking country except Australia, or European countries (that I unfortunately don't speak the language of).
 
I know this was a very long post and thanks a lot for reading it.

Yet they still manage to have a positive perspective on things. Such courage! Good thing everyone on this board is an Adonis in their own right, a paragon of human beauty.