Hi All,
This is my first post, so please excuse any mistakes I make in terms of "best practices" in this community. I have mined the forums for a few months now for info on programs and applying for Fall 2014, and I must say I've learned more about English PhD programs in those few months than my whole life before.
I'll try to keep this simple. I am looking at the following schools for their English PhD programs, and this is in order of current interest (although my interest changes weekly):
UC-Santa Cruz, UMASS-Amherst, Brown, Berkely, Yale, Stanford, Duke, Rutgers, Brandeis
My interest is the political dimension of literature and visual art, specifically Marxism (The Frankfurt School, Fredric Jameson), Anarchism (David Graeber, horizontalism, pre-figurative politics), and the relationship between content and form. Basically, I obsess over the ill-effects of what could be called Capitalist Realism - how market ideology infiltrates nearly everything.
I'd appreciate anyone's take on any of the above schools in relation to my interests. I've already emailed and spoken with a few professors and current graduate students at those schools, but further insight would really help as I narrow down both my interests and potential schools. Also, if anyone has ideas about other schools that would be a nice fit, please let me know.
Thank you so much for your help.
Jeremy