soxpuppet
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Posts posted by soxpuppet
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I was really, really hoping to hit the 700 mark, which is why I'm a bit befuddled about the whole thing.
I was aiming for the same number, and came up slightly but solidly short of it. I had a similar impulse to retake, but honestly? none of the successful applicants I know (out of those who have actually told me their scores) beat that mark. And if what dietc0ke posted it what's written on Harvard's website, I'd say more solidly, don't retake. From what I remember of most websites, they tended to list things like "recommended scores" or "average scores of successful applicants." Your number shows that a) you have a solid knowledge of the canon, and
that 80th %ile is not just against the general population, not just out of English majors, but specifically out of English majors angling for English lit graduate programs. These numbers are, I think, only ever used in making first cuts (and sometimes for determining funding, esp. from sources external to the department), and in my opinion, if the other "numbers" are high, it would be absurd for this to contribute negatively to your application in that respect.Good luck! Go work on your writing sample!
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I don't know anything about Harvard in particular, but it's important to note that many schools in practice implement policies re. "numbers" different from what they say on their website. I've even heard that a coupe of schools that list high average GRE scores or high cutoff numbers don't even look at the test except to confirm that you've taken it (and given ETS all your money).
A friend of mine, however, was told by her advisors that she should avoid applying to schools where she did not meet the minimum requirements (in this case, foreign language proficiency), even if that requirement was in an area that didn't seem central to the application.
So... for some schools these numbers are hard and fast rules, but others just have outdated/unrepresentative websites.
My uninformed opinion is that your score is respectable and my suspicion is that at most schools it will neither hurt nor help you. If you are worried about particular schools and their policies, if you have your heart set on a certain school and don't want to be disqualified on a minor issue of 20 pts. on the GRE, it's probably more efficient to send off a quick email and ask for a clarification of their policy than to take time away from work on your writing sample and SoP that may not even be necessary.
In any case, the GRE at this point should be a secondary concern. But if you get everything else into perfect shape this summer and find you have time to sit down and read some theory, I certainly wouldn't dissuade you from doing so. It's helpful to know, even for a Medievalist.
So I finally got my subject test scores back about a week ago.
Not a thrilling score - 630, but not too horrible, either (80th percentile). For someone who's been out of school for nearly 10 years, it's really not too terrible.
However, my two top choice schools (because of their program) are Harvard and UCLA - so I'm up against some big guns. Obviously, the subject test score won't hurt me when I'm applying to Southern Methodist - but Harvard requires a minimum of 650 (at least so they claim on their website). The question is - to retake the test in November (and study my ass off yet again, this time focusing heavily on criticism and american lit - my weaknesses) - or to just let it lie??
yes, yes, I know the SOP and writing sample are really what count. But I wouldn't want to not get accepted just because of the stupid subject GRE (a horrible, horrible test!!).
Advise welcome!
Branwen
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That's great! My advisor is from Chapel Hill and we haven't talked about CH specifically just schools in general. He's the prof that taught 16th and 17th Century Lit and got me interested in the literature from these times. He really emphasized that the job market sucks and nothing is gauranteed.
Ah! If you're at CH that's an AWESOME place for Renaissance! If your advisor is who I think, my advice to you is to continue consulting him, but in the meantime, your efforts should really be focused on your classes, your writing, your research - finding opportunities to develop your scholarship. Good luck!
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Thanks for all the replies everyone!
I really like the looks of UCLA's Renaissance program but I went there for undergrad (some years ago), and I've heard that many schools will not consider you for graduate school if that is the case. I don't want to waste my money applying if they are just going to chuck my application in the trash as soon as they see their name on my transcripts, but I don't want to pass up an opportunity apply to a great program where I think I would fit well. Does anyone have advice regarding applying to your undergraduate institution for graduate school?
This depends a lot on the department, and even if they are open to accepting returning students, you may not want to do it - it's usually a better career move to diversify. If you're still in touch with anyone there, definitely email and ask - and *definitely* ask old professors for recommendations of other programs to apply to; hopefully they'll be more than willing to help.
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On 5/2/2010 at 1:17 AM, Gingermick said:
What are the best PhD programs with specializations in Renaissance Studies, particularly Renaissance drama, outside of the US New Specialty Rankings? I particularly love Shakespeare, but who doesn't?
I applied as an early modernist, but not for drama specifically, and in applying I actually shied away from programs that were really drama heavy. Pamphilia has some great suggestions for departments with general strengths in Renaissance faculty - I'd also say that from what I've heard Columbia is really THE place for Renn drama. Tons of faculty interest, classes all the time, etc. I've heard of drama people being attracted to WUSTL and Cornell as well. Of course, these are really big names. Oh, and DEFINITELY UCLA.
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A friend of mine had a nicely funded offer from Fordham. No idea how many of their students they fund though!
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I should add that my adviser also told me not to mention specific professors in my statement of purpose, and since I worshiped the ground he walked on, I did as he said. He claimed that professors found these mentions even more presumptuous than unsolicited emails. I'm not sure if this is true, and I'm curious what other successful applicants did with their SoPs, but my adviser's rationale seemed sound: THEY decide if they want to work with YOU.
I had a professor tell me something very similar, and my friend, another of her advisees, was very, very successful last year using this method. Personally, I did a mix. I mentioned faculty in some SoPs and not others - and there was no real pattern in my acceptances and rejections that would confirm which method is superior. I was accepted (&rejected) at schools where I mentioned faculty, and accepted (&rejected) at schools where I didn't. I ultimately did not mention faculty at the school I chose to attend, partly because there were so many things to talk about in terms of fit I couldn't decide what to put. There were about 6 faculty members I wanted to work with. Anyway, my application showed how my work resonated with theirs in more subtle ways - I quoted one professor in my writing sample, etc.
I also didn't email anyone beforehand and I'd echo the people who advised using caution in doing so. If you need to ask if it's a good idea, my guess would be that it isn't. If you come to a place in your research on a school where you really can't move further toward getting a sense of your fit from the website and professors' writing alone and you know precisely what you'd need to hear from them to confirm that they'd be a good school to have on your list (or not), the decision to contact the department should be a fairly obvious one.
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I know most of the people here are in English departments so I am bringing a different perspective as someone in Near Eastern Languages and Lit. But, I happen to know that among the top handful of schools in my field, there is discussion among Professors from different schools who know each other about the applicants and where they would be better off, and if one school is certain to accept a student, another school may not offer admission to this student, knowing they will be accepted at the other school (and with a concern for yield rates at the forefront of this decision).
Although this is not the same dynamic that we are talking about, it displays a concern for not accepting a student who the adcom has determined, for whatever reason, will probably go elsewhere.
You make a lot of astute points here, but I just wanted to highlight this one. I know for a fact that many admissions directors (in English) DO talk to each other about who they are admitting, especially when directors at other programs are members of their subfield, personal friends, etc. Such networks are nearly impossible to discern from outside the bubble, and it would be pretty much ridiculous to try to take advantage of them as an applicant, but it's likely that they occasionally play a role in admissions decisions.
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If your thought process is, "Oh, I got into [top-ranked school], but not [low-ranked school], that's weird," and not, "Darn it, I really liked that school!" that's a good indication you didn't need to apply to said low-ranked school. I don't mean just a bruised ego, but real remorse over losing that option.
That's an excellent way of putting it. The only thing I'd add is that it IS often very difficult, as a naive applicant, to evaluate fit before you've been accepted to a program, visited, etc. - it's especially difficult to tell whether you'd be happy at a certain department when all you have to go on is what you can learn from the internet, the professors' books, and, perhaps, a couple of email exchanges. I had the least remorse about getting rejected by the two highest ranked programs I applied to because I realized in the ensuing months that they were not as strong a fit as I had originally thought. A couple of other schools I applied to because something about them excited me and they looked like a good fit on paper, but I wasn't sure that they were great options until I had emailed professors and visited. A couple of the schools I was initially very excited about the prospect of attending disappointed in areas such as funding that were new developments I couldn't have known about in advance. So I wouldn't discourage applicants from applying broadly, but genuine enthusiasm for each program is certainly a must.
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I'm really not sure why this thread has become such a battleground for giving posters "+1" and "-1" marks... come on, guys! If you want to join in the discussion, can we, perhaps, use words?
StrangeLight, no one who knows anything in English uses USNWR rankings to talk about subfield. BUT it's a good bet that the top 20 programs (in English) generally will be more likely to attract strong students and will tend to have strengths across a broad array of subfields, a decent funding structure, a manageable and diverse teaching load, and will offer as good of a chance as you're going to get of landing a job at an R1 or SLAC (if that's what you want). Maybe it's entirely different on the History board, but no one here looks to USNWR to see which school is strong for American lit, Early Modern, or Theory. We've also had quite a few discussions on this forum about how to consider rankings in the most useful way when evaluating schools. Most of us admittedly, but not ignorantly, attend to them more than we should. But I would argue that the most useful move would be to learn more about what, if anything, they indicate rather than dismissing that data entirely. I'm automatically skeptical of any move that asserts a particular feature should simply not be evaluated.
the rankings are meaningless. example: the USNWR ranks harvard as the #9 school for latin american history. they don't have a latin american history program. they have one person on their faculty, who for all i know may be a very talented scholar but who has zero name recognition in the field. they don't take on latin americanist masters students because they never offer seminars for that field. the small handful of latin americanists there received their MAs elsewhere and are attending harvard to work with that lone professor in particular. how is that a top 10 program? these rankings are based in large part on surveys of professors. to formulate the subfield rankings, they don't just survey the professors of that subfield; they ask every prof in the profession. the many historians that don't know anything about latin american history but know that harvard's supposed to be good at everything put the school into their top 10. the profs that do know a bit ("professor X is great and he's at school Y") don't necessarily know enough to realize that professor X moved to a different school half a decade ago. they don't keep up with the field enough to know which professors moved or retired, so their rankings are often based on former reputations that may or may not still hold true.
here is my advice for future and current applicants: THE RANKINGS DON'T MATTER. leave the confines of this website and no one talks about rankings. you look for the best academics in your field. you find out where they're teaching and (if they're young) where they went to school. those are the places you apply to.
noticing a pattern based on biased data is not evidence of a causal relationship. if the rankings actually reflected the quality of the faculty and the placement rates of graduate students, then you might have something. but they don't. i also don't understand how this thread is supposed to "help" future applicants. to me, it came off like you wanted someone to validate your rejections from lower-ranked schools based on you being too good, rather than programs which are beneath you somehow deeming you unworthy.
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However, I've come across some PhD programs that I didn't apply to because they did not offer specific enough concentrations, and I would have had to take classes in multiple fields. I don't know if it was due to coincidence, but all these universities had lower rankings (well, I don't actually know what their rankings were since I don't follow rankings, but in any case they were institutions with less amazing reputations). Perhaps some of your rejections had something to do with that.
Maybe it's different in English as opposed to History, but almost all of the (mostly top ranked/all well regarded) programs I applied to required that your coursework over the first couple years cover a variety of general areas (ie, most require at least one class in the literature of each of 4 or 5 periods - most also have an American, theory, and/or multicultural requirement as well). To get into these programs, however, you do need to articulate pretty darn specific research interests.
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Maybe some of us would be perfectly happy teaching at community colleges or regional state schools or even high schools. And perhaps there will be a lot of students who will come through our classes at those places and learn a great deal. And maybe they'll go on to build beautiful lives and families and careers.
Would that be a professional failure on our parts? Would that be a reason not to apply to graduate school?
Let's keep things in perspective. The best jobs are not necessarily at the best schools.
I can't see the whole article, but.... http://chronicle.com/article/Memorandum-to-Graduate/65066/
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I'm not going to attempt to judge the particulars of your circumstances, but the broader implications of your observation seem entirely plausible. I think we can talk about this productively even without reference to rankings, though the way you employ them here is, to me, quite valid. It's fair to posit that although schools are aware that most of the students they admit will, one way or another, have multiple programs to choose from, many, perhaps most programs, will only admit people they feel are likely to accept - and that "likeliness to accept" could be due to any number of reasons beyond the program's ranking or prestige conceived in other ways.
I'm not going to name school names, but... I know of at least one program, competitively ranked, that has a reputation for passing "blindly" over applicants who receive multiple top-10/ivy offers, even when those applicants feel they are a strong fit. I've heard anecdotes of some admissions committees that, when faced with an applicant they (for whatever reason) suspect is sincere in their interest but not (yet) considering their school as their top choice, will either accept that student with a fellowship offer or not accept them at all - ie, the school will make an offer if they feel they can make themselves competitive with funding and a gesture of uncommon desire that the applicant choose their program. I even have heard anecdotes of the odd adcom member sneering at strong applications and dismissing them with, "he'll end up at Harvard" or the like.
I don't feel that this entirely breaks the rule of thumb that if a program considers you to be a strong fit, they will accept you. But to say this we have to think of "fit" even a bit more broadly than we have been doing. Fit isn't necessarily limited to alignment of interests, methodology, atmosphere/environment; maybe it also means, if not talent, at least preparation, ambition. A school may recognize that it is not a strong match for (what adcom members perceive to be) your ambitions and that even if you accept, it's likely that in a year or so you'll feel stifled, unsatisfied. Programs don't want dissatisfied students. Adcoms look for students who can rise to the challenges their program presents, one of which is the discourse of your peers, so it makes sense that students with comparable levels of preparation would be admitted.
Malumat's comments look spot on to me as well.
Overall, unfairly or no, I have more respect for programs that admit the strongest candidates (whose interests are supported by active faculty) than for those that seem to go to great lengths to feel out a likely acceptance - it seems to me the schools that make those gambles are the ones in the best position to improve the quality of their program (not just in terms of rankings).
This is a lot of speculation on my part and not at all intended to disparage "lower ranked" programs.
I was admitted to a fully funded Ph.D. program in English for the fall of 2010. This program is ranked in the top 20. Meanwhile, I was flat-out rejected (not waitlisted or even deferred to MA programs) at some very low-ranked schools, all the way down into the 50's and 60's. On the one hand, I can understand that an adcom would resist sending out a dozen admits and getting a dozen rejections back in response, but I have trouble believing that these committee members would review an outstanding application and say, "Yes, this person has absolutely everything that we want, right down to the last detail, BUT since s/he is likely to be admitted to a better school, let's toss this one and take a lesser-qualified candidate instead."
Any thoughts? My applications to these schools were sincere, carefully considered, and well matched. I even cited a number of their professors in my writing sample to reinforce that I was in fact committed to these programs. It's also curious that ALL of my acceptances were at schools clustered in the bottom half of the top-20.
Is this system set up in such a way that an applicant is destined to a certain part of the rankings list, or is it more like Plinko?
Remember Plinko?
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Does SUNY Buffalo English PhD program require MA? It is not stated on the website. Could anyone attending/ admitted to Buffalo share their exeperience?
They don't require an MA, but they seem to be moving toward a habit of mainly accepting students who already hold the degree. I was told there were only two first round admits (for the PhD) this year who did not already have their MA. Many strong candidates were offered a place in their MA program instead.
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I had in fact posted interests elsewhere, and given the thoughtful, thorough replies throughout, and having posted largely to this group, I guess I assumed those had been read in other threads. No? OK! That's easy! As a crossover from another field, I'm very interested in nationalism and national idenity - the changing nature of statehood in a globalized world! I'd like to view that through the lens of "modern" novels (I put the " marks around modern because I don't know this to be the proper term for novels written after, say, 1939 [which I have taken to be "postmodern" in an entirely difference sense from what I had originally understood postmodern to be] or even after the end of the Cold War - the big shake up in international order). Short stories and other forms of fiction besides the novel interest me, too, but really it's the novel format that I am interested in. Also - I had mentioned it elsewhere - I do believe that the school sometimes known as "hysterical realism" or "maximalism" could be a good tie-in, here, as well as something I'd like to explore originally, called geographic existentialism.
Yes, it's true that I seek an escape from "new data sets" and "behavioralism" and "international forecasting centers" and "new and improved algorithms" for predicting international chaos, but I've downplayed my intense passion for literature. I should more actively focus on that, rather than an old love spurned. Literature is a big part of my life, and working on it professionally gives me warm tingles in my viscera and jibblets.
I'm hearing the message loud and clear that the divide that I originally mentioned is not only overblown, but actually non-existent. I'm fine with that. Again, I only came at it from the angle that everyone seemed on board with saying "yes" to what I was asking - it surprised me, frankly, and so I asked more pointedly. I'm not surprised at the reaction, it is a bit more reality than I had been getting previously.
Short answer, cause honestly I'm a little burnt out on this - sorry I didn't read the other thread thoroughly. I remember when you posted, but as I personally find the quality of posts in this forum to be incredibly uneven and keeping up with all of them to be rather exhausting, I (and most of the people I know well here) tend to read and participate somewhat selectively, often even arbitrarily - and I already kick myself for spending WAY too much time here
In the sense that you describe above, I'd say your qualitative work has the potential to fit right in. I'm so far from your particular subfield that I've not previously even heard the terms "hysterical realism" or "maximalism" (who's jargony now
)! I don't know what the current debates are in this area, but what you've described sounds like a position from which it should be possible to join them, and I wish you the best of luck in doing so. -
Thanks, Sox. I think I'll take that as my cue
. The way I do conversation is perhaps a little different. It's really interesting to note how others may engage a question while simultaneously continuing "the original discussion" (which thread shall I trace backward?). That's a neat trick! Where I live on planet earth, I ask questions for the sole purpose of getting answers to them. Also, thanks that my question isn't entirely off topic! I really appreciate your approval. Next time I'll look for more meshiness, that seems to be key in question-asking, an art that clearly English majors alone have mastered. I suppose that I could start a new thread, and speak to myself alone over there, but it just seemed a little pedantic when everyone was right here. I mean, here you guys are - hi guys... hello. Oh well. I can see that you guys are really into this whole democratization thing and rankings and whatever, so I suppose I'm just interrupting. As for the jargon, I can appreciate target audiences and assumptions, which is why I took pains to define myself as an audience member and combat the prevailing assumption. That wasn't, however, clarification, it was.... background on my life! Damn it! I knew that one, can't believe it missed it. Gold star for you, Sox. I've been studying so hard just to keep up with you guys, and I miss something as easy as "clarification." You can only imagine what this does to my GRE verbal. I didn't realize that examples - not background - are the defining characteristics of clarification, but I'm not missing that one again. Commit to memory...
Haven't provided enough info, but then, nobody's asked for any info. I didn't realize my inquiry was lacking, honestly. An honest question: am I really that difficult to discern? Holy hell. From where I sit, my posts are pretty straight-forward and, taken at face value, I don't think that clarificaition is forever in order. I really don't. I'm also not asking for your qualified opinions, just your damn opinions. Pretend we're having a beer, and I say, "Hey Soxpuppet, what do you think about this?" and you're like, "well, Strong Flat White, if that is your real name, I'm not really qualified to say, but in my esteemed opinion..." and I'm like, "oh, cool. Thanks. Mind if I call you Sox? I'll chew on that one..." But that's not possible here. What happens here is a fairly average dude says, "Wow, I'm really enthusiastic about the opportunity to pick all these brains in cyberspace - hey, what do you guys think?!" and in response, you guys say, "I don't really know what you're asking, you're kind of on-topic, but kind of not, you're a circle-jerker, you're a hypocrite, we're not qualified, according to so-and-so theorists, blah blah blah, and your so-called clarification is improperly classified..." Etc. I see what's happening, I'm just getting in the way of your fun! Well, that's what happens when you crash a party, I suppose, the ring leader will show you the door. As tempted as I am to provide some concrete motivations for studying literature, some concrete career objectives (ah, how I salivate!), it's clear where the thread is headed, and that's fine. I'll take my insecurities elsewhere and hope for the best.
I think I will, however, take you up on that offer for placement assistance in the field, assuming of course that I decide I deserve it and am willing to strive to achieve it. It is, of course, axiomatic, that that is the purpose of the board. Not meaningless drivel, but career advancement! I mean, it does give me slight pause, the way you put it, 'cause you sure make it sound like a lot of hard work! Huh, I was, of course, in my fledgling and immature state, expecting a cake walk, but that seems right out! Well, if it's to be hard work, then hard work it is. Gosh. How shall I refer to you when I list you as a reference? Dr. Puppet? Professor S. Puppet? Puppet-in-training? Can I give them a thread to search? Do you have a prospective list of scintillating discussions coming down the pike that I can steer them toward? I want to make sure they get a hold of you. My future in the field... might... just... depend on it!
Your question, phrased many different ways has been seeking to discover whether or not your qualitative habits of inquiry fit within the English discipline. As there are many kinds of qualitative analysis, I'm simply saying I can't answer that question at all without having a better idea of the kind of project you're hoping to do in English, and your posts in this thread haven't given any indication of that. As long as your response continues to be variations on the same question with no more specificity indicated, how are we going to say? It would be more useful to know things like, what kinds of questions to you like to ask about the texts you read? What kinds of arguments do you like to make about literature, and what kind of evidence do you feel is valid in supporting those arguments? What topics do you like to discuss and on what terms? We could infer things from the mode of argumentation displayed in your posts, perhaps, but not really enough to be helpful to you.
I'll admit the last paragraph of my last post was worded quite uncarefully. What I meant was that I find the value of these forums to be that through our conversations we are often able to help each other learn about the discipline, then find and achieve our place within it. I shouldn't have used the word "profession," and the "assistance" I spoke of was intended to indicate something more along the lines of camaraderie, moral support, and more generally pooling information.
I'm not sure why you're attacking me both for qualifying my opinions and thereby acknowledging their limitations AND assuming a role of unearned authority. I was just trying to point out that if you asked your question in a different way, you'd be more likely to get a helpful answer - not even necessarily from me. There are lots of people on this forum who know far more than I do.
I wasn't asking about your concrete motivations or your concrete career objectives, I just wanted to know HOW YOU READ. When I say it's difficult to envision the WORK you do in lit, well, the WORK of graduate studies in English is LITERARY ANALYSIS. You say you have qualitative skills, well, I am interested: tell us about them. Then we could actually converse, and not just toss out the kind of judgments you get in bar conversation, which, if that's what you're looking for, I'm sorry but I can't oblige.
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Well, then I'd be happy to clarify (not that anyone asked, but I'll take a stab anyway)!
I think 2 really curious things are going on here. I think you guys are giving me both too much credit, and not enough credit. Interesting, no?
Too much credit: There are veritable essays here rife with theory and name-dropping and all kinds of Foucault references and all manner of qualititative/quantitatve acrobatics that make for a great discussion, surely, but are quite apart from anything I'm inquiring about. So... please carry on if it's a good discussion, but certainly not for my benefit. Much of the discussion assumes methodological philosophies that I wasn't really asking about or commenting on. I will clarify.
Too little credit: For all the thought and energy thrown into these replies, I think there is an underestimation of my grasp of quantitative or qualititative validity. I never suggested that the two were mutually exclusive, which is why I provided my wife's quotation. I felt that I was being read as naive and over-simplistic, which I think is true, so I make the following points: Of course these things aren't mutually exclusive! Of course there is validity on both sides! My ranting against quantitative methods has very little to do with quantitative methods themselves and everything to do with the mentalities that drive them and my own personal experiences and preferences. I will clarify.
Clarification: My question, emboldened by nothing to the contrary until GK came along, was whether I was correct to assume that I could find my qualitative niche in English? I phrased it this way previously, and I think it's a clear enough question. The background to this question bears repeating, apparently, because people are so confused by my inarticulate posts. Let me repeat that qualitative is my own personal preference, and one that I was timid about to begin. I have come to grips with the fact that I can never be a political scientist, and certainly not with the way that field is heading. I mentioned resentment - yes, it's a bitter pill to swallow. I spent 2 degrees getting trained in a field that simply won't work for me. Ouch, who else here can say the same? I'm taking an honest look at myself, as Manatee would ask me to do. So, is all lost? That's my question. I turn to my strengths, and I see nothing but qualitative. I see Humanities broadly, and I see English specifically. Don't give me too much credit, here - I haven't yet learned the jargon. Don't give me too little credit - I do know how to think! Or perhaps not, but I'll lie to myself a little longer in any case.
I think the root cause of these misunderstandings, both on your part and on the part of others who are giving you "too little" or "too much" credit, is that while you are asking about the possibility of you finding a role in this discipline, the posters who are responding are, for the most part, seeking to engage your question while simultaneously continuing the original discussion. Now, your question isn't entirely off topic, as we could perhaps take your own circumstances as a test of whatever democratization hypothesis we come up with (or assume). Namely, where are the openings in literature studies for those seeking to switch fields? Are they substantial? Fair? On what conditions does a successful switch depend? But your question was asked in a manner that, to my perspective, didn't mesh as well as it could have with the original terms of discussion. It's also difficult for me to envision exactly what kind of work you're hoping to do in Lit if your description of your talents and interests is limited to an assertion that qualitative is your own personal preference. I don't actually understand what you mean- one of Chesterton's best points was that we've been throwing these terms around without indicating what we mean by them. In this sense, your "clarification" isn't clarification at all - it gives more background on your life, but it provides no examples or description of the kind of "qualitative" work you hope to do.
I don't think the jargon was used with any thought to whether you in particular would understand it or not - it was simply employed in the way it frequently is when a group of lit students assumes that other lit students are their target audience. It's simply that this is the way we often like to talk, and a forum for Lit grad prospectives offers a rare opportunity for us to throw out these references and, for the most part, be understood.
In my opinion, you haven't given us enough information of the kind that would really allow us to answer your question - a question we really are NOT qualified to answer to begin with. We're not here to decide whether or not there's a place for you in the profession - the best we can do is help you acquire that place should you decide you deserve one and are willing to strive to achieve it.
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Sorry, double post.
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Sigh. Now I look like an immature brat. Well played, sox and strong. It always pleases me to be reminded of how effective maturity is in internet arguments.
In any case, Sox, I didn't mean to bash the thread in general - I thought there was some very interesting material in it. I agree that there is democratization, but I think that this is, to some extent, linked to the rise of the social and hard sciences in universities, in that people are offered relatively accessible statistical and mathematical tools to present arguments that contradict prevailing wisdom - that is to say, it defines a discourse in which argumentation relies upon a system that places less value on matters of taste (as, say, aesthetic or literary questions might) and more on an ability to produce significant observations (what does a T-test or an F-test say about this hypothesis? An interesting example would be that our question of democratization would be aided by a statistical analysis of this sort; if universities have democratized, then perhaps we could test this through looking at the concentration of Nobel prize, major research grants, distribution of GRE scores, significant research projects, etc. taking place at non-"powerhouse" universities and determining if there has been a significant change).
However, in the area in which I suspect we do diverge is that I think perhaps the most important position to occupy is always that of the negative, to be in opposition. I tend to agree with the Frederick Jameson line on the dialectic - or even back to JS Mill, who in "On Liberty" wrote "If counter-arguments do not exist, it would be necessary to invent them" - and think that you have to have these sorts of arguments to make any advance in thinking. To that end, I am more skeptical of the role that praise plays in hardening patterns of thinking that should optimally be left pliable (or unstable - Rick Roderick has this great quote on Nietzsche, where he says the Nietzschean mantra is "If it's shaky, push it over!").
You're cool. Really. The challenge should be welcomed - that's my point, I think, though I keep giving overlapping accounts of what "my point" is
I just don't think the "dialectic" of opposition is in practice as productive as it is I guess in Jameson's formulation. We can adopt habits/personas of complimenting or criticizing for ourselves, but I think we should ultimately strive to achieve a perspective that is capable of both maneuvers. I tend to gravitate toward compliment and you tend toward criticism. I'd argue that we'd both do well to learn a few of the other's skills. I also think my apparent lack of skepticism might be misleading. Skepticism is one of my particular intellectual interests, and in moments of pure devotion to the method, I've led myself down some incredibly unproductive paths of thought. Basically, I don't think of skepticism as a position inherently devoted to the negative - I think doubt can be productive, but only if applied carefully and directed toward your own person in the sense that it helps create an openness to revising your own opinion. So I'm more skeptical of myself, perhaps, than I am of the discipline because I know myself better; I become more skeptical of the discipline the more I become a part of it, but in becoming a part of it, I also see more opportunities to engage in constructive revisions. I'm less inclined to doubt others than I am to seek to encourage them to doubt themselves.
But I do see the merit in your perspective, and I think you have indeed accurately characterized our central divergence.
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When Soxpuppet was talking about the democratization of the discipline, it seems like he was talking about people already in the field, who are attending top graduate programs but not the Ivies. It's unfair how they don't get published as much, or are less able to get jobs at R1s.
Hm, I actually meant both/all. And I really did not intend to make any comment on fairness or unfairness. Mainly, I wanted to comment that from what I have observed and been told by professors and other students, current and prospective, the field seems to offer a broader range of opportunities for "success" (whether that be in applying, getting hired, getting published, whatever) than I assumed when I applied, even as statistically such successes have become more difficult to achieve. Admittedly, it's difficult to call this phenomenon "democratization," and it was probably an error to carry the term as it was used specifically in the Year 3 thread over to this one where I placed it in a more nebulous context.
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I am grateful to you for making this a challenging discussion and seeking to elevate us above the level of, as you'd have it, mutual masturbation. It's certainly the case that amiable discussions can stray and lose their substance, and perhaps that has happened here to a degree. I think it's inevitable that it would happen to a certain degree, as at this point in the process, for most of us our engagement is limited to the level of imagining positive possibilities. Given the current climate, I personally feel this is a worthwhile project, but you're right that it's certainly not the most engaged approach and can come across as fuzzy and abstracted.
Would it not be more significant (like Henry Louis Gates Jr. did when he called Duke "The Plantation", or when Cornel West left Larry Summers) for the people at these places to be actively criticizing them - to test just how far they were committed to being objective?
Again, I think most of us aren't yet qualified to criticize from within. I also think that, for those of us who value the core work of our programs, I personally feel that constructive congratulation can do as much or more work than the kind of criticism you describe. I think both need to exist and that one is not necessarily more valuable than the other. It IS important to think about what the Humanities does right, that the project should be as much explaining how we are relevant as seeking to match the current definition of relevance.
Could you point to the exact place someone congratulated the field "for being the 'only one' to resist" the quantitative vs. qualitative opposition? I read the general tenor of response to be celebrating the fact that we do seek to attend to the problems with such terms, not denying that anyone else does or even asserting that we do so perfectly. I've certainly read such assertions made on behalf of the humanities, but I don't feel it's really been part of this discussion.
I'll admit that this forum, and many of the posters in this thread, including myself, can be seen as making "a straw man of quantitative data," but this attitude is probably limited to assertions made in this community. It's largely a response to many posters who enter with an unhealthy obsession with statistical data whose origins they do not understand (that most of us will admit we do not understand fully either). So as a whole, as an effort to counter this, many of us do err on the side of denigrating "quantitative" data - but in such critiques we sloppily intend a very specific kind of misapplication of evidence. Personally, I'd be really interested to see an informed, subtle, thoughtful discussion of such data and how it could be productively incorporated in our analysis rather than simply dismissed, but the attitude you see here is at its roots a response to a generally low level of discourse surrounding quantitative issues, not, I think, to quantitative data itself.
I had significant privileges. All of us had certain advantages we could point to. And it's fair to point out that the "democratization" we speak of has some pretty steep limitations... but I actually tried to indicate that above, that we are really only speaking of a slight broadening of the definition of elitism, a limited but potentially significant expansion. To a large extent, you seem to be irritated that we're not putting more effort into exploring the limits and failures of democratization. I think there's also plenty of room to debate as to what we see as the ideal result of such an equalizing trend. My intention was really to begin a discussion that explored what we've noticed in terms of developments in our discipline, not to characterize its ideal form and measure it against such an ideal.
My other main point in beginning this thread was to question the value of reactionary judgments (in this case, a fairly common assessment that "elite" schools value qualities only possessed by those privileged beyond the character of mere mortals, qualities the common man doesn't even perceive as having significant value). You've pointed out that to make this point we've really just shifted the target of our reaction, committing the same error with respect to a different object, and that's a very useful point to consider. I would still assert that your argument fails to attend to the connotations and context of many remarks and as such is mistaking a very particular error for a more pervasive cancer in our discourse, but I take your point that this discussion has unwittingly wandered into certain false oppositions, fuzzy terminology, and unsupported prejudices.
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In sum, for people who don't have a preconceived notion of what their education should look like or where they should go (as opposed to, e.g., the kid who has dreamed of attending Harvard since he was 11), I don't think that there is so much a negative view of the Ivy League schools as there is not a view at all. A lot of us are bright, motivated, and ready to move academia forward with a new wave of research and teaching--but a school being part of the Ivy League didn't factor into our decisions about where to apply. In addition to looking for a "research fit," we looked at numbers--placement rates, stipends, average time to degree, etc. You know, the things that rankings should be primarily based on in the first place. Many of us were taught by excellent teachers who didn't go to Ivy League schools or ones in the "top 10" (whatever that means--by whose assessment, exactly?)
As this segment of the population in academia grows, you'll definitely see more solid research and more solid teaching coming from outside of the Ivy League. Whether that means the democratization of the profession, however, remains to be seen. As far as "rankings" go, I imagine that the movement speed is glacial, despite frequent faculty retirements, departures, and new hires. But applicants who look to faculty pages, placement statistics, and other information readily available to them in the present will quickly begin to ask, "...and what again is it that makes this place so much better than somewhere else?" And many of those applicants will (you can see this--some have already) in turn become fine professors, teaching in a wide variety of locations and types of schools, publishing frequently and competently.
These are all really great points, thank you. Your comment about a school's Ivy League status not factoring into your decision describes my experience exactly - as a west coast, public school educated applicant, I was more eager to apply to Berkeley than to Yale (and was rejected by both
) - Berkeley was the closest thing to a lifelong dream school I had, the school I was least rational about in terms of considering prestige above my fit. The background you've described does create a situation where certain worldviews and value systems can come into minor conflict, where a prestigious school sees value in its heritage and name that you, as an applicant, are not so wowed by.Yet I am still somewhat confused (well, disappointed anyway) by the levels of animosity to prestige I've seen displayed on this forum, whether that's directed toward Ivies, programs with particularly competitive admission, or schools with other such records of prestige. It's unproductive and usually stinks of resentment and/or ignorance. However, in terms of ambivalence to prestige, I agree with your account 100%.
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I know that what definitely helped my application at the institution that I'll being going to is that my mentor, who also wrote one of my letters of recommendation, was a former advisee of the Graduate Chair of the English Department there. When I went to visit, the Chair remembered me as "Shirley's student." I also went to a school that he had taught at several years ago and I think he personally knew the tenured faculty that wrote my other two letters as well. In my case, academic incest took on a whole other meaning.
I dunno, I can't really understand this as a form of academic incest except insofar as such "incest" is an unavoidable effect of the size of the field - that is, this kind of incest is as ubiquitous as it has been at times among European royalty. If your letter writers' work bears any relation to your subfield and if they are at all active in the profession, chances are good that adcom members will have some personal or professional connection with your recommenders.
A couple of examples of "incestuous" connections with the schools that accepted me - some of these I knew going in, others I discovered over later.
School A) Alma Mater of two of my letter writers.
School B ) Alma Mater of one of my letter writers, previous place of employment of another letter writer, proximate geographically to my undergrad institution.
School C) Potential adviser is co-editing a book with a professor at my undergrad institution, and one of my letter writers is contributing an article. Another professor got his PhD from my undergrad institution.
School D) Potential adviser was an advisee of one of my letter writers.
School E) Potential adviser is friends with one of my letter writers and was at one time a colleague of her husband.
That leaves only two schools (which I didn't visit) with connections I can't trace with any certainty. But I suspect there were some there. The only connections I was aware of going in were at school A and school B. There are probably more I don't know about yet.
This is just to say it seems such connections are both more and less significant than we tend to think. Although we don't like to think they give advantages, personal familiarity *can* help lend credibility to your letters of rec or catch an adcom member's eye/help you stand out from the heard. But I think that most applicants possess a far greater network of such connections than they are aware of when applying. It's more difficult for me to trace the connections or lack thereof at the schools I was not accepted to, but I can think of a few that likely would have been noticed, they just weren't deciding factors. In any case, I didn't know about most of these connections until after I'd visited the schools (or had been accepted and received "say hi to so-and-so" emails). I went in, actually, feeling that if anything I lacked significant connections.
I don't know what everyone else's experience has been, but to me these phenomena simply exhibit the "small worldiness" of English. You're in the club before you even know you're in the club.
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This is a good point, and I hope my picking up on this doesn't derail Soxpuppet's awesome thread. There seem to different ideas of "elitism" and "democratization" floating around here. I was talking about academic elitism, Mudgean mentioned class elitism, and Peppermint.beatnik brought up nationalist elitism. All in some ways, I think, are relevant to this conversation.
You're absolutely right - I was being incredibly fuzzy with my terms. This was, however, partly on purpose, as my hope is for this discussion to encompass multiple definitions (as it has so far).
When I'm talking about democratization, I'm looking for multiple perspectives as well. I'm curious to know the variety of ways in which people have seen something capable of being called democratization at work - professors at unknown universities publishing in major journals, students from lower-ranked programs finding success on the job market, undergrads at disregarded state schools getting accepted to top programs, etc. Obviously the name on your diploma will always matter to someone, but it seems to me that such names have ceased to play the role they once did in securing the trajectory of your career path, and this is partly because the qualities we are apt to read into a given "brand" label are rarely accurate. Different schools certainly champion different methodologies, and some seem generally effective in instilling certain qualities in their students (someone told me they could recognize a Penn dissertation from a mile away, I also hear JHU students have a particular character to their discourse - rumors, but the kind of example I'm trying to get at), but while the name may indicate the likelihood of certain characteristics, it isn't a guarantor of Quality itself. So by democratization I mean in part that, from what I've seen, most people in this profession may expect things of a name, but they are almost always willing to look beyond it. The profession as a whole is alert to the fact that good work is being done outside the confines of the "elite" (whatever that is), and many people are really excited about this, happy to see it when they find it.
Another quick point. Back in the fall, at the beginning of time, when I was first sticking my nose into these online communities, Strokeofmidnight related to me that she saw forums such as this as a significant part of this process of democratization, as by bringing together a group of people with diverse goals and undergraduate backgrounds, students who had been out of school for a while or who lacked professorial mentors in touch with the current expectations of adcoms could find the information and perspectives they would need to assemble a strong application even without the traditional apparatus of an institution or mentor accustomed to sending their students to graduate school. I don't think my application would have been as strong as it was without the feedback I received from people I met online, nor would I have managed to remain even vaguely sane throughout the process without the intellectual community I found both through this site and elsewhere.
500 words? Are they Serious?
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
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Poco_Puffs gave solid advice. And beware - Fordham is not the only school with such a limit - I believe Columbia's is the same? Also, some schools, I've heard, have you enter your SoP online and the application simply won't LET you go over the limit, so if you decide to take the risk and send them something longer, make sure that doing so is physically possible! Also, for schools that give shorter limits, scour their website carefully for clues as to what they would like to see emphasized in an application so that you can decide whether to spend more time on fit, project proposal, preparation, or whatever. Look at the actual application thoroughly to see if they allow a supplemental personal statement, or a CV, or something else that would allow you to communicate information you can't fit into your SoP.