MedievalMadness

Good morning and congrats to all the TTU admits! My understanding from those in the know is that our department has made offers to five Lit PhDs and five Creative Writing PhDs. Unsure about the number of TCR offers. I hope you will all take advantage of the campus visit! We will be holding a symposium (as I'm sure you know), but please don't feel too pressured by the request that you give a five minute presentation on your research interests. We'll all be around to support you and hey! We're going to have the Letterpress Lab open so you can see the work we do there. If you're going to be visiting, feel free to send me a message and I can show you around the town outside the campus. I can give you the skinny on the department, show you our offices, etc. So, yes. Welcome!

I'm presenting at Kzoo, as are my committee members and a couple people in my cohort. Honestly, I haven't looked at the program for IMA! Stupidly, I scheduled two conferences back to back and have been really stressed out about it. I just got back on Saturday night from one conference and then I'm heading out on Thursday for IMA. (Just... yeah. Don't ever do that.)

I'll be at Kzoo with a few other colleagues from my department. While we're talking conferences, anyone else going to the IMA conference at SLU this week?

Well, that's really exciting! I'm in my first year here, though I'm a medieval lit PhD so my experience would be quite different from yours. I have good friends in the Creative Writing crew and have to say that you would be in good hands.

Hey -- congrats to the TTU PhD acceptance!!! I don't know who you are, but am looking forward to meeting you! The Creative Writing crew are all pretty great around here. Also -- congrats to the rest of you who got acceptances and/or waitlists today!!

Further, that one professor is not teaching again until Fall 2016. He's on sabbatical for research.

Just popping in to give a little plug for my own university. We have three tenured medievalist faculty in the English Department, one of whom is involved in the Babel Working Group. We have an Anglo-Saxonist, Middle English specialist, and a later medievalist. There's a special degree specialization for medieval studies, though we don't, to my knowledge, have a 'medieval studies' degree. This is my first semester, but I can report that there is a heavy emphasis on language and theory. For the medieval studies specialization, one must take certain language cycles of courses with an Old English track and then the Middle English track. This cycle is as follows: OE - Beowulf - History of the English Language or ME - ME Romances - HOEL. I'm taking OE and, as stated, there's a big emphasis on translation theory and history of sound changes as opposed to just memorization of paradigms. I'm also hoping to take a medieval Latin cycle. (And Irish and Welsh, but that's another issue that I will probably resolve outside the department.) I would also like to put out there that the university offers decent funding for all grad students. This semester I'm teaching 2 composition courses, but next semester I'll be doing research for one of the medievalist faculty. (Yay!)

Hey! If you're looking for something a little closer, JJC will be at the Knowing Nature conference at University of Maryland in October. He's one of the keynote speakers. I'll be there too giving a paper on barnacle geese.

EllieT: This might not be the best place to post questions about Charlottesville. I would recommend going to the 'CityGuide' section of the forum. Each thread is for a specific city/location. That said, congrats! Virginia is a wonderful place to live.

That's really reassuring to hear! I haven't really been in touch with the cohort yet, but I'm almost ready to dig in. Isn't Tom Shippey at SLU? That is reason enough to be there! Grad students can set up their own conferences? Or panels at conferences? Either way, that's really great. I'll be keeping my eye on that. We should exchange e-mails, especially since our research interests are so well aligned.

KC: Thank you!! I am so excited to be going to TTU! Their Early British Lit program looks great and the professors are exciting. I too was ambivalent about Texas, but I'll make do. I forgot. Where did you end up going? SLU? Isn't there a big conference at SLU every year?

Pro: Thank you so much for all your support during this whole grueling process!! And thank you for the dancing!Abed!! Side note... I got my paper accepted to that conference at UMD in October! Are you going to be there? (It's the 'Knowing Nature' two day conference at the end of October.)

Thank you!! I am so desperately excited to be accepted into this program! And lol, I didn't realize just how loudly I had broadcasted my plight.

I'm going to give this thread a little bump. It looks like I'm headed to TTU this fall for my PhD. Anyone have advice on apartments? Is there much within walking distance of campus?

I got accepted last minute by Texas Tech!!! Full funding! OMG OMG. They started accepting applications about a month ago for three additional funded positions in their English Department, so I applied on the off chance that I might get in. So excited!