CrashJupiter

I'm a mostly lurker, especially this season, but I am excited to say I accepted an offer at Louisville. Not sure if any of you remember, but in the 2014/15 season, I went 0 for 8, so Ibe spent the last year out of academia. This season, I did the silly, risky thing of applying to only one school, both because I fell in love with the program (bad idea!) and was still a bit burnt out and let down by last year. Just in case any of you are in the "I didn't get in anywhere" boat: it's not the end of the world. It's not the end of your academic career. It's almost definitely not a judgement on you. You've got around 8 months to really investigate programs, really figure out "fit," and polish up the things you wrote most recently, which are likely to be the best you've written so far.

Congrats! I'm waitlisted and hoping.

Anyone want to claim the Louisville Comp/Rhet PhD acceptance?

With almost a year to go, you could always write something new. Are you applying to MAs or PhDs?

They did the same thing in the 2015 and 2013 seasons, if I recall. I know they definitely did last year.

Hey all, I'll be applying (again) this fall to PhD programs, hopefully transitioning from Lit to Rhet/Comp. I have my M.A. from the University of South Carolina and live in Louisville, KY. My wife is a grad student in counseling at UK, so I'm geographically constrained in my search this time around. I'm looking for a few people from the above universities to speak with, meet with, and possibly have introduce me around as I try to better judge fit and network a bit. If you're willing to help me out, please let me know. I have all sorts of questions about the programs and wish to really feel them out before I apply this go-round. Thanks! Christopher

Alternative and varying perspectives are useful. In fact, variances in perspective are what make lit, rhet, and pedagogy valuable, so far as I'm concerned.

Thanks, rising_star. The house is a family house. We're buying it to keep it in the family (and the financials more than make up for the commute) and that's the primary reason it's Louisville over Lexington.

Contentious conversations are a valuable method of figuring things out, and I learned a whole lot of things to watch out for in this thread. As for programs, I'm going to be geographically tied this round, as my wife is going to be at Kentucky and we're buying a house in Louisville. I'm looking at Kentucky, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Indiana for sure, and likely Purdue, Ohio State, and a few others. I would love to see your SoP! Thanks!

VERY helpful, thanks! This is pretty much exactly why I'm thinking of transitioning. I was not scared away. As you can see above, I just fell out of this bit of the internet for a while and I actually found the near-fight really useful. MUA HA HA HA. Sources. I love you. I'll be devouring these as soon as the semester is out. ProfLorax and rising_star, I apologize for multi-posting. There's so much here to respond to. Intellectual colonization. You're speaking my language. And hear, hear on that last bit. I've yet to read much on scaffolding. Do you have a recommendation? As for the conversation that followed on the second page, my experience has not been that rhet/comp is primarily interested in pedagogy. I know there are programs that are much more comp-heavy, pedagogy-heavy, but I'm much more interested in the rhetoric side of things. I love teaching composition, but I'd never want to be a pedagogical theorist. What experiences has everyone else had in this? I see that forever_jung's experience is much more to the rhet side of things, which resembles what VirtualMessage described as an aspect of lit, rather than r/c, and that their r/c department seems to be primarily invested in pedagogy and comp. I would like to get a feel for what the ratio of these programs might be. EDITED TO ADD: I've now stumbled upon the other thread from VirtualMessage and can see why some of the reactions are what they are. I think it's a fair warning, but also think that VM's school is extremely different from mine. Yes, there's a job crisis and holy moly is adjunct exploitation and administrative bloat out of hand, but I am here for myself. I am doing this for myself. If I end up making a living doing something entirely unrelated, that's fine. I will have a doctorate and I will have earned that shit.

I've been working on postcolonial lit for three years and have recently been adding Irish lit into that mix. In fact, my thesis places Kavanagh and Walcott in conversation. I also really want to do more with comics. Between those three, I've realized more and more that what I'm already doing is pretty rhetorically heavy. As I've talked more and more with Rhet/Comp colleagues in my program, it seems as if I may have more opportunity to work in and move around between my interests if I went rhet. Particularly, I'm interested in examining comics (not necessarily graphic novels) as one of the last remaining truly serialized storytelling forms, and I'm less interested in trying to "literaturize" them as a means of valuation. I want to look at them as a compound medium, not a vehicle for text. I want to look at what they do. To me, asking what something does and how, rather than what it is leans more the rhetoric way. I've spent two years now teaching composition and so far really enjoy it. Teaching lit is second nature and very fun, but teaching comp is challenging and rewarding in that it feels more like I am making a real difference. And sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I really just want to write about the ways in which Five Nights at Freddy's evokes fear and then convinces you that it's incredibly scary, despite the scares being low-hanging fruit, just for example. I really really can't do that in lit. I am moving to Louisville, KY, with my wife, and I know that UofL has a heavily multi-modal Rhet/Comp program, so I felt this transition at least earned an honest exploration. --------- I'm really glad this took on a life of its own. It's more likely that this thread will be useful for people beyond myself, since my specifics weren't clogging the conversation up. Awesome! Shout outs to ProfLorax, empress-marmot, Wonton Soup, Romanista, and ComeBackZinc so far. Between Fields, your story is especially interesting to me, if you could expound on what you were working on in postcolonial theory and how that fed into your rhet/comp transition. And I, so far, at least, really appreciated VirtualMessage's input. Reading on some of the less pretty aspects of the conversation I've just entered into is useful. I found the responses to VM useful, as well. The controversy and high emotions are definitely something I needed to know about as I work through this. So thanks again, everyone. --------- I do not want an administrative job. In the current climate, it would feel like enabling to me. Perhaps that's unfair, and I don't have a full understanding of WPA programs; my university does not have one connected to r/c, but does have a strong rhet/comp program. Ours is a first year English program and really does curriculum and training. Hmm. Perhaps that is administrative. It just doesn't cast itself as such, and the emphasis is on student experience. Our particular program is run by two directors, both with degrees in lit both of whom also actively teach FYE, and two graduate students who help run the program for a year in lieu of teaching. I also am seeing things about other programs that just are not true in mine, despite being at a major state school. There's no real stratification, and all of the professors, tenured to adjunct, teach undergrad classes. Graduate classes are pitched and accepted, but no one teaches strictly grad classes. That's an interesting thing to watch out for as I investigate programs. The lack of true stratification in this way (there's still the hierarchy of titles and permanence) lends itself to a department-wide collegiality. There are rooting interests, but no real rivals, even between sub-departments. This conversation is awesome, even if it felt painful while you guys were having it. These are concerns beyond my experience and I'd not have thought of them myself. I don't begrudge the little backbites, since I recognize that there is a lot of baggage coming along with these issues. You're all pretty darn good at supporting your points and I'm not convinced any of you are wrong (as of the 18th post). Quick aside: I dislike reading pedagogy articles. I also very much see their use. Sometimes they tend too far into the personal experience realm for my rather scientific tastes, but every last one I've read gave me something useful, once my imagination and specific situation were added. Nods toward universality are troubling, but that's true in rhet and lit, too. Again, my program is flexible enough that I've never felt bossed, despite being near the bottom of the rank pile here. This whole conversation was painful, but I don't think either side was trolling. Experiences vary. Mine is not yours. Being given a little window into VASTLY different experiences here is really nice. ComeBackZinc and VirtualMessage, THANK YOU. Genuinely, THANK YOU (as of the top of the second page). That had to be frustrating for both of you. You gave me, as well as the rest of the people reading this, a lot to think about and digest. --------- That's all for now. Back to thesis formatting. Thanks, all.

You guys are all awesome. I've been buried up to the neck in thesis, so I was away a bit, but I'm reading through this now. Thanks all!

I have been summarily rejected from this year's applications and am moving with my wife, who got in elsewhere. As I'm looking at my future options and what I want to do, I am pondering an attempt at switching to Rhet/Comp for my PhD. I will have an MA in Lit and my research interests are postcolonial literature (especially poetry), comics studies, maritime and pirate studies, and Irish studies. If you've transitioned or tried to transition from Lit to Rhet/Comp, I'd love to hear how that went, what you did to move over, and any advice, warnings, or questions you might have. Thanks, all!

Thanks!

InHacSpeVivo, it looks like your apps are all in. What did you hear from Kentucky and when?