Glasperlenspieler

How so? I think my inclination would be to say the exact opposite (sorry if this is derailing the conversation). If a paper is not good enough to be published in a top journal that probably means either a) it will never be good enough to be published in a top journal or b) there's an idea there that could be published in a top journal, but it is not at the moment in a form that is ready for that. I'd say that as someone who has not yet entered a PhD program, it might be pretty hard to tell whether (a) or (b) is this case. But if it is (b), then the 5+ years you spend in a PhD program may be what you need to bring the idea to the next level. So why publish it prematurely in a subpar journal when, with added time and training, it could make it into a top journal? And if it's (a), then it might be something that 10 years down the line, you don't really want associated with your name or it could be something that is worth publishing in a lower tier journal nonetheless. But if it's the latter, given the uncertainty about which it is, why not just wait? 
Whereas I think the job market is now such that you really ought to have published *something*. So if the choice is between no publications (not counting book reviews) and an article in a lower tier journal, it might be worth just having the publication on your CV. But since publications on your CV aren't expected for PhD admissions, this situation doesn't really seem to apply there.
Now, there's also the situation that often things published before getting a tenure track job will not count toward your tenure profile. So, there certainly is some reason to also not publish *too* much before you get hired, but you're probably gonna need a couple publications to get hired for a TT position these days.
Anyway, that's my take. YMMV. In general, I think don't publish for the sake of publishing prior to the dissertation phase, but if a prof says that something might be worth submitting, then certainly take that advice seriously.

And if you can't get an article published in a top journal at this stage of your career, there are good arguments for not publishing it in a lower tier journal just for the sake of having a publication.

As someone in Comp Lit who is working on the Caribbean I can tell you that some departments would definitely be more hospitable to your set of interests than others. Make sure you do thorough research into that. My department is changing, but there are still very conservative requirements (like competency in a classical language) and ways of thinking. I find myself spending a lot of time with people from Af-Am, American studies, History, and English. As some have said above, in many cases English departments would be a better choice. I applied to English programs as well, got into some of both, but eventually decided Comp Lit would be right for me after weeks of indecision. If languages and translation and international archival research are truly crucial to your questions, then yes, Comp Lit is the way to go. But the reality of Comp Lit is that you'll still have to market your work to national language departments if you do plan to try and continue as an academic. DM me if you wanna ask more specific questions!
Also, yes, make sure you have a pretty cutting edge or unique research proposal. What you're describing about I, Tituba, Wide Sargasso Sea, and so on, is well-trodden ground. That doesn't mean it isn't a valuable or interesting subject; it does mean it probably won't strike adcomms as the most interesting work to sponsor and nourish in their department, given that many students might apply with that kind of thing. Don't bother with (more) journal publications or conferences or any 'professionalization' at this stage. I would recommend thesis research as a way to explore, and also as a way familiarize yourself with how specific fields make their arguments. That will enable you to use the right language so that faculty will recognize your own work as interesting and unique. At the same time, while you have to write a solid statement of purpose, it isn't a contract by any means, and your work will take so many unpredictable turns when you actually start in graduate school. Don't stress out thinking that you have to totally define the direction your scholarly career at this point.

And if you can't get an article published in a top journal at this stage of your career, there are good arguments for not publishing it in a lower tier journal just for the sake of having a publication.

@tmck3053, I think we're pretty much on the same page. It's definitely an absurd game, and I don't want to defend it. Just trying to lay out the contours to the degree I understand them. I think you're right though that there are some Ivy-plus institutions that will hire people with perfect pedigrees and no publications but look down upon someone with a publication in a lower tier journal. I think publishing strategy is going vary depending on what sort of institutions you're getting your PhD from and what sorts of institutions you're applying to (and maybe subfield as well). I stand by my " if as a BA or MA student you can get published in a top tier journal, great. But if not, don't worry about it, sit on it, and just try to make it the best writing sample you can." But yeah, a lower tier publication definitely isn't going to sink your application, but I don't think it'll help all that much and there may be reasons to wait and see if you can do something more with it down the line. (The exception to this is that some subfields are really fast moving, such that a response paper may be very timely now, but maybe no one will care in 4 years. Idk, it's complicated).

Apologies also if this is derailing the conversation. I think I agree with you for the most part. What I was thinking was that I have been told a couple of times re: the job market that for certain kinds of jobs (North American research jobs I suppose) that it would be better to have no publications and be on the market then to have a publication in a not-top place. The thought is supposed to be that if you are being evaluated in terms of your potential to produce work in top journals it's not a good sign that you have, given that there is not all that much time pressure on you during grad school (hah), chosen to publish it somewhere that isn't a top journal.
I mean I also think that the mindset that leads to this way of thinking is a little unhinged and it's not clear whether it is even correct as far as results go. But I suppose generally I was thinking, publications pre-grad school don't really reflect in any way upon you for grad school applications (or beyond), whereas the politics of publication location when you get to the job market seem a little more complicated. Of course you're right to say that settling for a not-top place for your paper if you haven't started grad school is maybe giving up the game too soon. I was mostly commenting on how it would be perceived, I think.

And if you can't get an article published in a top journal at this stage of your career, there are good arguments for not publishing it in a lower tier journal just for the sake of having a publication.

I agree with @Glasperlenspieler in that it might be worth your time to look into English programs as well. From my time spent looking at faculty pages, there is a lot of work being done on all of these topics in traditional English departments, not just Comp Lit. 

Yes, there absolutely can be consequences to your reputation and career. That doesn't mean don't do it anyway. 

I wish I could speak this confidently about articles I've published in high quality journals.

Didn't know you worked as a resurrection man. 

I just went through the last cycle as a theory-heavy comp lit applicant, and what I'll say is that language is less of an emphasis for certain departments, while others REALLY want you to know your languages/literatures and don't care much about theory. Many English departments are having an anti-theory moment right now and a more traditional Critical Theory WS might not go well in those places. Columbia is an exception, but still the theory they are into aren't the traditional kind. If you want to continue your MA work it might make more sense to seek out theory departments that are disguised as comp lit/interdisciplinary studies departments. Duke literature comes to mind (though they are very Marxist and have the most dreadful interviews), and so does Emory comp lit (which is very continental thought and has a minimal language requirement). Chicago's Social Thought also comes to mind, and I've heard good things about Stanford MTL. As others have mentioned, though, if you want to stay in academia after graduation, traditional theory isn't having a great moment right now--there's a good reason why many comp lit departments are moving toward a national literature direction.

For better or worse, the opportunity to do philosophy full-time takes place within certain economic, cultural, and institutional structures. If one wants to have that opportunity and one wants that opportunity to last, it's important to understand those structures and what you have to do exist within them. The willful dismissal of these structures is naive.
I happen to think the continental/analytic distinction is pretty philosophically useless. However, that is not to say that the distinction doesn't play and institutional and cultural role in academia. 

As most of us know, the Fulbright Program announced on 21 April 2020 that the 2020-21 cohort would be truncated and in some case cancelled – Indonesia and Israel has already cancelled its entire ETA cohort, with Turkey following by announcing a severely curtailed schedule. Meanwhile, Japan and India have announced they will defer the program into 2021, allowing for the full 10 month program to go forward – this despite Fulbright Central's refusal to accommodate such requests for finalists to other countries. We are assembling a data package to send to the Fulbright Commission explaining the impact of this instability, inconsistency, and the lack of a clear, logical response (for example, like every other institution on earth, simply moving online until travel could resume on a country by country basis. 
Finalists are invited to respond to a survey on the impact of this action. There is also a free-writing space to add any thoughts you may have. Anonymised results will be sent in aggregate to Fulbright Commission. Here's the link: https://bit.ly/358z8oC

For better or worse, the opportunity to do philosophy full-time takes place within certain economic, cultural, and institutional structures. If one wants to have that opportunity and one wants that opportunity to last, it's important to understand those structures and what you have to do exist within them. The willful dismissal of these structures is naive.
I happen to think the continental/analytic distinction is pretty philosophically useless. However, that is not to say that the distinction doesn't play and institutional and cultural role in academia. 

Hi, @JesusFdz
What are your long-term goals?
I saw elsewhere that you were thinking of going into philosophy in order to teach.
I hate to be the Donny downer, but you realize that this is not the kind of thing you just go into. Teaching jobs that pay more than rent, clothing, and food are hard to come by. If you go into a PhD program, you need to accept the possibility that you never get more than an adjunct position. Adjunct pay right now is somewhere between $1,600 and $3,000 per class (from where I have seen in large metro areas/big state universities, not cities like NYC, LA or Chicago). That means if you teach two classes at one "well-paying" school at $2500 each and two classes at another "average" school for $2000 each, you're looking at a very full load (probably 120 students), and only making $9,000 a semester, or $18,000 per year (not including summers).
Famous article, now 15 years old, and the prospects even worse: "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go" https://www.chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846 Anyone who aspires to a PhD needs to have the absolute determination that you will consider it worthwhile to complete, even if you don't get the tenure track job. Setting aside 6-10 years of your life making low income must be worth it to you for other reasons than becoming a professor.
As for MA programs, don't pay for a program. I think you said you can do tuition assistance via GI bill. I dunno how that works, especially for international stuff.
As for Edinburgh, I have had friends go to Edinburgh in different departments. All of them were happy there in person. I have no idea what you'd expect in doing remote work.

But to @Sigaba's point, there's a difference between what is allowed and what is expected of you. Residency requirements only speak to the former, and may not even be relevant for how one spends summer/semester breaks.
Agreed. It can be especially usefully to (tactfully) ask about how professors spend their summers ("How often do you typically meet with your advisees during the summer?"). In my program, for instance, a large proportion of professors spend a large portion of the summer out of the area. So if you happen to be working with such professors, it's largely irrelevant whether or not you're in town during the summer. But, in the same program there are professors who certainly will not go out of their way to meet with an student who isn't around to drop by the office, and if your work is deemed subpar, you will be the one held responsible for not maintaining sufficient communication with committee members. In short, departmental culture on this can vary widely and even within departments, different professors will have different (sometimes articulated) expectations.

@Duns Eith is certainly right in their assessment, but I read the OP as asking more about the possibility of being in a location other than that of the university rather than taking time off per se. If you have family abroad and don't have teaching obligations or work that requires you to be on campus over the summer it is certainly feasible to spend most of the summer abroad with your family *and continue working*. Even before the current crisis, most advisors are happy to meet with their advisees vie Skype/Zoom, and that will likely be even more true now, and as long as you have internet connection and an environment in which you can work, there's no reason you can't continue to make progress remotely.

I am straying from my lane long enough to point out that faculty members, especially those sitting on committees, may have expectations on where a graduate student spends his/her time during the summer and that these expectations may be communicated in the subtlest of ways. The nuance can be as ephemeral as a glimmer of a smile in the eyes as a professor says "Enjoy your vacation..."
So while going way off campus may be appropriate (per policy) needed (to clear one's head) and necessary , I recommend that one have a clear understanding of what is allowed and what is expected.
The same professor who is impossible to reach when on campus and is frequently away from campus can look at you if you under perform on a significant task and salt the wound by saying something "Well, I was here all summer...if only you had been here to set up appointments to meet..."
 

One of the several reasons I got out is that I saw the writing on the wall. It's not a popular opinion, but working 7-9+ years (longer, if you include post-docs) to take a job in an undesirable location for relatively low pay wasn't for me. Yes, yes, I know "nobody does it for the money," but at the end of the day, most of us want to eat and have some modest standard of living.
I've a strong feeling that administrators will use this crisis to push remote instruction, just like they used 2008 to push part-time/adjunct faculty.
As I've said before, NOT GOING is a choice. It's arguably the wisest one.

Academia is a ticking time bomb, and COVID-19 erased most of the time left on the clock. If you have any ambitions to work in academe, go with the cheapest option. Or don’t go at all.

Many (most?) universities will not reward a degree in a field if you have already completed that same degree in the same or a closely related field at another university. So, if you wanted to get an MA is something other than philosophy, then that would be a possibility (though probably wouldn't help you much if you want to pursue a PhD in philosophy). But you're unlikely to be admitted to a philosophy MA program since you already have one. 
Pedigree isn't everything though. Focus on your writing sample and statement of purpose, and you could certainly have a shot at PhD programs.

Many (most?) universities will not reward a degree in a field if you have already completed that same degree in the same or a closely related field at another university. So, if you wanted to get an MA is something other than philosophy, then that would be a possibility (though probably wouldn't help you much if you want to pursue a PhD in philosophy). But you're unlikely to be admitted to a philosophy MA program since you already have one. 
Pedigree isn't everything though. Focus on your writing sample and statement of purpose, and you could certainly have a shot at PhD programs.

Will you have the opportunity to pursue your interests in an academically stimulating environemnt? Yes
Will you benefit from high quality advising? Depends on who you work with
Is it worth spending 60k plus cost of living so that you can do those things and maybe (but maybe not) have a more successful PhD application next time around? No way in hell

I certainly don't mean to imply that someone is not being genuine. I just think it's important to be careful when comparing structural features of a program (teaching load/stipend/fellowship years) with more intangible aspects (sense of community, feeling prioritized, people seeming happy, etc.). The latter are certainly important, but perception of them is also variable depending on mode of communication, the current degree of preoccupation of your correspondent, and a host of extraneous factors.