Dr. Old Bill

I don't remember a heightened amount of POE, but I seem to remember at least one question on Poe... Am I contributing to this discussion in a productive way? Nevermor...I mean...nevermind.

I'm glad you started this thread, 1Q84. As a few GC folks can confirm, I tend to write fairly long emails. I think it's partially a by-product of being in my mid-30s, growing up in an era where email was the Bold New Method of Communication (back in the days before Facebook and text messages, of course). The truth is that I have always loved writing lengthy emails anyhow, and I have to make a conscious effort to curb that when it comes to writing to professors and other academics. I still think there's some merit to sending multi-paragraph emails, but generally speaking, short and to the point is probably the best rule of thumb. No matter how much a professor likes or respects you, you're one of at least 30 students he/she has to deal with at any given time. Brevity is probably appreciated more than verbosity in an email...

Sounds like an orientation most American students need to take.

The description may say that guests are allowed -- and they certainly will be -- but this is a situation where you have to read between the lines a bit and get a feel for the context of the situation. As pretty much everyone else has said, it would be unusual to bring parents along to a graduate orientation, just as it would to bring parents along to an office party or other work event. You can safely assume that "guests" means "significant others or dependents" in this circumstance. Regardless of the reality of your situation, bringing your parents along would give the impression that you want or need parental approval / observation / guidance etc. I was just about to type something about "politics," but really, it's not even that. It's just being attuned to certain social norms. "Don't bring your parents to grad school functions" is one of those unwritten guidelines you simply have to pick up on.

I second both of these books. Partially because I own them, but mainly because they are indeed excellent primers to literary theory...an area that I am otherwise something of a neophyte in. Culler's book is nice and concise, while Eagleton's writing style is one of the most accessible you'll come across in academic texts. If you respond well to learning through analogy and example, it's definitely a book to check out.

I would definitely not cancel a trip for it, if it's optional. As others have said, there's likely going to be very little information imparted there that you won't be able to glean through other means. For what it's worth, I'm not going to the general graduate orientation at my school. Part of the reason is because I work at my school already, and have had ample opportunity to learn all I need to about the campus as a whole, but the other part of the reason is that I'll be able to ask questions at the department specific orientation that I will attend.

Yes.

I had planned on applying to 14, but since I got through most of my applications quite early (some of them were completed in August, and most by October), I wound up adding three along the way that had some late appeal. In my next cycle, I'll probably reduce that number to about 12 or so.

Just to add another "me too" to the choir, my experience bears out that picking a period and sticking with it is most prudent. There are some subfields that allow for transhistoricism, and you might be able to figure out a niche that requires specific study across a few eras, but it is, unfortunately, quite unlikely. I think that's one of the possible mistakes I made with my applications last year -- my focus itself was specific, but the era was too broad. I used the term "grounded in the early modern era," but the rest of the language suggested any number of periods. The merits of era-based structures is debatable, but since they exist, they can't be ignored. Personally, one of the things I'm going to focus on in my M.A. program is becoming a pure early modernist, including throwing in a history course or two if possible. Honestly, I'm more like the OP in that I have a wide range of interests, but in the warped scenario in which I have a gun pointed at my head and a madman demanding that I pick a period for specialization, I would blurt out "early modern!" in a millisecond. So that's what I'm doing (and not just to thwart the madmen with guns). It's worth pointing out that honing in on a particular era doesn't mean that you can't essentially scoop up and blend knowledge of other periods. You certainly can. Most of the literature I read for general enjoyment and erudition is from the last two centuries. But I've started to learn that keeping literary interests and literary research interests separate is helpful. And completely for what it's worth, I think that bringing a religious studies perspective to literature is a good thing. In my last semester of undergrad, I wound up writing three different papers for three different (and completely disparate) courses on the role of convents in three different works of literature. They were all good papers, but I had the nagging feeling with all three of them that they would have been better served had I had more first-hand knowledge of Catholicism or Christianity more generally. In other words, you can probably get a LOT of mileage out of bringing an academic religious background to literary study...

It's a tough question, really. You might get a wide range of responses on this thread, and some of them will be contradictory...yet all of them will be valid! My opinion on the GRE subject test and its import has wavered greatly over the past year or so. A recent email from a DGS of a program I applied to last year mentioned specifically that my GRE subject test score was part of the reason why I wasn't accepted. But conventional wisdom among many scholars and folks here on GC is that the subject test doesn't matter too much. I guess the takeaway has to be that you should do the best you can on the GRE subject test, but if you don't do well, you can't let it worry you overly much, so long as the rest of your application is solid. Trying to figure out how much weight each program places on the GRE subject test is nigh impossible, so you just have to do your best. As for studying and the Princeton book, I found the book fairly helpful and applicable to the actual test, but I recall others who did the test during the same time period as me had a completely different take on it. I think Echo449's advice is sound. You need to study for breadth of knowledge instead of depth, which is, I should point out, completely anathema to the objective of graduate English. Being able to recognize that the Bundren family is from a Faulkner novel, for instance, is more important than knowing the significance of Anse's false teeth in As I Lay Dying. Reading overviews of critical theorists and the various schools of literary theory can help, and even basic synopses (we're talking Wiki level here) of a broad range of literature, poetry, authors, theorists etc. can help as well. The Princeton book amusingly (and accurately) refers to the kind of knowledge as a "cocktail party" level of detail. Opinions on this will vary widely, but in my view there is truly no tried-and-true way of studying for the test. Were I to do it over again (which I will at some point...perhaps in April), I wouldn't answer every question. I made it through the test with about twenty minutes to spare, so I made educated guesses on the fifty or so answers I had skipped. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing if that hurt or helped my score, but I felt calm and confident during the test, so I hoped it would carry over into the results. I was admittedly very surprised when I got a decidedly mediocre score. I really thought I had done well. Anyhow, it's a good thing that you're thinking about this in July.

I know first-hand that UMD has done that in recent years. Lectureships are not guaranteed, but tend to be readily available to Ph.D. students (and even M.A. students) in the department. It's one of the things I particularly like about the program. I don't know about the specific numbers for rhet/comp, but I'm quite sure they do exist.

Porque? Por que!

Kurayamino, you're a saint. I was worried this thread would sink without comment. I'll look into La Capra!

As mentioned in other threads recently, I'm starting to brush up on some contemporary critical theory this summer, as I know it's something of a weakness for me...and something I need to improve. One area that interests me is critical historiography, but I haven't come across many recent well-regarded theorists who are applying critical historiography to literature. Mark Jarzombek seems to have some work in this area (Psychologizing of Modernity is his key text), but...what else is out there? Any hot historiographers I should know about?

I thought that pun was rather UND-erwhelming.

Funnily enough, it never occurred to me to take courses outside of my department... I'm in an M.A. program, mind you, so have reqs to fill, but regardless, it's nice to know that I can take that graduate seminar in Mongolian tap-dancing if I so choose.

Some of these comments remind me of a paper I wrote awhile back, in which I was using two recent critical essays that covered much of the same territory. They were literally about the exact same aspect of the exact same Shakespeare play, but they simply had different opinions about some of the nuances. The core of my paper revolved around finding a third avenue between the two arguably narrow critical opinions, and I cited both liberally...just as the latter of the two articles cited the former quite liberally (even though it wasn't exactly a "response"). What I'm getting at is that, like Echo, Unraed, and others have said, a well-written paper that has a lot of critical overlap with others is perfectly fine, so long as it is done in an interesting and thoughtful manner.

Just a thought: drop in a couple of citations to the other paper? In the off chance that someone, somewhere says "hey, I remember reading something by X about that...", you'd at least show that you've read and utilized some of the similar paper. Again, it depends on how similar the two papers are. I suspect they're not as similar as you suggest, but if they are, then yes, I would consider using another sample.

I wish I could be quiet busy these days...the noisy busy gets a little cumbersome at times.

Actually, my potential advisor, Theresa Coletti, is a specialist in renaissance literature and women's studies as well. So...UMD is a possibility, Jheff, if you plan on giving it another shot.

Yup, I've picked my courses! Two of them are ones I needed to take in my first year -- an intro to graduate research methodology and an intro to teaching freshman comp, but both are courses I would have taken regardless, since the first of the two is with Theresa Coletti, who is a potential advisor for me, and the second is required to teach anything at UMD (and Jessica Enoch is supposed to be quite fantastic). The third course is a research seminar with an up-and-comer named Gerard Passannante, and it has the long and slightly pretentious title of "Seminar in Renaissance Literature; On Thinking in Images: Analogy and Metaphor as Critical Practice." But Passannante is a strong candidate for a potential advisor for me, given our shared interests, and it really DOES sound like a course that is completely up my alley. I'm a little concerned about balancing three courses with a busy full GAship, but since I now live very close to campus and have my own office, I'm hoping it works out. Honestly, I don't know the process of selecting an advisor. I've met with Professor Coletti at length in person, and we have had a few solid email exchanges, so I suspect she would be a great option, but I want to meet Professor Passannante before I "pop the question," as it were. Both are well-regarded academics, and I think they could both help me a lot. Then again, Kent Cartwright is also in the ballpark of my interests as well, and we got along very well at the UMD open house...AND he's a huge fan / friend of my UG advisor, so... Long story short, I'll probably be dithering about this question until mid fall.

Hey! Me too! It's taking me longer than I'd planned (I started it a week after it was released), but I'm now about 200 pages from the end.

I'm firmly in the "advisor" camp as well...but now I have a whole new reason. World-defending robot. I like it!

It's quiet around these parts, so here's an irreverent question for those who care to chime in. Do you prefer to use the spelling of "advisor" or "adviser"...and why? I'm legitimately curious, as I see it both ways, probably close to a 50/50 split (with perhaps a slight edge to "advisor"). Which do you use? How did you come to start using that particular spelling? Inquiring minds...

Wait, you're saying that they shrunk the size of their entering class...for particle physics?