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I guess this hadn't occurred to me -- do most Ph.D. students take most or all of their courses within their department? I've been planning on taking like half of my classes outside of English; is that unusual/often unacceptable?

Thanks for explaining! I would be curious to read a little about that research, as what I saw was what appeared to be the elimination of grammar in the high school I taught at (as in, students who were getting good grades in English in years past who literally couldn't put together a coherent sentence). But I'm not sure whether my experience/observations are typical or representative.

I didn't get an elite education by any means, but we still were exercised and tested on grammar throughout my primary and secondary English education. I think that's changing though. When I taught high school English this past semester, most of them hadn't been specifically given instruction on grammar since late elementary or middle school (these were mostly seniors). I can't even describe how frustrating it was to read my students' writing. It actually made me more careful about watching my own grammar and syntax. I have no idea how it is in "elite" schools, but I assume those kids are much better prepared for mature writing in college/grad school. The schools I went to are even eliminating foreign languages altogether along with grammar requirements in English classes. If it isn't already classist, it is, unfortunately, not unlikely that it is becoming so. Having at least some sense proper grammar is, in my mind, very important -- not because I enjoy fancying myself some sort of Samuel Johnson or something, but simply because it maximizes clarity (which is crucial for intricate arguments) and also simply makes people take you more seriously. Like proflorax said, it's important stylistically to understand how one's own language functions. Honestly, though, my grammar was shit until I took Latin in college. I think studying a foreign language and taking a class with a good deal of theory/philosophy are good for exercising those muscles for good, clear writing, as both pursuits really force you to do very careful reading. But I'm just another medievalist throwing in my two cents, and, judging from the other contributions to this thread, we tend to be rather anal retentive about that sort of thing. But bhr, why wouldn't grammar be important in teaching/studying rhetoric and composition? I don't know much about the field, and sympathize with the idea that "grammarianism" can be elitist and out of place in understanding certain kinds of effective rhetoric, but I don't see what makes proper grammar in itself unimportant. Or maybe I misunderstood your post because it is written so unclearly If elite private universities embrace Rhet/Comp less, perhaps it's because they get more undergrad students coming from elite schools that actually taught them how to write properly, which public schools seem to be doing less and less frequently. I know Lit Studies as a field could certainly use some writing tips. I, for one, find it embarrassing when I see published essays about Derrida or Beckett stumbling over grammar and syntax and making up words that already exist (i.e., misspelling). I'm sometimes not sure if this is due to an ungainly worship of French theory in translation (i.e., an association of "hard to read" with "intelligent") or compositional laziness, but those essays' ideas tend to be as sloppy as their writing.

Both jhefflol and echo449 are correct, imho. Look at Chicago for sure. Just to really rub in the ivies (I don't mean to, I swear), maybe look at the comp lit programs at Penn and Princeton too (especially the former)? Penn's comp lit program is kind of a cornucopia and takes theory very seriously, particularly from a historical point of view. I would definitely look at them were I you. As for admissions, I wouldn't worry about it so much--don't completely disregard it I guess, but don't let it rule your life. Fwiw, I had similar reservations and ended up getting accepted to two of my "dream schools" (which seemed like real stretches for me) and rejected from most of my "back up" schools . Your interests/CV sound just weirdly cool enough to find a perfect fit somewhere. Just my two cents.

I think any university with a strong medieval studies program will be worth looking at, even if you intend to be in an English department. The "obvious" ones to look at (apart from the ones you mentioned) would be Cornell, Fordham, Berkeley, Notre Dame, and Yale. If you're into a more "progressive" medieval studies environment (i.e., one that embraces/tolerates the use of theory), Cornell (Carrie Howie does Old French) and Berkeley (David Hult does too) should definitely be on your radar; Fordham, ND, and Yale strike me as more old school. All those places have fantastic English programs that are super medievalist-friendly. Oh, and Northwestern definitely worth looking at -- they have some fantastic medievalists and a certificate program/"cluster" in medieval studies (and yeah, you can do Old French there). Is an official emphasis or certificate in medieval studies a requirement for you? If so, I think you might find that to be rather limiting -- there are plenty of English programs that will give you plenty of leeway for the interdisciplinary work required for medieval studies without necessarily fulfilling a certificate or designated emphasis. I had pretty similar requirements going into the application process and ended up taking an offer at a place I wouldn't have at all expected when I started looking at schools (i.e., it isn't necessarily an "obvious" place to do medieval studies in English) -- feel free to PM me on the process. Or unraed, if you want to feel like an underachiever.

Yes! Beautiful response! I do premodern stuff too and I'm still amazed to see how this nostalgia persists today. Writing is inherently anachronistic; using theory on the old stuff is worth it and just as legitimate as applying it to newer works, in my view (medieval and early modern writers were at least as theoretically and philosophically minded as the modernists, yo). I know this has been mentioned in other threads before, but the Stanford Arcade is really worth checking out: http://arcade.stanford.edu/. The colloquy "We, Reading, Now" (http://arcade.stanford.edu/colloquies/we-reading-now) is one I've particularly enjoyed. Wyatt, I particularly recommend this essay, which discusses a subject/way of reading that I want to spend some of my summer trying to better understand: http://arcade.stanford.edu/content/post-critical-reading-and-new-hegelianism

Yeah, same. I'm stoked/nervous. It's gonna kick my ass, but it'll build character. Or something. Verbum.

Thank you for posting this! I caught the last 30 seconds of this on the radio yesterday when I was driving home from work and wished I could have heard the whole thing.

No, it doesn't. I wrote an honors thesis in undergrad, spent a year researching it, and ended up writing a brand new writing sample pursuing a completely different interest for my graduate school applications. Staying within the page cap, writing well, and demonstrating knowledge of a subject is more important than the occasion you wrote it for.

This is a fear I think every day. Speaking from my (limited) experience teaching English in a public high school, this begins much before the college level. In the (non-honors) grade level I teach, I'm the only teacher who makes students read complete books rather than showing them the movie version, handing them a couple sheets of "key quotes" and telling them to read the fucking book if they have time (and only two are required). The textbook we teach out of is essentially an ACT prep book. If I give them two pages to read in class, they'll bitch and moan about what a demanding teacher I am and then not do it. I have over 100 students, none of whom, I think, have ever been in a learning environment that would teach them to appreciate literature, none of whom (even the gifted students) read books for pleasure or even know how to spell or use basic punctuation correctly. It's really the people who grow up able to attend rigorous private schools and fancy selective enrollment public schools (such as those in Chicago) who are getting an education that values literacy. I fight a bunch of teenagers to keep off their stupid state-provided iPads every day so they can struggle through a No Fear Shakespeare book (an author who apparently isn't even read at all anymore in the school district I grew up attending). Needless to say, I continually look forward to teaching adult students who actually want to be in my class, having a discussion about literature. Needless to say, I'm not counting on it, and it's really sad to see how undervalued teaching is in a field whose center and primary source of continuation is teaching. In short, education (in the U.S., at least) in general is elitist as hell all the way down and seems to be becoming increasingly so with every passing year. If you have the Common Core used in your local public school district or a Scott Walker type character in your state's government, there are people actively seeking to turn your local universities into technical schools and k-12 districts into schools that foster a simulacrum of computer and technical literacy over linguistic and literary literacy. "Professionalization" for "alt-ac" jobs is cool and all, but it's not what a lot of us are really looking for. It's been mentioned before (I can't recall by whom), but it's true that a lot of these problems have their roots in things outside of academia proper. I think we simply don't live in a country that values our field anymore.

Yep. I'm basically trying to hoard away as much cash as possible right now, since I'm probably facing a summer of unemployment in a new city, renting a room while throwing money at month of an old lease while I take a summer course. My program doesn't start until late September and my current job (public school teacher) ends the first week of June, so I'm a little worried. Oh, and I need to buy a new laptop, since the one I currently use belongs to the school district for which I work. I'm also taking an intensive language course to brush up on my Latin (which is basically free, so that's nice) and maybe putting together a reading group with one of my new professors. Am I overestimating my capacity for money scrounging and academic ambition? Most likely. But that's okay. Right? For reading, I guess my recent routine has been just alternating between contemporary Italian philosophy, Philip K. Dick novels, op-ed pieces and twitter feeds on news and recent protests, and Portlandia on Netflix while telling myself I'm gonna get back to the pile of medieval English and Latin poetry I have in my office. That is, when I'm not pretending to design Othello lesson plans and catch up on grading. Minus the grading and lesson plans, I suspect this will continue to be the tune of my free time for the coming summer months.

Very true for me, too. One thing that's wonderful about writing in the age of computers is that it's easier to keep all the fragments. I had a teacher in undergrad who gave the most wonderful writing assignments that really allowed me to approach academic writing as if it were poetry or something. She would give finals and midterms where, as the term progressed, we would gather short passages together from readings done in her class and juxtapose them in pairs of block quotes and then when the time for the exam came, we would time ourselves and take an hour to just free-write responses to our little collections of juxtaposed passages from literature, history, and theory. When she advised me on my honors thesis, she simply had me write her a journal entry every week based on whatever I was reading at that time. Because of her, I came out of undergrad with what William Burroughs would call a Word Hoard. My thesis notes were at least 100-150 pages that eventually were winnowed down to 43 and I still keep all the fragments. The way I started writing my writing sample for grad school applications was to go back to my collection of fragments and juxtapose ideas I had written anywhere between 2 months and 2 years earlier and eventually ended up writing a 20 pager that will go in right back with the hoard of fragments from whence it arose. So to reiterate what others have said, it's worth it to keep the things you throw out sometimes -- sometimes those fragments will provide you with a word, or a quote, or a reference, or simply be a catalyst for more thoughts.

I'm pretty much following the advice others have said on this (looking east of Washington Park, between 47th and 61st). Looking on UChicago Marketplace, Craigslist, and Trulia. Largely for convenience of being near campus. HP is not the cheapest neighborhood by any means, but I think the stipend will allow you to get comfortably settled in a 1-bedroom place. Rent wise, I'm personally shooting for under 1k, ideally between 800 and 900 per month. If you live off campus in an apartment not managed by UChicago you can do whatever you want with guests. I also think the UChicago graduate housing buildings are just like regular apartment buildings, only managed by the university -- so I don't see how having guests would be an issue. My question for people currently living in U of C graduate housing would be about roommates -- I'm planning on getting a place with my partner (we're not married), and we've considered graduate housing, only I'm not sure if non-UC students can rent. Anyone know about that?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to take an intensive language course this summer to buff up on my Latin. My program just started offering admission to the University's summer language programs for free for incoming students and I'm hoping to take advantage of that option. I feel like it'll be a good way to get used to being in school again, get a head start on language study (I want to leave grad school with at least reading fluency in two foreign languages), and get a feel for my new campus/city.

I'll second Greenmt. I didn't take the English GRE and I'm going to a school I'm very happy with in the Fall. Not taking it did limit my options significantly, but I can't say I regret it. That being said, I've been told that the way to study for it is to just read/skim the Norton Anthology. Which is partially why I didn't bother. If you look at samples, a lot of it is just quote identification and knowing basic characters and plot points from canonical works of literature written in English (with some light doses of classical lit like the Odyssey thrown in here and there).

Thanks for the recommendations! I will definitely check out these books. Paulo Virno is someone I've been wanting to check out... Semiotext(e) is coming out with a translation of his book on speech acts soon: http://semiotexte.com/?p=1473 Fwiw, I didn't mean to "resurrect" this thread for more arguing, but simply to throw out a book recommendation/idea that I read that reminded me of this thread, which I remember as reducing itself to semantic arguments largely because, I think, there was a lack of useful vocabulary for describing the situation (causing miscommunication, tenuous comparisons, and even bitter and annoyed arguments). I too think it's useless to blame "nebulous concerns" but I do think it useful to try and find a vocabulary for describing the very real economic and psychological strife (on both the collective and individual levels) that are brought about by the environment we live in and are getting ourselves into. I don't think people's observations of "because capitalism," while not the most articulate, are simply diverting blame so much as implying that we, as budding little overly analytical academics, tend to be so focused on blaming the area we are most involved with that we overlook the fact that the negative trends we're pointing out here aren't all unique to just academia. I.e., academia isn't the only sector characterized by a shrinking job market and expectations of a certain degree of self-exploitation. Hence the book recommendations. To try and start putting it in the perspective of something larger. But whatever. Perhaps this isn't the place for this sort of conversation. Pecunia delenda est. ;-)

Oh, I didn't even know there was a neighborhood called Oakland in Chicago, lol. And for some reason I thought you were referring to the area around Midway airport, oops -- when I first spent a significant amount of time in Chicago after moving to the midwest from LA, the West Lawn neighborhood (south of 63rd, southeast of Midway airport) was an area I stayed around a bunch and it reminded me of LA more than a lot of other Chicago neighborhoods. Haha. Anyway, Woodlawn is fine, I get the impression it's a rapidly improving neighborhood -- I guess it had pretty bad crime a few years ago? If you're looking for property, I think that area is definitely cheaper than Hyde Park.

Englewood (west of HP) has one of the highest crime/homicide rates in the city. Hyde Park is one of the nicest places in the city and the neighborhoods directly north and south of it aren't bad at all, from what little I know. I've considered living in Bronzeville. I'm planning on living in HP this summer and for the first year or two of my Ph.D. program at least. It's a pleasant neighborhood and my stipend will make it affordable for me. From current grads I've talked to, at least in my program, it's worth it to be near campus for the first couple years, after which a lot of people move to different parts of the city like Pilsen and Logan Square. West side can be a pain. My partner has family out that way and it's not the most convenient, though it depends where you're looking and how regularly you need to be on campus. Also whether you have your own car. The area around Midway isn't bad in my experience -- pleasant, largely Latino family population. Funny you mention Oakland -- that area feels a little homey to me as an Angelino. Not super close to campus in HP though. The south side gets much more spread out down there and you might feel kind of far from things. You can get to HP if you go on the Orange Line and a bus or two, but it's not exactly convenient. ETA: safety reasons can be a concern, but also be mindful of convenience. The South Side isn't all bad safety-wise, but the U of C isn't the most conveniently accessed place via public transit if you're coming from certain parts of the city -- i.e., most of the time you aren't just hopping on a train to get there so much as taking a train and couple buses.

Damn. Way to go!

If you REALLY like the program at Alberta better, maybe explain the situation to the DGS or someone else of relevance to see if they can't muster up some more funding for you. Because the package they offered you sounds terrible, to be honest. If they can't, I'd follow the money. Guaranteed funding and a liveable income are extremely important.

Reluctantly bumping this thread wondering if anyone has checked out Franco Berardi's new book, "Heroes" (Verso, 2015), where he describes the conditions of "semio-workers" and "cognitarians," whose general condition is characterized by precarity, self-exploitation, the fractalization of work time, and the transformation of language into a prodctive commodity: "Language is captured by the networked machine and turned into an essentially productive activity. Herein lies the trap: people are encouraged to consider their linguistic competence as factors of economic competition, and to manage and invest in them as such. Creativity, expressiveness, affection, emotion -- the human soul, in other words -- are considered to be productive factors and consequently, they are evaluated according to standards of productivity. Exploitation, competition, precariousness, redundancy are not perceived as the effects of a conflictual social relationship, but are internalized as deficiencies of the self, as personal inadequacies. The unceasing rstructuring of the organization of work is perceived as humiliation and brutality. "Only non-involvement and the ability to remain extranesous, to refuse any identification with one's job and one's working condition, oonly a radical rejection of the ethics of responsibility, might offer workers the possibility of navigating a way out from this productivity blackmail [debt might also be seen as a type of "productivity blackmail]. "[...] cognitive workers have been lured into the trap of creativity: their expectations are submitted to the poductivity blackmail because they are obliged to identify their soul (the linguistic and emotional core of their activity) with their work. Social conflicts and dissatisfaction are perceived as psychological failures whose effect is the destruction of self-esteem." (166-67) When I read this just now, I immediately thought of things I've read/learned from threads like this and wondered: is this perhaps the direction academic labor is headed -- a fragmentary, abstract labor of adjunct pay calculated by credit hours justified by a superficial link to an increasingly outmoded link to a profession that I'm not sure can really be purged of this expectation that your soul be identified with your labor? Reading shit like that really hits this idea home for me: for my own health, an education in the humanities should be divorced from my expectations and goals related to work; my love of literature should have nothing to do with my need for a paycheck. Which is probably what a lot of you have been trying to communicate for a while -- if, at times, the ideas have lacked the proper vocabulary (which is only barely, I think, starting to be developed). I really recommend this book as a useful critique of the relationship between mental health and the current state of global capitalism as well as for describing the kind of exploitation and psychological frustration expressed by certain inndividuals in this thread.

Congrats greenmt, LCB, and fancypants! Brilliant programs all around.

Here are some: http://statementofpurposeexamples.com/ You could also start thinking about your WS -- what I sort of did was start on that first, letting the formation of my writing sample inform how I wanted to present myself professionally (after throwing out many drafts and taking note of helpfully scathing reviews, of course!). I'm sure there's SOME project or idea that you touched on or began at some point that you never got to fully explore -- take the summer to immerse in it and produce a fresh piece of work. You might learn something about your own interests. I can't imagine writing an SOP just out of the blue, with no recently worked on project still buzzing in my head. It should be wholly, if strategically and selectively, "you.". If you browse this forum enough, you'll find plenty of threads and conversations dedicated to WS and SOP forms and strategies.

NowMoreSerious's list is great; I would add UChicago to that list, whose English department is profoundly interdisciplinary and interested in theory. Chicago also is a really excellent place for film studies, as well as continental philosophy. I'm also biased though, because that's where I'm about to start my PhD. OP, if I were you (and I don't know how far along in undergrad you are), I would start trying to hone down a set of interests (however disparate) based on theoretical and comparative questions (human vs. nonhuman, 19th century understandings of machines, 17th century European understandings of barbarians, the role Baroque aesthetics play in the films of Peter Greenaway, etc.). Start poking around to see if there are any intellectual working groups or generally "happening" sub-sub-fields your interested in (post-45, BABEL, animal studies, ecocriticism, etc) and see what those people are doing and where/what they are teaching. I also don't think you need to necessarily devote all your attention to programs that explicitly call themselves "Theory" programs rather than lit - plenty of lit programs are theoretical and comparative in nature. I went into this process thinking a strictly English program would never work for me, but that's what I ended up choosing because the particular program I'm enrolling in encourages students to explore and experiment and allows for a great amount of flexibility in how that's done. If you have a couple languages under your belt, definitely look at Comp Lit programs, if not, there are English programs that will scratch the same itches (and its not like they'll stop you from learning languages once you start, most will require at least one).

Does your institution not offer summer language classes? I would look there first (especially since it's an Ivy). I'm trying to take summer Latin to refresh my skills in the language, but my PhD institution offers intensive summer language classes for free for grad students. If you have any interest in medieval stuff, maybe join the Medieval Academy and take a look at these scholarships for certain programs, among which CUNY is included (these programs may be worth looking at regardless): http://www.medievalacademy.org/?page=CARA_Scholarships The UVA program looks fine to me. Lots of schools have similar programs. UChicago's might be worth looking at too: https://summerlanguages.uchicago.edu/ There are also books designed for teaching yourself Latin that you could charge through if you have that sort of time/self-discipline.