vertige

Just have to make it clear - Marxism vs. Marxian philosophy is a distinction made between those who advocate or support a political solution via Communism or some other self-defeating Marxist power structure (Cesar Chavez, Fidel Castro) and those who work toward the development of certain strains of discourse found in the Marx-Engels vocabulary, historicized in the dialectics of Englightenment philosophy, and re-articulated in discourse on postcolonial narratives, African-American and diaspora studies, queering the subject, and Jamesonian and Foucauldian permutations of Althusser's critique of Ideology, among other points of analysis. While Marxists are devoted to a dogmatic enforcement of economic and physical maneuvering in the deified name of the proletariat, Marxian analysis works to interact with, and subtly re-articulate, certain concepts and vocabulary devoted to progressively re-thinking public discourse and departmental politics regarding class, race, disability, gender, and other forms of cultural difference. Some people confuse the pragmatics of harsh government with the Nietzschean perspectivism that might allow for grandiose Marxist posturing, but in a limited arena, ie an academic set of discourses that can closely monitor and tailor individual arguments and permutations of Marxism with a sensitivity for their political and epistemological ramifications. “No, no, no. I am an extremely modest Marxist,” he replies, rather disappointingly. “I am not a catastrophic person. I am not saying that revolution is round the corner. I am fully aware that any old-style communist solution is out.” -Slavoj Zizek

What about for those of us waiting for admission decisions? I'm at work and have gotten nothing done the past few days. Nothing. I'm glued to the results page/my phone/e-mail account. I've started getting fat and agitated. I don't wan to do anything but wait for my decision. This process is hell!

I see that a number of you applied to Penn (UPenn as some have called it) for Comparative Literature - brava! I have my B.A. in Comparative Lit. (with French and Russian) from their "Program" (yea, it's *not* a department, they def avoided some issues with admin politics by performing that little sleight of hand). I took French lit, German lit, Hispanic Studies, Italian lit/film, French Film, lit theory/English, grad, undergrad, all sorts of classes there. I even took some philosophy classes in their horrid, Wittgenstein-obsessed Philosophy (of Science-ish) Department (sorry to casual browsers who might see that - I had a horrible experience with a History of Modern Philosophy T.A. who basically gave me a D on a paper specifically because he found out I was a Comparative Literature major . . .not cool). Penn is dreamy for Comp Lit, I would really recommend it. And if you're interested in theory, take courses with Jean-Michel Rabate and Rita Copeland. They're magnificent. (Heather Love and David Karzanjian do good theory/queer studies stuff, too, in English). Some great French folk do poco (I took a course on La France Postcoloniale with Lydie Moudileno . . . she's v. cool) and the Hispanic studies dept is very poco as well, as far as I understand. Well, that's my spiel for Penn. When I was a senior there and got into grad schools, the Chair of Comp Lit invited me to come meet prospective grad students and attend little house parties because I was good at selling Penn. One thing: it is pretty rigorous, and in the good middle-Atlantic spirit, as with Columbia and Princeton and NYU, there can be a lot of pressure to 'know your stuff' - the nice thing with Penn, I noticed, is that grad students do get treated with respect - someone can disagree with you fervently, and still respect you as a person. There's less of the melodrama there than what you see in other rockstar-filled departments. OK enough of my rambling. Just figuring out ways to procrastinate.

Rhetoric

That's an interesting list . . . with Slavics its tough because there are some good programs, but there are not a lot of Slavicists who are *really* willing to do a lot of interdisciplinary stuff (at least as far as I'm aware, after spending a year in Brown's Slavics program and having to quit because of the politics). Be prepared to devote yourself to Jakobsen and Pasternak if you want to do some work in Slavics with your Comp Lit, unless you end up at Harvard . . .which has by far the best and most liberal Slavics department, but has a rather theoretically conservative Comp Lit department. Berkeley would likely be a good fit with all of these interests, and Columbia has a couple of cool Slavicists who will work with you in interdisciplinary stuff, but really, for Avant Garde stuff in Russia, Svetlana Boym at Harvard is as good as it gets

There's certainly the possibility of a short list of alternates, but I'd assume rejection at this point if you haven't heard anything. Applicants were notified last Thursday by phone.

Yes, I'll vouch for that - a friend of mine in Rhetoric at Berkeley told me yesterday afternoon that they had called their admits last week, quite early this year. Best of luck with everything guys - I haven't gotten any word either way yet for my apps (Brown and Yale German)!

A great theorist to read, if you're interested in New Historicism but also Marxism and literature in general, would be both Mikhail Bakhtin (Art and Answerability, Marxism and Philosophy, etc. etc.) and Georg Lukacs (Theory of the Novel, The Historical Novel, Soul and Form, etc. etc.) as these would be great as both primary sources and secondary sources. I'm a weird mix of New Historicist with interests in romanticism and phenomenology . . .

Ok does anyone have Comparative Literature results/status to post? What about Germanists (since almost all of the good ones are in Comp Lit departments) . . . Gotten any e-mails? Have any fave sexy theory people you want to gush about? NYU? Berkeley? Penn? Yale? Northwestern? UCI? Princeton? Wherevs???

Seriously, anyone? How about I change this to Comparativists/Lit Theory Programs?

After seeing my therapist yesterday and ruminating about my impending sense of doom this week and next, I think I should *try* to figure out a way to be positive. I'm applying for the Ph.D. in German Literature with a focus on critical theory and continental philosophy. -I graduated from an Ivy League with a 3.4; Major GPA of 3.7 in one of the top comparative literature departments in the country; two graduate-level courses in the department -(Hopefully!) Glowing recommendations from the chair of said department, as well as the director of the critical writing program who was my mentor, and two more recommendations from tenured professors associated with this major department as well as an outside department -Multiple languages - Russian, German, French, Spanish -2 Years of A's in German, though I haven't studied it in awhile; secured spot in summer program in Berlin -(What I consider to be) stellar writing sample; was given an A for this final paper by the chair of the department I majored in, who also wrote my recommendation; Paper explained dense, difficult works of continental philosophy in relation to each other, and used what I learned from my professors in making these arguments seem simple and clear -Not horrible GRE Verbal, considering I test poorly - it was either 670 or 690, but I've been reassured that as long as it's not dismal, it's unlikely to matter -Well versed in my field and in the departments/people working in the field -Year and a half of work experience in disability rights, which I hope to turn into an area of research interest (theories of corporeality, Modernism and the body, disability discourse in deconstruction and postmodern criticism) -I think I'm cute. That said, there are myriad (and strong) reasons I shouldn't be accepted, one of which is that my German is not even at the level of 'proficient' required to do basic readings, so this prob makes Adcoms pretty anxious. But, I'm a hard worker. Please cross your fingers! DANG this is hard to do. My brain just wants to qualify everything and shortchange each one of my positives with multiple negatives! This is definitely a good study in behavior under stress . . . I hope we all learn something from this.

Heya, it's still pretty early but has anyone heard from German Studies/Germanic Languages and Literatures?