Wonton Soup

Yes, switching to rhet/comp after getting an MA is literature is quite common. Just from the list of interests you mentioned, comic studies, multimodality, etc. is definitely a "thing" in rhet/comp. The rest may carry over, sometimes in surprising ways. R/c is a heterogeneous field. I wish I could give more specific advice for you. @empress, my experience has been that many undergrads don't have as much exposure to rhet/comp as they do to lit. So they may not have a very clear idea of what they want to do in rhet/comp, or what a "map" of the field would look like, when they apply to MA programs. They just know that they're into it, somehow. That was true for me at least. My writing sample when I applied to my MAs was from a literature class and only tangentially related to rhet/comp. Of course, all this may be changing, quickly, as r/c undergrad programs and classes grow. But it does create a unique challenge for MA admissions committees.

Some fair points. I don't mean to sound anti-intellectual. I think I am especially sensitive to issues like this because I have witnessed a number of situations where invocations of rigor and intellectual inquiry became an excuse for elitism and dismissal of whole people, methods and ideas. I become automatically quite suspicious when I hear people like the prof who claimed to have read 3000 pages a week at Berkeley. Sure, there's an ethos of rigor the professor may be trying to communicate, but I also hear in that an implicit claim that anyone who doesn't read that much (didn't go to a Berkeley) is inferior, that there is a stratification in the field between quality programs and everyone else, and that that prof is one of few worthies from a quality program who thus deserves a TT job. Is this what the prof is saying? Maybe, maybe not, but that's what I hear, mostly because, as I said, I've heard those things before. I had all this in mind when I looked at the syllabus. It's interesting to me how the two fields--lit, and rhet/comp--experience this differently. There is nowhere near the level of stratification in rhet/comp that exists in lit. Yes, there are programs that people recognize as top tier because of the professors there, but I do not see the same positioning of social and cultural capital, or crises of rankings. It is in a way good to hear people resisting my interpretation, because it could be a sign of improvement.

I'm all for rigor in a program, but let's be real. That course description was specifically written so that people would read it and be like "oh man Berkeley so rigorous much superior." I got my MA at a (plebian!) mid-sized state school, but I'm fairly certain the profs could have hyperboled up the language of their course syllabi so as to appear pretty close to this without changing very much in the course at all. They just didn't. I wonder if, in the Berkeley department, the course syllabi are in sort of an arms race and the profs feel they can't possibly "normalize" their syllabi without appearing unrigorous to their colleagues. So they spend their otherwise valuable time throwing in phrases like "knowledge of German would be helpful," "of course, this is just a minimal listing," and long lists of aesthetic movements and lit texts. Sorry all, but I can't help but make fun of Ivy League (or Ivy League-esque) pretentiousness.

I don't think I could contain myself if someone claimed to read 3000 pages a week. That would be like reading Capital Vol 1 three times in one week. And then some. Uh huh, sure, she "read" that much The only way I could imagine it being true is if she were in lit and a majority of those pages were fiction. Even still, trying to hit that many pages in a week will lead to something that can hardly be called "reading."

I am not aware of this as a method or pedagogy of the field. However, I do notice that some graduate students develop a tendency of "cruel" methods. They do a lot of student bashing both outside the classroom to colleagues and in the classroom (presumably, from their own stories). Speaking frankly, usually these are literature graduate students, especially literature graduate students who are not connected with a rhet/comp community or who come from MAs where they were not connected with a rhet/comp community. Grad student competitiveness is something else entirely. Luckily I have managed to avoid it =)

Yes, well I can tell you all my personal reasons for going into academia despite being acutely aware that the field, the humanities, and the university itself are in a state of crisis. After graduating with my MA I worked at some teaching jobs that were not related to higher education. It was absolutely miserable. I could feel my brain degenerating, my coworkers' teaching methods were horrifying, their politics were worse, and I felt like a widget in a giant educational machine. A complete, classic case of alienation. I can't even imagine what it's like in a non-teaching "industry" job. I'm going into academia because I know it's a place where I can gain some autonomy, become a better teacher and activist, and generally develop as a human in the whole sense of the word. And hopefully contribute to changing higher education itself, because it needs to be changed. Yes, I will try to publish and apply to TT jobs and get tenure, but secretly (gradcafe is anonymous right?) I don't really care if I end up in a non-tenured position at a "non prestigious institution" (the horror!) because 1) I don't buy into that elitist bullcrap, 2) I enjoy teaching in higher ed generally, and 3) whereever I end up, with whatever level of prestige, I plan on stirring stuff up so that hopefully in the future higher ed isn't the way it is now. To the poster who said "don't be adjunct because adjuncts THEMSELVES are the problem with the discipline" : with all due respect (which is none), #$^ off.

Yes I think some celebrities really do want to take part in an educational process. Franco went to a bunch of MFA programs iirc, which seems perfectly reasonable to me seeing as he's a writer. On the other hand, there are the Shaquille O'Neal's of the world for whom the rigor required of an advanced degree clearly don't apply. Still, even though the question of alumni money looms, I don't really care to judge whether a particular celebrity is qualified (especially Watson, who describes herself as a feminist--right on!). Edit: darn, I got got too =)

I turned down, uh, all the schools I didn't apply to. *fits in*

A question for you lit folks: the lit professors I know are often talking about moving beyond the division of lit studies by time period. Is this a "thing" and has anyone tried to portray themselves that way in their SOP/writing sample?

I hear you plaid and 1Q84. Everyone loves researching and learning. But people should keep in mind that the "work" of academia includes teaching. Getting out of teaching to get to one's "real work" is an unfortunate attitude that too many people have, usually to the detriment of their students and their overall professionalization. I'm of the opinion that a PhD program, when it comes to teaching, allows students to do the best work when it allows them to do work. Teaching is essential, and programs that allow grad students to create their own syllabus--to experiment, fail, reflect with support, experiment again--are giving them the best opportunities. Programs that give students a super-rigid syllabus and ask them to become a cog to fit the machine may look great in some administrator's eyes, but they do not develop teachers. Programs that ask students not to teach at all (do these still exist?) are completely out of touch with reality and are setting people up for future failure. You should think about where your program falls on the spectrum of teacher-widget and full-freedom.

I am now on four waitlists. At least I escaped outright rejection, I suppose? =) InHac you and I are kindred souls.

Caroline got off the waitlist. Therefore, everyone will get off the waitlist! Illogical, or POST logical?

This is a nightmare: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-17/carnegie-mellon-mistakenly-admits-800-students

Theoretically, it is possible for two people to apply to the same schools and each be accepted to their #2 school, which is at the same time the other's #1 school, and waitlisted at their #1 school, which is at the same time the other's #2 school. In which case they will both sit until April 15th, waiting for the other to decline who is waiting for them to decline, until they both shuffle into their #2 school, never knowing what might have been. These are the thoughts that are going through my mind as I sit on three waitlists.

I stopped reading at "Stanford's tenure system is a real review." Implying that their process is one of the few rigorous ones and other schools just dink and dunk around. Typical Ivy League elitism. I wonder if he came in thinking that way or they slowly indoctrinated him.

The American Lit people have a pillow fort. I'm bumping this thread to keep up. Currently I have one offer that I am falling in love with, three in waitlist limbo, and one still deliberating. I have a feeling this is going to come down to April 15th =(

On the rhet/comp side, my interests lie in the intersections of rhetoric and marxism, composition and marxism, and the ways literacy instruction carries or challenges inequalities of class, gender, and race, with a special focus on class. I got here through the study of labor, of adjunct working conditions, and my own activist work. My personal statement(s) was not very specific. I was only specific when I talked about my master's thesis and previous conference presentations. I talked about my broad interests and mostly about the framework that I want to use to approach various topics in the field.

The definition of insanity is NOT doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That's ridiculous! Read Foucault! Ugh the worst cliche ever.

I have been on a Marxist tear lately--Marx to Luxemburg to Lenin and now about to start Lukacs. I'm trying to pack in a lot of fun reading that will be a bit harder to do once I start coursework again in the fall.

And the dead shall rise! And be snobby and petty!

I feel like digital humanities people are just plain cooler than everyone else in English.

When I become a superstar scholar, I will remember this and send you a passive aggressive email 30 years from now!

Clearly your entire department failed to comprehend the radical, field-shattering brilliance of my writing sample.

We are too lowly for the Ivy Leagues. There's a lot I could say about it, but it's not maybe worth the effort. Let them rot in antiquity and elitism while they are busy with their real mission of training the next ruling class =) *rabblerouser*

I have not myself experienced it, but I think I understand it. They are probably trying to avoid making offers to people who have an offer from another more preferred school or who will hold their program in the back pocket until April 15th. Maybe they got burned in previous years and some TA lines went empty or to just whoever they could find last minute. It is a little worrying, but my guess is if you respond enthusiastically they will make an offer to you.