amormundi

@bummer: As somebody who might be going to NYU next year largely because of Ronell, I have to say your post frightens me (I already found Ronell intimidating as it is). Any other characterizations / anecdotes you could throw my way about her? And how does she inspire breakdowns (gulp)? Is she just an asshole? Much thanks

Just to clear up some confusion: NYU *English* had an interview weekend. Comp Lit did not. Nevertheless I think all of the first round admissions have gone out already for Comp Lit. But because they didn't have an interview weekend, it still seems totally possible you'll be wait-listed. Who knows how all this stuff works! I certainly don't.

Is this true? Do you mean the process is more demoralizing or that the odds of it working out are worse? The former I could buy, but the latter, with the academic job market (especially for the humanities) being what it is, seems incredible to me. Of course, I have neither a JD nor a PhD, but everybody I know who's just graduated from law school seems to have been able to find a job. I definitely can't say the same for everybody I know who's just gotten a PhD in literature.

Accepted but on a waiting list for funding. But for those of us who aren't independently wealthy, that's really not any better than just being on a waiting list. From what I understand, two other people are in the same situation I am and two people have been offered spots with full funding.

So, counting UPenn, I'm on two wait lists now. I'm constantly really tightly wound with all this uncertainty (and I'm a tightly wound person as it is!) and am developing this compulsive exercise disorder because I'm so charged with nervous energy all the time. What makes the UPenn wait list more frustrating than my other wait list is that UPenn is offering to pay for a campus visit and to introduce me to professors and students as though I were a normal admitted PhD candidate and I, being a chump, will probably take them up on it, and I'm very much afraid of being he who gave all his heart and lost. The funny thing is, I also have a two acceptances at wonderful programs, and I feel like a greedy bastard for even caring about UPenn, but this decision is hard enough as it is and I want to turn down the school(s) I'm going to turn down as soon as possible so that other people suffering on wait lists might get a little relief (and a modicum of certainty for myself would also be nice). Anyway, since it seems like the other two people in UPenn limbo with me are on the results board, and since I know I have even more Leidensgenossen at other schools and in other programs on other wait lists, here's a link for the waiting song I'm listening to. I hope you guys like Brazilian music. There's a very nice line: "The wait is difficult, but while I wait I dream" (another version of the song has "while I wait I samba"):

Not a reading list, but a list that's nice to read (in French): 100 aphorismes pour le centenaire de René Char

I did complit undergrad at Harvard with Spanish/French, so I took classes with a lot of the faculty. It is true that not everybody is necessarily approachable, but I think it's a common trade-off that the most brilliant professors are not necessarily the most friendly. That said, there are exceptions. PM me if you have questions about specific professors.

@Durkin65: Sweet list!! Moten's been on my wish list for a while but is unsurprisingly hard to get a hold of outside of the states. I'll be back for school in the fall though and figure I can get my hands on him then. I've never heard of Miranda Joseph, but the book sounds really interesting and I'm putting that one on my list as well. Moreover, I also have Foucault (Vol. 1 of History of Sexuality - I've read embarassingly little by him!), Debord, and Lispector (Family Ties) on deck and am currently reading Savage Detectives by Bolaño (best novel I've read in a very long time!). Other books I'm currently reading (I usually have several going at once): Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme Romanticism: A German Affair by Rüdiger Safranski Other books on my shelf I hope to read soon: Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis The correspondence of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann Martin Heidegger's Path of Thinking by Otto Pöggeler Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen The complete works of Nella Larsen Changó, el gran putas by Manuel Zapata Olivella Despair by José Donoso Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima I'll Be Here in Sunshine and in Shadow by Christian Kracht Problems in General Linguistics, Vol. I by Émile Benveniste And then of course poetry! I feel like it's misleading to say that I'm ever "reading" books of poetry, because I only tend to pick them up haphazardly and read them desultorily, but some poets I'm excited about right now are: Nicolás Guillén Rosa Ausländer Baudelaire (!!!) Vinícius de Morães Kurt Tucholsky César Vallejo Paul Celan's translations (unbeatable! Celan is the only person in the world who could improve on Shakespeare)

Hey, so I gather that a few others on the results board, I gather a few of you are in the same position I am with UPenn (accepted with an uncertain funding offer). Does anybody know how big the program is? And what is the deal with the waitlist - are we waiting for fully funded people to turn Penn down, or are we waiting for the dean to give the green light for a few more grad students? This is almost more frustrating than a normal wait list. I can't go *anywhere* that doesn't offer me funding. Who do they think they are playing with my heart like this??

Hey what's up, so I think this is directed at me. I don't really know what I can tell you; I was sitting down with my roommate to watch a movie at like 8:30 at night (I'm 6 hours ahead of the east coast) when my cell rang with my caller id reading "unknown." On the other end was a man who sounded serious and was speaking English, and somehow I instinctively knew this was something to do with grad school. I think it was John Hamilton, but all of the blood had rushed out of my head by the time he introduced himself and the entire conversation was a blur. He said they wanted to extend a "very enthusiastiac" offer of admission to me and then talked a lot about funding. Other than that, I'm not sure what to say. My stats are good but by no means perfect. I imagine it really comes down to writing sample, LORs, and language training. I wouldn't read too much into it. Some schools send out all admissions decisions in a blitz and some stretch it out over a month or more. My feeling is that NYU may be the latter. I saw on the results board that somebody got into UChicago Comp Lit in January, and I've yet to hear from them. I'm not tripping about it and you shoudn't either