Řezníček

@KingNikolai1Yes I understand that. Language is the premise. I have no problem with Czech I think, and my Polish is getting there. I'm also working on some other small Slavic languages. I will have at least 3 year Russian classes by graduation and I'm comfortable with the reading knowledge, but not really communication-wise and I don't think I will do well in a grad lit class if it is fully conducted in Russian and plus traveling to Russia has not fitted into my schedule yet. French and German reading knowledge is ok. @heliogabalus That's really helpful. I did some research on department/POI and I agree with you absolutely. I know my main research focus is on early 20th Century till the end of the WWII, but since the field is small and short-needed, to have a grand study/teaching interest is not bad I think. I will definitely plan to work on academics and aim for tenure-track professorship. Even though that might not happen and the job market is too gloomy, it wouldn't stop me, and I wouldn't quit scholarship because of that. I think I'm one of the idealists who totally separate doing academics (for knowledge and life) with getting hired by university (for money and living) (you know, job is market --- market is business --- business is bad), correct me if I'm wrong. If there are a lot of full-time writers, why couldn't many just become independent scholars rather than compete for the few academic jobs there?

Personally, I'm most interested in modern Czech/Slovak theatre and literature, especially in early Czechoslovakia and the Interwar period, but generally I'm open to anything on literature, linguistics, culture, theatre, TV/film and ethnography in the West Slavic area. I'm fine even with Jan Hus or Mikołaj Rej. I have a keen interest in Slavic ethnic minorities (Sorbs, Rusyns, Kashubians...) and East European Yiddish culture as well. Soviet literature or anything related to Communism could also draw my attention, but absolutely no Peter the Great or Derzhavin or post-Soviet stuff. Therefore, I will only apply to the few graduate schools out there that have real slavic departments and acknowledge these relatively minor (but not unimportant) slavic literature and culturally diverse ethnic groups.... they should not die out in the North American Academia....

Thank you ExponentialDecay! This is extremely helpful and exactly what I want to know. Yeah, I've heard of the 1980-90s Russian emigrants taking academic position thing. It seems like at present the old are in their 70s and the most promising ones are stuck on the level of lecturers. I'm not thinking about Stanford, as it is too Russian-centric, neither Yale and Princeton. Berkeley might be a good option. If Slavic does not work out well at the end, alternatives may include East European anthropology or history, but I'm more toward a humanity/literature-oriented program, so maybe something like yiddish studies or comp lit. Yet, I assume comp lit program is way harder to get in than area/language-specific literature program as people from all language background are applying at the same time. Is that right? For the job prospect, I was saying that I was not concerned about or mentioning it in my previous post, and I'm not one of those business/market-oriented people. Plus it is something to worry about a decade later, I just do what I like to pursue at this point of time and regard it as a pure enjoyment of knowledge and humanity. Being a professor is ideal though, the worse scenario would be absolute joblessness in Academia and I can work as something else and become an independent scholar, writer, translator or language tutor to accommodate my interest and make some contributions, or perhaps taking advantage of my education I can move to Europe to find interesting things to do. Idk yet.

Thank you for your reply! Just to clarify, I'm not applying cross-disciplinarily myself and of course I'm in a Slavic program now and I need to master Russian to graduate. Nonetheless, I'm a strong advocator for non-Russian Slavic Literature, Language and Culture (partially because people largely don't take them seriously enough) and I won't consider Russian for my primary or secondary Slavic language/literature for research but more like a tool language. As you can read, Both of my questions are dealing with the competitiveness of graduate school admission and the stress-relief for the panicking application process. I'm neither concerned nor even care about the job prospects at all!

Dobrý den! Dobrý deň! Dobry dźyń! Dzień dobry! Dzéń dobri! Dobar dan! Dober dan! Dobry dźeń! Dobry źeń! Добар дан! Добар ден! Добър ден! Добры дзень! Добрый динь! Добреі дині! Добрий день! Добрый день! Добръ дьнь!!!! I'm not applying this year but for the season of fall 2017. Nonetheless, I have viewed the forum on a daily basis and I really think we should make the Slavic page as well as the language subforum active! It has been quite silent for two months unfortunately... Personally, as a Junior Undergrad, I still have a full year of time before submitting the application to prepare all the material and to demonstrate my interests and I have determined the area of research and some schools I want to apply to. Nevertheless, I just feel a little bit panic since I have no idea how the graduate admission looks like and how hard it is to get in. I understand that it may differ from people to people but it seems like, based on the public data, some Slavic graduate schools have unexpectedly low enrollment rate (which is based on the admission rate and the yield rate that I have no idea). Is it true that, as there is always a language requirement (2-4 years in one or two foreign languages depends) for admission, it would be less likely to apply cross-disciplinarily and less qualified applicants in the pool for competition compared to other fields (such as English, Film, History or Art History)? In addition, it also seems that many Slavic departments are reducing or even shutting down their graduate programs due to lack of funding and faculty retirement, is that the a general trend for future? Thank you very much! Let's keep the thread going!