Phenomenologist

I had a professor who went there for her PhD, and based on her area of focus, it looks like they're making a push to be recognized within ethics. I couldn't tell you much more than that...sorry.

It certainly may not be "adequate," but what's "adequate" will vary. We're only on casual message boards, so I'm not rallying peer-reviewed articles to do a thesis here. But the U.S. Census Bureau data isn't wholly inadequate for our purposes. We can bicker about an "adequate" amount of support, but it remains the case that generally speaking, women make less than men, all other things being equal.

The Census data isn't merely comparing "men" and "women." It's men and women who both (1) work full time, (2) are year-round employed, (3) have college degrees, and (4) are over the age of twenty-five. So, the data is at least narrowing it down.

But again, people can debate over what's "adequate" all day, so I'll just drop my point with you here .

I still haven't heard back from the graduate school... I'm getting really impatient. It's been 19 days since they received my materials, almost a week longer then I was told I would have to wait for a decision.

You have "nothing against it," but you describe it as "make-things-up-as-you-go"? I don't think they would describe it that way.

The idiom is true: "History is written by the victors." And by extension, "Theology is written by the privileged." So these projects are simply a recovery of lost theological voices: women, ethnic minorities, the poor, etc. It's hardly "make-things-up-as-you-go."

Oh, phenomenologist, I want to have your thought babies. :-) Kuhn! I heart him. And of course, Kuhn tells us that that tenured professors are the standardbearers of the existing paradigm, and shifts come from the graduate students, TA's, and the untenured. :-) Kuhn's ideas have certainly played out in the fields of religious scholarship over the past 200 years.

No problem, I understand what you mean now . Sounds like you have great plans to practice medicine, I hope that works out! You'll have a great interdisciplinary background.

Thought babies, LOL -- that's a new one . Thanks, I enjoy Kuhn as well (as is obvious). But I like postmodern hermeneutics generally. And postcolonial!

I apologize, and I agree that we should recover lost voices. Heck, I want to become a physician one day to help the poor, the ethnic minorities, etc. I come from a background (besides anthropology) of many, many, many science courses, so I still view these endeavors in theology, anthropology, philosophy, etc., as really just putting a different spin on topics we can never REALLY know the answer to like, say, catabolism of glucose through glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. Thus, the "making-it-up-as-we-go." I'm all for recovering lost voices, so long as we remember that we can't stamp "fact" on these different voices (including what is considered "normative"), which is what many academicians do or, at the very least, disparage individuals when they disagree with ideas or concepts which are just that, "ideas and concepts".

Like I said, I don't have any problem with different ideas. I hold no paradigm as sacred. What I do hold sacred, though, is being able to distinguish between fact and fiction, to the best of our limited capabilities. It's just good to remember that, in the end, a lot of this esoteric stuff shouldn't be taken as "this is the way it is!" as much as it should be cherished as giving a voice to the people that have been voiceless, which I think is very cool.

You have "nothing against it," but you describe it as "make-things-up-as-you-go"? I don't think they would describe it that way.

The idiom is true: "History is written by the victors." And by extension, "Theology is written by the privileged." So these projects are simply a recovery of lost theological voices: women, ethnic minorities, the poor, etc. It's hardly "make-things-up-as-you-go."

In our day, when women who have an identical education as men receive only 75% of the pay, why would any educated person in higher-academia (especially at these institutions) *NOT* be a feminist?

I come from a philosophy major, where we know better than to think that science is any more "objective" than the humanities that are supposedly "merely subjective." As Nietzsche said, "There are no facts, only interpretations."

You may be interested in reading philosopher-of-science, Thomas Kuhn. He popularized the term "paradigm shift," and demonstrates that despite science's pretensions to say otherwise, it's no more "objective" than other discourses. Even in the sciences, we're discussing "ideas and concepts." We view the world through a paradigm, which shapes and informs our observation of "the facts." But after a while, we shift to a new paradigm, where all of "the facts" change. It's really fascinating stuff, you should check read that brief summary at that link.

that's why I didn't apply to HDS. i've heard the same story over and over from people that have attended HDS. also, i have nothing against queer or feminist theology. as i mentioned in my post earlier, if one is interested in systematic, historical, or philosophical theology, HDS is clearly not even close to being ranked at the top. coming from an anthropological background, I can see, however, why HDS is a perfect fit for numerous individuals that want a more sociocultural, "make-things-up-as-you-go," let's "reinterpret everything" approach to the study of theology and religion. I have nothing against this at all, and I think new ideas should always be welcomed. Also, I can understand why numerous individuals thing\k that this kind of approach is meaningless and, thus, choose not to study at HDS. The beautiful thing about America is that we have so many different choices where / what to study!

I'm finishing my first year at HDS and on top of having top credentials recs and so forth you have to "fit." I would say a lot of the fits are "non-traditional", but they are still specific. For the MTS, Womens Studies in Religion and Queer Theology are the mainstays, half of our student body is gay and I'd say at least 75% would identify themselves as feminist. Are you gay? Are you a feminist? If you answer is no to both of these then your research interest are not aligned with about half of the school. Of the half that are left you have traditional biblical studies and theology and non-Bible related religion focuses. If you want to study something relating to the Bible that isn't feminist or queer you're really applying to about 1/4 of the spots.

I was admitted because I've had some blow your mind experiences at the borders of Christianity Judaism and Islam in addition to having really good stats and recs. But I know I was admitted near the back of the pack because I only got partial funding. As much as it irks me, and you it seems, an unshaven lesbian from Wellesley that's never opened a Bible but has good stats and wants to study feminist theology will probably be admitted before you. Before you knock yourself too hard consider the possibility that it wasn't that you didn't meet their "fit" requirement, but that they would have not "fit" for you.

+1

Actually, my advice is a combo of the two above. If the two programs are both good, then go with the cheaper one -- no doubt about it. And besides, it's Notre Dame for goodness' sakes, one of the best schools ever.

On the other hand, if it's only $10,000 in debt to do a program that you know you'll be SIGNIFICANTLY happier with and is your absolute dream program or something, I'd say that's a no-brainer as well (key word: "significantly"). You can pay that off in the future, but you can never go back and get your time/experience back to do what you would'a/could'a/should'a.

+1

Actually, my advice is a combo of the two above. If the two programs are both good, then go with the cheaper one -- no doubt about it. And besides, it's Notre Dame for goodness' sakes, one of the best schools ever.

On the other hand, if it's only $10,000 in debt to do a program that you know you'll be SIGNIFICANTLY happier with and is your absolute dream program or something, I'd say that's a no-brainer as well (key word: "significantly"). You can pay that off in the future, but you can never go back and get your time/experience back to do what you would'a/could'a/should'a.

If you want to move on to PhD studies, how much more will Yale help than GTU? If only marginally, maybe GTU would be better. But if you really want to get into a PhD (and the market is pretty killer right now--both to get into a PhD, and also to get a job afterward), then you may want to go to Yale.

I haven't researched the job market for theology/biblical studies PhD's trying to get a job. But I'm a philosophy major and hang out in a philosophy department, and when I was looking into PhD programs in philosophy, the job market was absolutely awful. Even people with PhD's from Notre Dame (a top philosophy school) struggle to land jobs, and have to pick up and move their families from one 1-year-position to another, trying to get a proper tenure-track job.

There are so many PhD's out there looking for jobs that institutions can have their choice to pick the best-of-the-best applicants from the best-of-the-best programs. So, just something to think about!

There SO needs to be a gematria section on the GRE.

(Seriously: it's the perfect union of qualitative, quantitative, and bullsh*t. Gematria *is* the GRE).

=]

I just know it's a component of admissions.

The GRE - yikes. I had to take it for PHD applications and never want to look at another math problem again. I use math once a year: tax time. In my time as a religion student I have never used it, save, for cardinal/ordinal numbers in Hebrew or for gemmatria. But, that's a component too (the objective component -- the great equalizer).

I am not knocking affirmative action. I am merely affirming that it happens and for good reason. To gloss over it and say, "I didn't get in because I'm white" does not work here. What does work, however, is saying that it IS taken into consideration when studying religion: underrepresented peoples have and continually are oppressed by religion and need to be represented. The commonplace WASP has been represented thoroughly throughout US history in seminaries and divinity schools.

So, in sum, I did not mean to knock affirmative action here, I am knocking how that "check box" DOES make a difference (even though schools and admissions folks say that it doesn't) Sorry, it does make some difference.Not against affirmative action, but definitely am saying that it IS important to have underrepresented peoples in seminaries/divinity schools due to their marginalization in US history (and history in the Western World in general).

Hmm, intresting -- it wasn't on my radar.

Yup, I think this is precisely right.


I really would prefer to go to a divinity school or seminary to study "theology," rather than "religious studies" at a university. However, I may be interested in the latter for PhD work -- we'll see =).

Hm, very interesting! I like studies of the Hebrew Bible as well, although I'm more into theology than biblical studies. And on that note, I'm definitely interested in liberation theology, as well.

That doesn't surprise me one bit, I believe it in a heartbeat.

What's "Divine Warrior" stuff?

Howdy guys =). I guess I forgot to add that I also served as a youth pastor for 3 years, which may or may not help my chances at various schools.

Dillskyplayer, that doesn't surprise me at all -- it seems like a lot of my peers are lousy writers at the undergrad level, and I would suspect that at graduate levels as well (depending on the program).

Tahuds, I'm not concerned about Searle -- if deconstruction were definitively "thrashed" in the 70's, it wouldn't be still in contemporary discourse (contrary to existentialism, which has fizzled out).

I figured as long as I can show my facility with philosophical material, it would be a good sample for a "philosophy of religion" program.

Howdy guys

I'm just introducing myself to everyone, to join the conversations in the application season. I'm graduating this Spring with my B.A. in philosophy. I posted a bit on the philosophy boards a long time ago when I was planning on applying to philosophy PhD programs, but have since decided to go into theology instead.

In order of my interest, I've applied to: Duke Div (MDiv), Yale Div (MAR - Philosophy of Religion), Princeton Sem (MDiv), and Calvin Theological Seminary (MDiv - backup school). I kind of wished I'd applied to Uni. of Dayton and Wycliffe College (Uni. of Toronto).

I studied for a year at a small Bible college in the U.K., and did my liberal arts at community college. 3.94 GPA.

I was kind of disappointed that Yale was the only school that wanted a writing sample, as I felt like that would be one of the stronger parts of my application. What did everyone write on for that? I did an exposition of Jacques Derrida's "deconstruction," and its application to the Protestant binary of "scripture versus tradition."

Duke Div's feedback date is supposed to be Feb 25th, this Friday, so I'm looking forward to that. They have a near-50% acceptance rate, so I'm more anxious about getting good scholarships than merely getting accepted.

My interests are mostly political theology, particularly in economic theory.

Anyway, good to meet you guys

I just found this link after a Google search:
http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=duke&t=a&pp=50&o=i&p=2

Looks like in 2009, many MDiv applicants found out on Mar 8th. 2010 mostly has ThD feedback listed.
Those MDiv/MTS applicants who found out on Mar 8th often didn't have financial aid information at that time, either.

Also, looks like acceptances were exclusively by phone, whereas waitlist or rejection was by USPS or other means.

I don't know why I had Feb 25th in my head, maybe the math from "January 10th deadline plus six weeks" (I think the website says around 6 weeks to process the application).