GK Chesterton

Hey Forsberg, what was the deadline on Yale for French? I am awaiting word from the German program and our deadline was Jan 2nd, so I'm trying to figure out what the turnover time looks like.

No.

Interloper: So what do you study? Me: German literature and film. -: Oh, great. I love the Frankfurt School. Do you have a thematic concentration, or are you more interested in theory? Me: Well, I'm mostly interested in structuralist and post-structuralist approaches to texts - for me, it's more important how text and interpretation work than what the actual "content" of the book is. -: Ah, OK. So sort of a narratology line, then? Me: Yes, exactly - like Genette or Bakhtin. -: Right, I love them. I just discovered this great russian semiotician, Yuri... Me: ... Lotman! Yes, me too, I think he's really interesting, particularly in his rejection of historicist tendencies and necessity in his theory of the event. -: True, I agree, but I think that one needs to keep in mind a sort of Foucauldian awareness of the discursive structures that place epistemic limits on the possibilities of both action and interpretation - in supporting Lotman and this sort of radical contingency, are we not also rejecting the structuring and constraining influences of society upon the subject? Me: Right, important points, whose answers I think would probably lie in a recourse to Deleuzian theories of becoming or perhaps Badiou's judgment of what constitutes an event versus what is only an apparent event, or evil. For a small fee, I'll be happy to send everyone posting in this thread a plaque reading "It's tough being the smartest person in the room, but somebody has to do it." A bit of consideration with regard to people that somehow didn't end up on the fork of life that leads you to getting a Ph.D. might not be a terrible thing.

I had a conversation begin where I talked a bit about the weather and I got the spot. Don't despair!

Structuralist and post-structuralist textual approaches (i.e. Formalism / narratological approaches + deconstruction & Gramscian hegemony stuff), psychoanalysis, narrative temporality. Some political theory (Schmitt, Laclau, Agamben). My thematic interests are sketchier- Idealist philosophy, Weimar, '68, German Realism, Benjamin. Also film.

Well, what are your interests?

I'm not sure how accurate this really is - I'm a WAS(no P) studying a language that I have no connection to, and the first question I'm asked by people in Germany is always "So why on Earth are you studying German?" I generally answer that it's just something that interested me, various authors, philosophers, etc. and that I have no "personal" connection to it, neither through family nor early childhood experiences, which is usually confusing to people. I think that the general assumption exists that one studies things towards which one is personally inclined, either through early childhood affinities (oh, he always did love to play the piano, even at age 4) or through "heritage" of a particular legacy (his father and his father's father were doctors) or whatever. I'll agree that this position is relatively intellectually bankrupt, but I dispute that no one bats an eye at a white kid from Oklahoma who just loves the Vedas and learning south-east Asian languages. I don't think that anyone takes it for granted that a WASP studies Japanese stuff; people generally have very boring conceptions of what motivates someone to study something and are presumably confused when a facile understanding of academic interests is threatened. In addition, I'm not convinced that identity politics was particularly good for the sort of "naturalness" of studying other countries and cultures; a number of publications stress the "roots" element, the anglo-imperialist element, the valorization of non-Anglo cultures as being transmitted through mother's milk and barrios that lends a unique personal insight into those cultures. Presumably, people who accepted these (undoubtedly essentialist) claims to some extent have a harder time reconciling that with an academic "tabula rasa" one. Next time someone asks you why you're studying such and such a subject, explain that cosmopolitanism is traditionally the boon and the burden of the upper-classes and if they have to ask they'll never understand.

I'm not sure how accurate this really is - I'm a WAS(no P) studying a language that I have no connection to, and the first question I'm asked by people in Germany is always "So why on Earth are you studying German?" I generally answer that it's just something that interested me, various authors, philosophers, etc. and that I have no "personal" connection to it, neither through family nor early childhood experiences, which is usually confusing to people. I think that the general assumption exists that one studies things towards which one is personally inclined, either through early childhood affinities (oh, he always did love to play the piano, even at age 4) or through "heritage" of a particular legacy (his father and his father's father were doctors) or whatever. I'll agree that this position is relatively intellectually bankrupt, but I dispute that no one bats an eye at a white kid from Oklahoma who just loves the Vedas and learning south-east Asian languages. I don't think that anyone takes it for granted that a WASP studies Japanese stuff; people generally have very boring conceptions of what motivates someone to study something and are presumably confused when a facile understanding of academic interests is threatened. In addition, I'm not convinced that identity politics was particularly good for the sort of "naturalness" of studying other countries and cultures; a number of publications stress the "roots" element, the anglo-imperialist element, the valorization of non-Anglo cultures as being transmitted through mother's milk and barrios that lends a unique personal insight into those cultures. Presumably, people who accepted these (undoubtedly essentialist) claims to some extent have a harder time reconciling that with an academic "tabula rasa" one. Next time someone asks you why you're studying such and such a subject, explain that cosmopolitanism is traditionally the boon and the burden of the upper-classes and if they have to ask they'll never understand.

No idea about competitiveness, unfortunately. I also applied to Michigan, Cornell, Berkeley and Princeton. I was a little bit hesitant to make any definitive statements about what I wanted to study other than broad sketches, as a professor I spoke to suggested that for big, comprehensive programs (Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, etc.) they preferred to see something like "German cinema" and not "Expressionism in Weimar Film" .

Yes to Yale and Chicago. Yourself?

Well, I'm not convinced that Dacey's assessment is correct; I think many grad schools tend to be cautious of those who publish in not terribly well-reputed sources before proceeding further in their professional development. However, you don't have to tell anyone you published it, so if it sucks, you can conveniently leave it off your application.

Puzzling. A comment suggesting that the advice on Grad Cafe is not to be trusted because it's based on anecdotes and personal experiences, delivered in the form of advice derived from anecdotes and personal experience. Ça se deconstruit. Thanks for the advice, though. I'll file that under "truisms I found on Grad Cafe based on anecdotes and personal experience that are not to be trusted."

Doom. Just kidding - I don't think it's a big deal. It's slightly unfortunate that it's a phonetic typo, because if it were a random consonant, it would be 100% clear that you made a typo and not that you might potentially not know how to spell the word curriculum (which could conceivably be phonetically spelled with an "i"). However, they're right next to each other on the keyboard, so I suspect no one will think anything of it.

Perhaps the most complicating part is that the reason some "minor histories" are written more frequently now by people who identify with those minorities is because the universalizing tendency of straight, white, male historians were presenting an "objectively disinterested" viewpoint that tended to confirm precisely their own subjective point-of-view. Look at the various interventions in American Indian/Chicano history by Americo Paredes or whatever; you had people like Frederick Turner and Walter P. Webb writing histories that either excluded these groups entirely or made them into villians/victims/standers-by. Obviously white straight Christian males were at one point historians of women, Jews, blacks, etc. - however, they tended to portray them in ways that marginalized the contribution these groups had or the role they played in a history determined by straight white men.

I'm not sure I understand this part. What sort of language training would one undergo in an English master's program? Also, if you only want to do Russian literature why not join a Slavic languages / russian department, and not Comp Lit? Finally, why don't you do summer intensive language classes in Russia? That would be a good way of really learning the language.

Well, I would suggest lying. I would definitely not recommend that you say you're doing it because no one will hire you. However, I suspect you might find that grad school for something you don't like isn't very much fun either.

Yes. That would be far too short.

I feel strongly about politics and I support the [local sports team]!

I suppose this is slightly more logical, but you've basically just made a strictly mechanical metaphor: one could just as easily substitute grape flavor for strawberry flavor or swap the whole thing out for an anecdote about the pronunciation of the word aluminum. There is no necessary link between the content of the metaphor and your statement that you draw from it. When the connection is that tenuous, just say what you want to say (although I'm not convinced that the United States and Great Britain are at all superficially similar countries, either politically or historically - separation between executive and legislative, monarchy, geopolitics, size, wealth, class history, frontiers, etc.) I don't think the idea is very good unless you can develop it a lot farther.

If you demonstrate sufficient linguistic competency and an interest in literature / film / politics / theory / whatever then you'll be fine, regardless of your major or minor. Presumably a bi-lingual Japanese / English speaker who studied accounting at a US university could then apply to a Japanese graduate program, provided that he or she could demonstrate the ability to study a humanity at the graduate level.

I suppose this is the econ undergraduate in me, but simple solution: let me pay an extra $5 to email you the paper and have you print it out. Mailing it will cost me at least that much (25 page writing sample plus assorted) is probably at least $7 (not to mention that I'm in Germany right now, so that figure is at least 5x bigger), so I save, and printing it out will cost them .05X30 = $1.50, meaning they make money on the deal as well. Plus, that way someone doesn't have to scan every single page of the paper in order to distribute copies to the admissions committee. Sheesh.

Sigh. The answer is no, it must be mailed. I wrote them. This strikes me as absurd, because I KNOW that Berkeley's Poli Sci lets you upload it. Also, if they can write me emails from that account... why can't they accept my writing sample as an attachment through that account? Gah. It's like, they should all get one grad student to try and "apply" to like 15 different top schools, write down the best and worst features of each, and make their applications do that. These are people who think for a living, for God's sake!

This damned Berkeley app. I just realized that their website doesn't have a spot for uploading a writing sample, at least for German. Have other people encountered this, or am I missing something really obvious?

I think I'm missing an important part. What is the nature of the connection between grape-flavoured candies and the United States? If you were trying to study viticulture or something this might make more sense, but this kind of leaves me scratching my head. It's like if I really wanted to study Chaucer and Milton and I told the committee I fell in love with England when I first ate bangers and mash. Non-sequitur.

I think I'm missing an important part. What is the nature of the connection between grape-flavoured candies and the United States? If you were trying to study viticulture or something this might make more sense, but this kind of leaves me scratching my head. It's like if I really wanted to study Chaucer and Milton and I told the committee I fell in love with England when I first ate bangers and mash. Non-sequitur.