Riotbeard

Also, why would it be a mess unless your potential adviser is leaving? Penn might be in a rough spot, but it's not going to fall off the face of the earth.

It depends on who you were intending to work with. Daniel Richter, Steven Hahn, of course still go. Stephanie McCurry or Tom Segrue, you might want to reconsider. FYI: That article is from the Daily Pennsylvanian, the Penn undergrad newspaper, hardly the New York Times...

This is pretty much true of everything in these forums, haha.

A lot of edited collections I see are printed by academic presses, which to my knowledge means their peer-reviewed. Ditto on everything else though, it gets done through conferences and networking. I am on a UK grant proposal for a multi-meeting roving international symposium/ and likely book if the grant is received. This came out of asking the professor to be on a conference panel, and we share a close archivist friend, so he asked if I would be interested. In other words, it's really more about building up networks.

This is not true. Is it an uphill battle? Yes. But we are even a little out of the top 50 and we place people (not everyone). You have to make up a lot of ground on your CV through fellowships, articles, etc. I have a friend from LSU who without having completed his PhD when he applied (he just defended), and got a bunch of aha interviews and a campus visit this year. He has written six peer reviewed articles, so his cv is crazy, but you can do it. Also major fellowships, outside readers, and good networking skills can help you overcome your school name. Point being, you have to work your ass off, but I know my cv, and I know what friends at top tier schools have, and I am pretty confident I will get a job and am competitive. As an outsider who has spent a lot of time around Ivy leagues (mostly Penn, I lived in Philly for six months last year), one of the biggest advantages you don't think about is the revolving door of stars that give talks, workshops, etc. at that school, but you can take advantage of that stuff. I moved there just on my stipend when I went ABD and later got grants, I am going back for all of May. Go move to one of those cities and go to their events. When you are travelling to do research for your diss., knock on doors (not literally), send an e-mail to faculty at those places asking to buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brain, go to events, talk to people, make friends. Ask faculty at other schools for advice. When I am in Philly, I go to all the Penn events. I got paid to talk at Penn this year based on the strength of networking and showing that I went to the archive every day for months. Nobody expected the worst of me because of my school, I was at least taken as neutral, and thus able to make my own reputation. Put in your hours at conferences, the archive, writing, and you can do it from a lower ranked school, but you have to make the opportunities. We have maybe four or five important talks in U.S. history at Tulane a year. There are that many at Penn or Princeton a month, so if you go to a lower ranked place you have to pound the pavement, and market yourself, the big names won't come to you, you have to go to them. I am not saying people don't have to work hard and network at Ivy Leagues too. Since going and becoming a part of that community, and having some really good friends, I got over whatever Ivy League resentment I had.

I think this is very good advice. Might as well throw in a few dream school apps. I would suggest applying to an MA at your local flagship (If you are in a place where your flagship is a top 20 with no terminal MA, say UNC then you go for an MA at NC state). Get in state tuitiont. Any faculty at an R1 even a lower ranked R1 will be able to guide you the way you need. Those Columbia MA are going to bankrupt you (IMO) for a career that will never pay off for at least 50-100k in debt. It's definitely not so much better than a masters from a solid public research university where you at most pay in state tuitiion. I turned down a fellowship for an MA at my homestate flagship, so you can get fellowships for an MA at these place too.

Here is my two cents at the end of five years: I went where the funding was best, and I think it was the right decision. Go where you will be funded to write a dissertation, not somewhere that wants you to teach classes for them (at least during your dissertation years, we teach during years 2 and 3). This is most important in the ABD phase. Me and my friend in my program were able to take our stipends after we went ABD and move to where our sources were in both cases for over a year, just doing research. In both cases, we both credit intimate knowledge of sources with the ability to right strong grant proposals that have paid off. I know a lot of people in programs where you have to TA during your ABD years, and all of your research is what you can fit into a month here or there. It's really difficult to do high level original reserach under those types of constraints. Additionally, it's also difficult to find to write, research, and apply for fellowship while TAing and have any semblance of a happy personal life (more important than people credit. It's very easy to get burnt out, even with good funding). My program which is mid-ranked also focused heavily on how to write grant proposals and other professional skills. In my year, two of us (out of the 6 who have survived) have gotten major grants (National Science Foundation and Fulbright) in addition to a slew of small grants and major internal fellowships. Advisers are important, but if you are good at networking, you will have a lot of advisers. The academic I talk to most is my outside reader, who I met a year and half ago on a panel. I am not going to say everything is secondary to funding, but it would have to be better in every column but funding in my opinion to go against a good non-labor oreiented funding package.

Haha. He can take you to some dead ends. I try not be dogmatic about any theorist, and I don't write in a theory heavy style, but Foucault has made me think about things in a lot of different ways. If you ever find that your work perfect matches any theory, you are probably delusional though, because history is far messier (and should be) than theory.

There is no real answer other than read and go to the archive (as early as possible in your career, get to know your sources). Like others have said, originality does not matter for your writing sample. Just demonstrate that you can write and analyze sources. Also what you will find is the gap or question you are trying to fill will change over time as you do your research. Historiography represents a starting point and context for your research, but primary sources should change your questions. This whole process takes years (it's what grad school is all about), so relax, have fun, and it will happen organically.

Foucault and Hayden White have been really influential on me. I am also using Karen and Barbara Field's racecraft a lot in my work. Beyond that, I love Marx, but I can't say I am Marxist.

Yeah i am in the 10-15 readers vein too, haha.

Hi! I decided to skim the whole thread. First Vr4Douche. Congrats on starting an interesting thread and presenting an honest opinion, even if I don't necissarily share all of it. 1st. I think Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering, Jill Lapore's The Name of War, and Jim Down's Sick from Freedom show that milatary history broadly considered is alive and well! There are still great, well-received books being produced in these disciplines. Is Shelby Foote out of fashion? Yes. Should he be? In my opinion, yes. I want to write a big, marxist history of secession but this is out of fashion, because it has largely been done. So be it. Would more "traditional" military histories improve historiography? I don't think so but I would love to hear an argument beyond why are they out of fashion. Why should tactical, battle narrative histories be relavent today? I think texts that focus on the experience of soldiers are still being produced and are relevant. 2nd. You say academic history does not engage in mainstream culture effectively. You are largely correct. What is the solution (I mean this honestly, not rhetorically)? I don't think the goal is to write more marketable histories like traditional military history, but instead to make other types of history more marketable.

I would say contacting an potential adviser is more for your benefit (in terms of deciding whether you would like to work with the person), but won't make a difference in terms of acceptance. At the end of the day, they are gonna take the better applicant. The only potential benefit is figuring out whether a professor is going to take students that year, so you may at least learn whether it is a waste of time to apply.

My dissertation considers the relationship between antebellum U.S. racial science and medical theory, focusing on how theories of race are dipsersed through medical education. It looks at the braided evolution of materialist conceptions of life and bodies altered by the rise of pathological anatomy and a biodetermined conception of race before evolutionionary theory. I use three different medical schools (from different regions) as case studies to explore these questions with a particular focus on student writing.

My first summer, I did exploratory research and MA thesis research. Second summer, I worked on my dissertation prospectus and other things we have to do to prepare for our defense. Since then, been doing dissertation research every summer, years, etc. Would definitely recommend applying for grants good and early to get used to the process.

Haha!

Sure thing:) I do also apologize for contributing to it getting out of hand and attribute it to the evil of communicating anonymously via text.

To be fair, he does also define racist as a belief that the other be inherently, unchangably inferior (in contrast to what he calls culturalist) and as you point out using this belief to create a hierarchical structure. I am going off memory, but I don't think TMP's shoe suggestion implied inherent female inferiority.

Fair enough. I haven't read that book in a while, and I remembered parts of Fredrickson clearly incorrectly. I will look into that article for sure. I don't agree that racism is exclusively structural racism. My mockery was pretty light. I tend to take ALL CAPS as implying intensity or colloquially jumping down someone's throat. Sexist is strong terminology in a world were any -ist is the preverbial scarlet letter, not to mention you yourself define it as TMP contributing to structural sexism vis-a-vis high-heel suggestion. It is worth noting the passage you sight from fredrickson implies that not everyone believes only racism exists when it supports a hierarchical structure or else he would not be defining it in opposition to non-structural racism.

I look forward to your new theoretical text on prejudicial ideologies, because these statements fly in the face of how many historians of racism (can't speak too heavily on gender as that is not my field) consider the term. George fredrickson defines racism as merely the belief that someone is inherently and unchangably different, usually with different meaning inferior. In my mind, these are ideas anybody could hold about anybody else. Are you sure you didn't just jump down somebody's throat for makeing a relatively, innocuous fashion suggestion and now that people are calling you out for it, you refuse to admit that you were being rude?

Is it really "rather sexist"? I think TMP is just stating an opinion. Feel free to disagree with her, but sexist is rather loaded language for sugesting that one wear heels.

A good lessen in general. I monitor my words a bit, because I have exposed my identity in my signature.

Ok this did get a bit too personal, and I did not help. Sigaba: Whether or not you intended to, at least two people deep into graduate school with lots of conference experience (at least for the grad school board, obviously we are not faculty) interpret your advice as at least somewhat 'machiavellian'. At this point, I honestly don't think that is what you intended, but it did come off that way when I first read it. Generally I will say, how people interact with faculty (from other institutions) at conferences versus interacting with other grad students, is obviously very different. While eventually you fill find some faculty who are very informal and great to have drinks and laughs with at conferences, this is a relationship you develop, so unless you are someone who feels they aren't naturally great at social cues, maybe a book or two could be useful to navigating this world. In general, I think it's unnecessary and could put unnecessary pressure on these situations. If you are talking to the leader in your field, don't start with humor, etc. Don't be an idiot. Also, talk to your adviser. These boards can be great sounding boards, but all of this stuff is best trusted to more experienced sources than other grad students. Around other grad students, if you come off as a calculating or too big for you britches, a lot of people will talk crap about you behind your back and think you're weird. Conferences are potentially high pressure situations, because of big name faculty attendence, etc. so hanging with and meeting other grad students is a way to make you feel better in the face of this. I have a decent amount of conference friends now, and it's not because I talk philosophy all the time or politics. It's because I like to relax, make jokes, and discuss the shared experience of graduate school with people at other schools in between these higher pressure situations. Unwritten rules for academia are similar to most unwritten rules for any professional, social situtation. Don't be rude or pretentious. Don't be profane. Don't behave to0 big for your britches. Complement people without being fake. Ask questions. Behave professionally. Academics are primarily normal people. They don't like the same things that everyone else dislikes.

Oops. I meant to say I have gotten a big grant and fellowship. In isolation it really looks like a humble brag, but whatever.

Oh the folly of talking on the internet sigaba . We are all forever destined to misunderstand and abuse each other, haha. No swagger/ confidence is so important to networking. I see a lot of people around me (I have spent a good chunk of the year in philly for research), who are really smart and in top 10 programs but are afraid to e-mail a professor or talk to people at conferences, and I think we (grad students) can get set up to fail sometimes by too many doom and gloom lectures about the dark world of the job market or how smart other people are etc. Most academics put their pants on one leg at a time and other such hackneyed statements. Honestly, naivety has gotten me a long way in academia. I naively picked a massive source base that took way longer to go through than I ever imagined, but people liked the hard work and I haven't gotten some big grants and fellowships. Lack of knowledge of a certain subfield in my diss. lead me to ask different questions (now I can contextualize my ideas better with having read more books). So many grad students are scared little lambs, beaten down by their professors and it does not serve them in networking.