Melvillage_Idiot

Big thank you shout-outs to @rising_star, @Hermenewtics, and @Crow T. Robot for giving me a HUGE amount to think about (and making me feel a hell of a lot better about it all), and to @Crow T. Robot in particular for maybe hitting the nail on the head with the different scholarly approaches. Yay learning!

This is amazing! @FishNerd and I have been going through the same search! Congrats!

Congrats! Also, echoing what @punctilious said about ratings -- program fit and post-graduate placement are probably the more important metrics.

I hadn't thought about the possibility of academic theft; that's a sad scenario that I'd (perhaps naively?) not thought was something you'd have to prepare for. Bringing it back to my original comment (and I probably should have connected back to it more clearly in the last post), the concerns I have with jargon come back to my weak theory background -- the fear that a long list of technical-yet-very-vague research projects indicates either (1) the program would be a very poor fit for me because I don't understand the jargon, or (2) that I'm not cut out for scholarship, and a good candidate wouldn't find the descriptions vague at all. To someone like me, I think a simple statement of works/periods/authors the author works with is less daunting and more inviting than an abstract description of theoretical interests. It's not that jargon doesn't have a good use in the right context; it's not that I think the use of jargon automatically indicates an inability to explain research clearly; it's simply that I don't have the know-how to parse it all, and that's been rather worrisome as I've been working towards a level of education where I absolutely will need to be able to parse it all.

Responding to both: I am absolutely in favor of genuine intersectionality in the social contexts mentioned here. I admit, I had to look up what the Sokal hoax is, but that's exactly what I'm referring to. I noticed that a lot of faculty and especially a lot of current grad student pages at programs will have sentences like this: "So-and-so's research examines intersectionality between the time, place, and media of early Victorian poetry" -- a jargon-y term followed by a list of vague qualifiers, with no sense given of what the research is really getting at or how those different items connect. "Intersectionality" is not the only example, but it is the one that I saw the most and really stuck with me, thus my usage here.

I had a real hit-and-miss MA experience, so I actually asked a pretty similar question to this a little while ago. I got some really great advice in that thread that might be relevant to you, so I'm linking to it here. Hope it helps!

Thanks for the advice, gang. I figured the environment would be a lot more 1-on-1, which I'm totally fine with; I've done my best to incorporate that sort of interaction in my composition classes as an adjunct, to mixed success (last semester it went wonderfully, but this semester...not so much). I got to do a lot of individualized help when I was a TA here, so I know I enjoy it and how much it can really help a student. @CulturalCriminal, since you mentioned it, Denver only requires that students work in the WC their first year. After that, they can become instructor of record or move to other positions (usually editorial/reading gigs for the university's journals). I wouldn't necessarily be locked into that sort of work the whole time, nor would I want to be; as important as first-year writing is for students, it is absolutely not the focus of my research or what I want to study down the line.

I get the most into any subject that I can tie into a social context. I've done a lot of research on regional literature -- both by writers from the region, and by outsiders looking in -- and for me, having that backbone of "real" people to connect literature to is great. It bothers me, as an Americanist, that almost every "Great American Novel" ignores or dismisses whole swathes of the country, so getting past that to find what folks elsewhere thought is always fun. My theory background is real flimsy, so I sometimes feel at a loss when I'm reading something super theoretical or abstract (Anybody reading this post, if you wanna PM me some good reads to buff up my theory capabilities before I go off to the next level, I'm totally game!). I actually found myself ruling out potential PhD programs if too many faculty/grad student interests on their website used the word "intersectionality." It gives me some serious imposter syndrome sometimes, and it sometimes scares me that I'll get to my first PhD class and completely fall apart because I can't recite the right passage of Saussure. I mean, apparently my writing sample demonstrated enough of a strong theoretical framework to get me into my two top picks, but I'll be damned if I can tell you what that theoretical framework actually was =P

So, for the past year I've been an adjunct at my MA school, teaching Freshman Comp and Freshman Lit. It's been a real learning experience (especially since I'd never had any pedagogy classes or guidance on how to teach Composition), and I think it's probably prepared me a lot for taking on a TA job at the PhD level. I've got two schools to consider now, Denver and UArk. At UArk I'd be doing the whole TA-as-instructor-of-record thing, which would involve running a classroom and all the things I've learned to do over this past year. At Denver, I'd be working in their Writing Center, and I don't quite know what that entails. By all accounts, Writing Center work sounds a lot more personal and tutor-y (both of which are fine!), but since I've never been in one I don't know if that's an accurate impression. Anybody have any experience at a writing center you can share? Just so I know, should I go Denver, what I'm getting into?

Thanks! It's not an earth-shattering amount of money, but it's more than my other option, and my partner's funding package at UArk is just stupid big, so...I mean, we don't want to make this all about the money, but right now, it could easily be about the money! Also, congrats to @JustPoesieAlong for the Georgia acceptance! They were one of my top picks for a loooooong time.

In at University of Arkansas, with a solid paying fellowship offer to boot! It's decision time! AAAHHH!

Whitejacket is the only Melville novel I haven't read. I had an absolutely amazing undergrad class that was a seminar on Herman Melville, and we read all of his novels except that one and Israel Potter, and I read IP as a side project for my Honors program. One of these days, I've gotta pick it up for completion's sake!

Southern Bastards is one of my absolute favorites. I gave the first trade of Pretty Deadly a try, but it just didn't click with me. Harrow County has been on my radar for a while, but I've not gotten to it, and I haven't heard of House of Penance, so thanks for a new title to find! Also in my backlog of things to try, there's Moonshine, God Country, Hillbilly, and (if I ever get around to buying it) Warlords of Appalachia (which I know absolutely nothing about other than the title, haha!).

So I've already jumped on the 20th/21st Century Americanist thread, but like my screen name suggests, I have a lot of love for the previous century. If what I really want to do at the PhD level should fall apart, I feel like I can always fall back on Hawthorne and Melville. I also like studying the history and significance of a lot of Reconstruction-era Southern writers. The works themselves are usually terrible, but the history is (sadly) still relevant. One of these days, I'm going to be able to teach a pre-1865 American lit survey course, and I'll be the happiest man in the department.

Everyone I've ever had a class with calls me "Blood Meridian guy." Apparently, I bring it up a lot. Recently, with my teaching job and all this application stress, I've been focused a lot less on the classics. I've got a mountain of comic book trades that I'm working through, and I'm currently reading a really wonderful, kind of under-the-radar fantasy series, The Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennett. Also, slowly, haltingly trying to get into the rhythms of a regular writing routine again. Fiction writing is sexy, so I keep trying to make myself a short story man, but I always end up going right back to creative nonfiction.

I'm mostly a dabbler Americanist - let's just read all of it, dammit! - but I lean pretty heavily into contemporary Southern and Western writers from the Modernist period to today. I did my MA thesis on really contemporary Southern Gothic authors (like, post-2010 contemporary) who live and write about characters outside the traditional South. At the PhD level, I'd like to do something with Appalachian literature, which almost nobody discusses and which really took off in the 1900s. My theory background is pretty weak, so I hesitate to align myself with any particular school of thought. *severe Imposter Syndrome begins to kick in* Fun fact: When you announce to a room full of other English students that you do things with Southern Gothic, there's always this one Brit Lit specialist who really wants you to know how much they hate William Faulkner. Never fails.

Anybody know (and forgive me if I've missed this in a previous post) about anything from University of Arkansas? I got an email from them a few weeks ago that suggested I should probably learn something this week, but if you browse the archived acceptances on this site, most folks don't seem to learn anything until the first week of March -- and I don't know if my heart can take that long of a wait!

Congrats to all of you who got those weekend notifications! I'd give your posts likes, but I've used up my daily allotment!

Other folks have already kind of answered this question, but since I'm the one who brought up the topic, I should probably throw in my specific two cents: In my case, I think a lot of it comes from a pretty drastic shift in my dad's family's dynamic from about a year ago. My grandmother passed away, and after her death, several of my dad's siblings revealed a dramatic side that we didn't really know was there. One of my aunts refused to have anything to do with the funeral or to help the family in any way, and from that things...spiraled. Dad's kind of the family mediator, and it was really hard on him to watch a lot of family bonds disintegrate. Like @renea's family, my dad's family have mostly stayed in the same area, and like @M(allthevowels)H's family, they're very religious (Dad's actually a minister). Those are some pretty tight bonds that I'd already broken when I left to get my MA (well, the religion thing broke earlier), but when I left for that Dad was my biggest booster. He was sad, yeah, but far happier to know I was doing what I loved and taking the next step. After Mamaw's death, though, I think he's recontextualized my going really far away as another sign the family is failing. That's why something renea said really stuck with me: I don't want to feel guilty about leaving, but I do, because I know that Dad's linked all these family shake-ups together. I don't want Dad to think that, should I go to Denver, I'm somehow punishing him further for the death of his mother. That's probably absurd, I know, but that's where the thoughts end up going. And so I do my best to be patient. I try to talk to him about other topics, and share my school info mostly with Mom (who is enormously supportive). I trust that Dad will never stop loving me, and that in time, we'll all get through the drama and everything will be fine. In the moment, though, it's not easy.

Thank you all for the advice! I have since contacted the grad coordinator and a student at my one acceptance so far, asking about several of the questions suggested by @a_sort_of_fractious_angel and @TakeruK, and the answers I got back were all great. Also, thank you, @fuzzylogician, for the reminder that nobody's going to hold my hand when it's all over (or even now, really). I needed that. I'll be sure to keep all the rest in mind as I go forward. You guys rock. I totally feel this. Almost the entire academic/scholarly side of my department was super hands-off and passive; the only exception was our Shakespeare specialist, but he only gave that sort of encouragement to fellow Shakespeareans and outright told me that my own research interests bored him (we didn't have a great relationship). Thank goodness the creative writers and the university press gave me a ton to do, or else I'd have twiddled my thumbs the entire degree =P

That's rough. I don't think my dad gets the whole "I'll go somewhere different to pursue my career" mentality, either. He doesn't like that I live only one state away in Tennessee (on the other end of Tennessee at that), so the prospect of going as far afield as the Rockies just seems unfathomable to him. I hope you make your top choices, though, and go do all the things where you'd love to! Gotta go where the chances are and do what you can to smooth family tension over, I guess. edit: Forum etiquette question: Is upvoting your post in this context an acceptable way to say "I'm glad to hear I'm not alone," or does it look like I like your difficulties? It's the whole "people who 'Like' obituaries on Facebook" issue here

When I was an undergrad, I had two absolutely incredibly advisors who always pushed me to pursue conference presentations (even if they were often very small state-level affairs) and a number of other professors who were encouraging, supportive, and all-around excellent. If I wanted to go somewhere to present, the funding would be found; if I had any questions, they'd be there to answer them. I didn't have to ask or worry or fret -- the department was on it, sometimes before I even knew what was coming myself. I lost that when I came to my MA school. The Creative Writing part of the department were amazing, and I got loads of great experience and encouragement from them, but on the academic front even the simplest of questions were often met with silence. I hardly presented at the Master's level, and certainly never published anything scholarly. I think the problem was at least partially the result of me being so spoiled in undergrad that I never really learned how to politely prod a department contact into helping me get something started. I'm also constantly comparing my experience in grad school so far with that of my partner, who's in a STEM field and has this ENORMOUS support network in place for help with things like conference presentations, grant proposals, outside funding searches, etc. That kind of system seems to be in shorter supply in English departments. Anybody have any advice on approaching faculty/advisors for assistance with things like grants or side projects, or even simpler questions like, "Hey, you've published a boatload of articles on this paper's topic, any journal recommendations I could submit to?" Wherever I end up for the Ph.D., I want it to be a really active and productive experience in a way that I don't feel like I got in the MA.

I don't think my dad has forgiven me for applying to Ph.D. programs so far from home. I've already been living away from home for four years now, so it's not a homesickness issue like some of the other parent comments here, but when I called home to tell my parents that I'd gotten my first acceptance, he couldn't even fake excitement. He even seemed mad. For context, I'm from eastern Kentucky, and my acceptance came from University of Denver. My dad's never been particularly supportive of the Ph.D. pursuit in the first place, and outside of a continuous stream of "You should apply to University of Kentucky" (which eventually turned into the passive-aggressive "Did you ever even look at UK?") he's never offered any comment on the process. I had a phone call with the graduate coordinator at DU yesterday to chat about the program in more detail which went really well, and I didn't even think I could tell Dad because he'd just get mad and sulky. I don't really know what to do here. I've tried to have a longer conversation with him about it, because he's clearly sad I'm going to be moving further away from home than I already am, no matter what school ends up being The One, but he always shuts down a few words in. I know a lot of it, for him, comes from this being really unknown to him -- on his side of the family, I'm the first person to get a Bachelor's degree, let alone try to go all the way to the doctorate -- and I really try to keep that in perspective, but it's difficult when it doesn't feel like he's ever made an effort to be in my corner. Anybody else dealing with a parent/loved one who is, we'll say, less than enthusiastic about the grad school hunt?

Recent lurker here (I'm @FishNerd's partner, so I've been seeing things through her), popping in to add something that might be helpful as well. When I was doing my MA thesis and getting asked all those questions, most of the folks asking me wanted to know some practical, real-world application. The sort of abstract, soul-searching things we literature people do (or at least try to do) don't really meet that criteria in their eyes, but I found that if I had something with some statistics behind it, I could usually both answer their questions and hold their attention for a little bit. In my case, one big chunk of my thesis project was a sociological look at migrations out of the American South into the Rust Belt, and if I led with that (even if it wasn't the "real" focus), it seemed to answer their questions and even assuage those worries that I'm off doing nothing worthwhile with my life. After that, just tack on a "And, you know, I'm applying all this to a novel," and most people seem pretty satisfied. Obviously, this approach doesn't work if your project is really theory-heavy or abstract, but if you have something even vaguely applicable to another field, it might be worth letting that be front-and-center.