Hermenewtics
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Posts posted by Hermenewtics
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Private high schools generally, but the rules for certification vary from state to state, so I'm sure that some of them found public jobs.
Honestly, I didn't apply to any high school jobs, so I'm not qualified to help you there. Sorry.
Hm, well, I think summer and spring/mid-fall are usually good times. I typically attached my résumé or CV to a brief introduction. I would explain who I was, what I was looking to do, how many classes I'd like to teach, etc. I'd say I got about a 33% success rate. Some schools will keep that information on record and contact you a few semesters later when classes open up (happened to me more than a few times). Good luck!
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Hm, I can speak to this. Teaching was a part of my MA, so while I planned to take a few years off before pursuing PhD plans, I was reasonably sure I could find full-time work. I was wrong. Experience is king to a lot of hiring committees for full-time jobs, and while I scored a few interviews and even made final consideration for one job, I ended up having to go with adjunct positions for a year.
I think if you're willing to teach high school, however, the rules are a little different. I know plenty of people that were hired immediately by high schools/tutoring companies once they graduated. If you feel like you need to have education-related work experience I would go with high school jobs. The schools around me are always looking for people.
There is a happy ending to my story though. After a year I started e-mailing departments again, and this time I took the initiative, e-mailing department chairs, looking for unstaffed classes etc. One of the people I e-mailed did, in fact, need a lecturer and they kept me on staff full-time until this summer (2 years). So in my experience, it was more helpful to reach out to individuals than to respond to job postings, in part because many of those jobs are posted as a formality anyways (they have a candidate they like, but HR requires them to make the position public).
The huge caveat to all of this is that this is my experience in a large metropolitan area, so take all of it with a grain of salt. I'm happy to answer any questions/respond to any messages.
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Welcome to the English board!
Please don't be offended when I write this because it's not intended that way, but you need to do some research. This board is a gold mine of facts and information from past cycles and many people in your situation have asked similar questions, so I think you'd be well-served going back through the board's history and reading threads about each of your questions. In addition to reading this board, you should talk to professors in your English department ASAP. They've all been through this before and they know you better than people here do, so chances are they'll have plenty of helpful advice from a more informed perspective.
With that being said, I can weigh in on a few of your questions:
1. Doesn't matter that much. If you do some reading you'll notice that most PhD/MA programs require a writing sample that's a maximum of 20-25 pages. While I'm sure it's a helpful, rewarding experience to work on a capstone/thesis, it's by no means a necessary step at this point in your academic career. Dig into the requirements of the programs you're going to be applying to and I think you'll see the same thing.
2. Again, don't worry too much. Getting into a graduate program isn't like applying as an undergrad, so banish any concerns about honors societies, etc.
I think researching this process on this board and other places will be much more helpful than any other answers that will be offered here. Once you've got an idea of exactly what this process entails you'll be able to ask the best questions for you (and I bet a thorough understanding of the process will allay your concerns about most of these questions).
I'm a Modernist, btw, so feel free to PM me if you have specific questions.
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My areas of interest seem to overlap with yours quite a bit, so I'll tell you what a good friend (a published poet and tenured member of an R1 department) told me: UB is one of if not the best schools in the country for avant garde/contemporary poetics. Basically, if your background is any indication of what you're planning to do for your PhD I'd say Buffalo is one of the best places for you academically. I would guess that their placement numbers are different depending on what your field of study is, so you may want to filter results by what the individual in question was doing.
If I remember correctly, @a_sort_of_fractious_angel was accepted at Buffalo, so they might have some advice.
On the other hand, it's in Buffalo, so I sort of understand your trepidation. I can't speak to the city or the funding package, so obviously those are factors you have to weigh on your own. Feel free to PM me if you have questions
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Just turned down an offer of funding at Temple, so hopefully that helps someone if you're still waiting to hear from them.
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@Warelin is the best resource for this question, but I do know that at all of the schools I applied to you have to make your decision by midnight on the 15th or they can pull your offer/funding. I believe once you've officially accepted you need a waiver to change your decision. It would make sense to me that some schools have spots after the 15th, but I assume there's not much movement after that.
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If it helps anyone, I've heard that IU and Temple (a decision I'm still trying to make) only have a few (2) spaces left in their programs and they both expect to hear within the week from the remaining holdouts. But echoing @bpilgrim89, I have also heard that there's a lot of movement in the final days.
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UW has some history of squirrelly deals with funding, but I've mostly heard horror stories about not funding the first year. If you have funding for, say, the first four years then I'm sure Warelin's right on and you've got nothing to worry about
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You should really post this on the English lit board. Searching previous posts wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Frankly, I think the MAPH program is a waste of money, but it's ultimately your choice to make.
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The advice above is top-notch, but I would add that this board is potentially an excellent resource for you if you're not familiar with the process. Take the time to read through similar threads, posts like your own, and talk to professors from your undergrad.
I'll also add two more decision criteria to the ones listed above: field and adcom members.
A university may decide that they want to strengthen the Modernist contingent of their grad students that year despite that school being well-known for their theory focus. So candidate X may submit an excellent application that names numerous theory people, but since the university is not interested in theory students that year candidate X gets a rejection.
The same line of thought applies for committee members. For example, you're applying to Maryland and being the cagey, scrupulous applicant you are, you tailor an application designed to appeal to, say, Mary Helen Washington (I only use this name because I've met her and she's freaking awesome, so I figure anyone in her field would want to work with her). Guess what? MHW isn't on the adcom that year. Too bad.
It's a strange process, so the more information you have at your disposal, the better equipped you'll be to make informed decisions. I don't think our interests overlap, but feel free to PM me if you have any questions
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Declined a waitlist at Iowa, so I hope that helps someone.
I'm near the top of my field for the IU-Bloomington waitlist, so if anyone isn't planning to attend please let them know. Indiana is my best fit.
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1 hour ago, Conradical said:
I wouldn't say obnoxious, but I would say it might be a tad unnecessary. Could you compromise with a letter stating your continued interest? That way you are still in contact with them, and I'd like to imagine it helps put your application in a more favorable light. (Plus it's always fun to close-read their responses
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I e-mailed both of my waitlists a few days ago just to ask where I was on each waitlist. Both of the e-mails I got back were very kind and explained that the majority of their waitlist movement happens in late March/early April, so I think those of us waiting will have to sit tight for at least a few more weeks.
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2 hours ago, Crow T. Robot said:
So... how have everyone's experiences exchanging phone calls/emails with programs been? I'm trying not to read into them too much, but the faculty and students in one of my programs, who all seem absolutely lovely, have been not the most responsive in communicating... i.e., scheduling calls with multiple profs (after they reached out to me) and them not calling, profs and students not emailing me back (after they initiated contact), etc. I'm really, really trying to not feel entitled to anyone's time--I know how busy everyone is, and it's incredibly generous that people are even taking the time to talk with me in the first place--but nothing like this has happened with any of the other programs I've been in contact with.
My basic fear, I guess, is that I really do not want to end up in a program where people are too busy to work with me and I have to move heaven and earth to get on anyone's calendar. I don't really know if this kind of contact pattern is enough to extrapolate from, and I recognize that my MA experience in a very small department where students got more access to profs may be coloring my perception, but I can't help but be a little concerned. Thoughts??
I'm actually having similar issues with a couple of my schools. They ask graduate students to e-mail you, the faculty reach out, and then people seem to lose interest. I've got one e-mail that I sent to a POI two weeks ago and I haven't heard back. Comforting, isn't it? But I'm not taking it too seriously unless I've heard or been told that the department has these kinds of issues on the inside. For example, Temple has kind of sucked at communicating with me so far, but everyone I've talked to who's not from Temple has really great things to say about people there or friends who've reported good things. If you're having consistently bad interactions with a department it may be time to ask around and see what people are saying about the department outside of the (admittedly odd) context of wooing graduate students.
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I'm pretty sure Toronto notifies on one day, so if you didn't get an e-mail earlier this week I'd chalk it up as a rejection. Sorry
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3 hours ago, FishNerd said:
So I'm not big into sports so what do you mean by "extra two years of control"? I am just very curious as to why top schools would only choose/prefer BA only applicants and would love to understand why they have this preference. Personally, I'm a big proponent of getting a Master's and I actually had no idea that it could potentially limit the type of schools you could get into for your PhD.
My partner (who's in English) and I both got our Master's since we were unsure if a doctorate really was the path we wanted to take. I know some people definitively know after their Bachelor's that a doctorate is what they want, but I love that we both got to confirm during our Master's that getting our doctorates really was the path for us. Also I don't think either of us quite knew the type of research we wanted to do and I really think if we had tried to immediately do the PhD route without the Master's in between we could have ended up in programs/projects that were very poor fits for us. Both of our research interests have changed during our Master's. I have definitely sought out different types of programs and advisors than I would have at the end of undergrad and I think I am much, much better for it since the field I will be going into is much more marketable for jobs than the field I would have likely chosen at the end of undergrad. I genuinely think Master's programs are a good test of whether academia is the right fit for a person and if you just want to stop at that degree you usually have more flexibility in future job prospects than if you had jumped head first into a PhD and ended with that degree (at least in my field). Obviously getting a Master's before a PhD does lead to more time in school but I honestly had no clue that having a Master's could be a detriment to acceptance to certain PhD programs. Does this hold true for those with Master's applying for faculty positions in these types of institutions too?
Ah, sorry. In baseball, upon being acquired by a team, that team has full control of that player as long as that player is in their propriety system (aka, the minor leagues). Once a player has been developed, the major league team is careful to bring him up only once they're sure he's ready because once he's played for a certain amount of time (measured in years) he's eligible to become a free agent, and teams have to bid to sign him. Obviously, from ownership's perspective, it's much more cost effective to control a player for as long as possible, integrating him into your system and getting the maximum amount of return from his arm/bat for as long as possible.
The analogy holds for a BA admit, though I'll admit that, like you, I think the MA track is much better for many scholars. However, Ivies and other top 10-ish schools hire almost exclusively from each other, so if it's simply one big family, then isn't it reasonable to want to get a student into the family ASAP? At least, that's one way of thinking about it.
Again, I agree that MAs are fantastic, and in many disciplines they're well-respected and important (philosophy, to cite an example in the humanities), but some English departments are weird.
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55 minutes ago, Warelin said:
Penn State openly admits to the majority of their acceptances being straight from the BA. They make exceptions but it has something to do with how their program is designed and how the grad school functions. From the conversations I've had with different departments: The BA-only and MA applicants are sometimes in the same pool; but sometimes in different pools. Often, the expectations for MA applicants are higher because the extra one or two year program is designed to get them focused on knowing what they're interested in and how to express your interests on a more "mature" level.
There are certain programs that will automatically not consider you if you do not hold an MA. Some programs (Wisconsin's come to mind) requires an MA for their Rhet/Comp program but you could apply with a BA-only if you go through their MA-Bridge program in African-American Studies if it is something that interests you. Michigan requires a MA in English or Education to enter their English and Education PHD program but their English and English and Women's Studies PHD program do not. I do not think it is possible to transfer from one program to another because they each have a separate application process.
At one point, Ba-only applicants were the norm. Now, more programs are increasingly becoming more balanced. (I think UI Chicago mentions somewhere that they accept BA-only applicants but they've only accepted one or two people with only a BA in the past few years.)
A BA-only applicant can beat out an MA applicant if their work fits the program, has compelling work, has shown activity in the field since leaving college and can bring an unusual perspective to the table. These things are possible to do without the MA but would require the applicant to be motivated and be able to be independent by guiding themselves.MA applicants usually have additional support available to them if they know who to ask and where to look. It's expected of them which is why they're often held to a higher admissions standard when I've talked to people on various admissions committees.
An MA alone will not grant you admission to any college over any other applicant.To echo this, I believe UT-Austin explicitly states that they reserve the majority of their spots for BA applicants.
Agreed with your final point. I think the numbers would bear out that many of the so-called top 10 US schools prefer BA applicants for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which being the extra two years of control--to borrow a baseball phrase. Other disciplines (like philosophy) choose to do things differently.
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1 hour ago, automatic said:
Also going to be brushing up with my Norton Lit Theory book, and reading Felski! I'm also planning on reading Mark McGurl's The Program Era, everything by Marta Figlerowicz, and a bunch on this list. Also Leigh Gilmore -- The Limits of Autobiography and Tainted Witness. Oh, and I'd like to revisit my affect theory reader.
To @la_mod, what would you name as the canonical modernist texts?
And oh my gosh I don't know how I won't be that person in the first grad class talking about something that's overplayed or whatever! My undergrad program had a pretty formalist, lacking-in-theory bent, and I've been out of school for three years. How at all does one get up to speed (I'm seeing these readings we're talking about here as important, but not necessarily a surefire way to be versed in contemporary dialogue)?
As far as important modernist texts, I had a terrific class that basically covered crucial texts in Modernist criticism through the present day, and even though that class was a few years ago, I still think Kenner's The Pound Era and Perloff's The Poetics of Indeterminacy are very important books (in different ways) for understanding Modernism as it's currently understood/discussed.
As far as new stuff goes, James Latham's Modernism: The Evolution of an Idea is an amazing survey of prevailing themes and trends in Modernist criticism from the beginning of the century to roughly 2015. If you want a book that basically catches you up on everything that's happened up to now then I'd just read Latham.
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1 hour ago, melian517 said:
I have a bit of a weird situation there that's hard to explain, but I've been in contact with the head of the department who said offer letters should hopefully go out tomorrow!
Thanks for the update, @melian517. By the way, since I see you're accepted to Notre Dame's English program, I just want to include a plug for Tim Machan: I have the pleasure of knowing quite a few mediavalists/linguists, and they all rave about the guy. I don't know which school is right for you, but Machan is a pretty spectacular scholar, so definitely talk to him if you haven't already.
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37 minutes ago, charlotte88 said:
Hi all,
I am a lurker who finally made an account to be able to post to the forum. I was wondering if everyone who applied to the University of Toronto's English PhD received the funding email request for forms on the 16th, or if that implies a shortlist has been made - I saw the post on the the results board and wasn't sure if receiving the email was a good sign or if it's just a standard practice for U of T.
I got that e-mail on the 15th, so I'm assuming it's standard practice. U of T seems to do things a little differently, though, so who knows?
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Actually, information like this would be extremely helpful for applicants. @Warelin has put together amazing resources, but imagine how helpful it would be to know that a certain department was looking for people interested in [insert subfield here]. If people have this kind of information before a cycle (maybe next year?) and were willing to offer it I think it would be worth a thread.
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7 minutes ago, punctilious said:
HUSBAND GOT INTO HARVARD
I CAN'T EVEN CONTAIN MYSELF HOLY OMGGGGGGGGGGG IS THIS REAL LIFE?????!!!!!!!!!!!
This is amazing! Congrats to you both!
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14 minutes ago, Crow T. Robot said:
Yup, I gotcha, I was just poking at the distinction (theory/jargony vs. textualist/technical) you draw in support of that main point, especially because to me, the fact that this distinction doesn't quite work has interesting implications for your main point. If you grant that there is not necessarily so substantive of a difference between the jargony and the technical (as in, if you grant that we could approach 'theory' and all its jargony terms as a technical toolkit that helps us read texts), the main problem becomes less around getting institutions to stop using jargon as a gatekeeping measure and more around empowering emerging scholars with the tools they might want or need to do good work.
I'm not sure, though, about the "grounded"/"abstract" distinction. For my money, each example you give draws on and is part of a different discursive formation; none is inherently more "grounded" in a given text than the other. I'm also not convinced that acrimonious debate/diverging interpretations around a body of a work should cause us to regard that body of work with suspicion or, implicitly, accuse its writers of obscurantism. The kind of contention you put your finger on is certainly not unique to the universe of Big French Theory or other fields people may find jargon-heavy.
In terms of readability, oh yeah, I hear you. Lacan is my ride or die, but reading him is a massive headache. Totally different experience from reading Brooks or hooks or even Foucault or a whole host of other important thinkers who just come right out and say what they mean. What I'd say is that I think it's valuable for literature students to have different kinds of reading experiences--to read writers who situate you in different relations to the text. For Lacan, a lot of his texts (mostly originally delivered orally) seem at times like the speech of an analysand, a patient whose couch-babble you must decipher, and within which you have to determine the unspoken stuff that everything else circulates around. Being put in that position stimulates a different kind of thinking from the thinking you find yourself doing while reading Brown, Ngai, Morton, etc. (idk, just freestyling contemporary lit critics here). I guess that's my ultimate point.
Interesting, I think we have some common ground on the first and third points, but would you mind expanding on the second? If I understand you on the second part, we agree that divergent interpretations do not necessarily indicate the presence of obscurantism; I take it as a corollary, however that the presence of obscurantism can and often does result in divergent interpretations. Specifically in the context of Big French Theory, it is not uncommon for people like Martha Nussbaum and Gary Gutting to accuse various branches of exactly this sin. Now, it's an entirely different matter to agree with them, but my original point was simply to acknowledge their existence. Does that make sense? I suppose I should have been more explicit.
Haha, a Lacanian? You have my condolences, my friend. I always feel terrible for those poor, unsuspecting students who stumble unawares into a classroom where a lit theory professor is waiting to spring Lacan's lectures on them. Oh, and feel free to PM if you want to chat some more. I feel a bit bad hijacking @InscrutableHair's thread with my blithering.
Here Comes the Sun/ Waitlist Movements
in Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition
Posted
I can offer a bit of anecdotal evidence from last year when it comes to waitlists. I had three waitlists last cycle (along with an acceptance). Waitlist spot #1 came through in the last week of March while the other two literally e-mailed me the evening before the 15th. Unfortunately, I had to hold an acceptance spot while I waited, and I'm sure many people wait out the process with multiple acceptances right up until the bitter end.
This is all a long way of saying that if schools on your waitlist are your first choice, be prepared and plan to wait until the very last minute.