politics 'n prose

Yikes! If it makes you feel any better, I submitted my application to Penn State back in November and hadn’t even noticed the specific criteria for the personal statement. In any event, I think @Cryss‘s advice is totally solid—this shouldn’t require too much tweaking of your standard, existing SOP. (Also, this seems like an oddly...I almost want to say “adversarial,” but that might be a little much...bleak way to elicit a response that ultimately amounts to “I see intrinsic value in the humanities and hope to reassert their importance in academia and the larger world through my scholarship.” Different strokes, I suppose!)

I'm pretty sure this varies from program to program, but I believe in general most programs do not interview. I know that Chicago and Duke have historically conducted interviews, but those are the only two that immediately come to mind.

Heh, I’ve made a deal with myself not to look at any of my application materials until decisions actually start rolling in. I’d rather blithely operate under the (possibly misbegotten) notion that my SOP, writing sample, and CV are typo-free than spot something wonky and spend the next few months feeling like the dope that I indisputably am. For serious, though, a single typo—shoot, even a few of ‘em—will not sink an otherwise solid application. Have heart, friends!

I think you’re fine here, especially because it sounds like the notations on your transcript are pretty universal, or at least easy enough to be guessed at by people who are used to looking at/assessing transcripts. It also sounds like all these schools only asked for unofficial transcripts anyway, since you scanned/uploaded them yourself, which suggests a general leniency to me. In short, I don’t think these transcripts as-uploaded will render your entire application incomplete or disqualify you from consideration. Worst case scenario, you get an email from the school requesting you upload the transcript legend, but even that seems unlikely to me. You didn’t alter your transcript itself, your entire undergraduate record is accounted for—I think that gives the adcoms more than enough to go on at this stage (and all offers of admission are contingent on you sending the school your official transcript, legend and all, anyway). You can always email the schools in question just to put your mind at ease, but I really do think you’re A-OK here.

Ha, for sure! I'm banking on the "no MA" pile, at least in my case. My MFA was fairly studio focused: I only took three non-CW classes--two in the English department, one in an outside department--and two of those three courses were taken pass/fail, so I don't think I'll be impressing any adcoms with academic rigor or anything.

I think this hits the nail on the head, and the point about armchair analysts is especially salient. The past few years have seen the rise of the video essay on YouTube, with folks like, say, Lindsay Ellis producing relatively rigorous pop culture critiques. I think the never-ending churn of (and I hate this word) content--thanks to streaming platforms, digital publishing, etc.--has created a complementary demand for critical writing on the books, TV shows, and films of the day. Academics, particularly those in the humanities, should be embracing this moment more fully, because in a lot of ways this really is our time to shine. This is not to suggest that all literary theorists should drop what they're doing and compose treatises on Game of Thrones or whatever, but merely to say that the archetypes and stories we're seeing replicated in today's popular media (not to mention the broader cultural and sociopolitical trends) surely have their roots in earlier literary/historical periods. I think it's reasonable to expect academics to be able to draw those parallels for readers, whether those readers are fellow academics or part of a more general audience. More to the point, I think contemporary audiences are far more receptive to this stuff than we might want to think: if you're a medievalist, for example, and you can find a way to engage with that Game of Thrones fan in your scholarly work, then you might open the door for that reader to explore the larger canon and develop some interest in creative and critical work of/about that era. Sure, that doesn't have to be the only goal of scholarly writing--indeed, we also want to contribute to the discourse of our field, converse with our fellow academics, and carve out a niche for ourselves--but it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility, or contrary to the spirit of scholarship in the first place.

Ah, I'm heartened to see so many MFAs applying for PhDs this cycle--good luck to you all! The one thing I will say about varying results from app cycle to app cycle is that, the more you apply to grad programs, the better you get at it. I know my SOP the first time I applied for MFAs was garbage compared to my SOP the second time I applied; ditto my SOP for CW PhDs when compared to my SOP for lit PhDs this time around. There are elements of this process that are definitely iterative (SOP, writing sample), but the reason it's still ultimately a bit of a crapshoot has to do with what @merry night wanderer says: adcoms are not only trying to find students who have potential and are pursuing interesting research questions--they're also looking for individuals who, when brought together in a cohort, will produce a whole that is in some ways greater than the sum of its parts. And that's just something applicants will never really be able to account for, no matter how hard they try (not to mention an inexact science in its own right).

This is a reductive and ungenerous take, I know, but I think the very worst academic writing adopts impenetrability as an aesthetic. As others have noted, though, it's a fallacy to conflate complexity of expression with complexity of thought, and I think there's much aesthetic pleasure to be taken from academic prose that can distill dense theoretical argument into clear and straightforward language. When I taught creative writing, I liked to tell my students that meaning-making is a communal process between writer and reader. I'd draw this diagram on the board with the writer on one end of the spectrum and the reader on the other, with 'X' marking the spot somewhere on that line, signifying the moment of readerly clarity and shared understanding with the writer. If the writer is doing their job properly, I argued, they should have to make just as much of an effort to reach that 'X' as the reader does; or, if the writer expects the reader to put in more work than they do to get to 'X,' then whatever 'X' is--whatever grand epiphany, groundbreaking observation, what-have-you--needs to be novel or earth-shattering enough to justify the reader's additional expenditure of effort. But it's a trick to withhold comprehensibility just because you're on some writerly power trip--unless there really is no easier way to say something, why not opt for a more accessible style? I used this framework when discussing fiction, but I think the same thing can apply to academic prose. Of course we take great care and apply rigorous thought to our scholarly work, but that process is in many ways "off the page"--it's reading and note-taking and outlining. In composing the final product--the article, the book, the thing that we hope will ultimately find an audience--our job becomes largely one of translation: how do we render all that complicated thought into something legible not only to our peers, but to those outside of academia? (I recognize that there is a strain of anti-intellectualism you could read into all this--why shouldn't a reader expect to work a little, or even a lot, especially with academic writing?--but I would argue it's more about democratizing the work of the academy and inviting new people into the conversation.)

Oh, yeah, I get that (and, to clarify, I did indeed apply to Penn State's MA)--I was being a bit unkind and imprecise in my framing there. I just meant that Penn State was the only school I applied to that made it very clear that you must apply to the MA program, unless you already have an MA from somewhere else (pretty much every other school I applied to has an integrated MA/PhD program with a single applicant pool regardless of whether you already have an MA). To be sure, I appreciated Penn State's clarity--which is often sorely lacking from other schools' program pages!

Heh, "MFA no man's land"--I think I'm gonna have to borrow that one from you. It's possible that I inadvertently applied to one or two PhD programs that have an unspoken preference for students with MAs (lookin' at you, Carnegie Mellon); at least Penn State straight up tells you that the PhD program wants nothing to do with students who don't already have an MA. I also spent more time than was probably useful or productive attempting to parse whether some of the programs I applied to (Chicago comes to mind, and maybe Chapel Hill) prefer students who only have a bachelor's...which left me wondering whether my MFA would just be treated as a nonentity, or if it would somehow be a liability. Fun times!

Yup, a number of schools I applied to made it clear in their app guidelines that those elements of the application that are a third party’s responsibility (i.e., letters of rec and test scores) won’t count against you if they’re late. It’s a good impulse to check with your December 15th schools, but chances are you’ll be fine!

Good luck with the MFA apps, @feralgrad! (I graduated with my MFA in 2018, and it took me two application cycles to get in; I’d say MFA odds are possibly more brutal than PhD odds...though maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better now that I’m applying for a PhD. In any event, keep fighting the good fight!) To the original question, though, there’s no real way to assess success here, beyond a very basic metric: if you get into at least one school, and it’s an offer that works for you, then you’ve had a successful application season. I was shut out in my first year of MFA apps (11 schools) and accepted to three programs (one off the waitlist) the next year. I’d say it’s all a numbers game—I applied to more schools my second app cycle, and tossed in a few lit MAs for flavor—but post-MFA I applied to exactly two creative writing PhDs and was accepted to one (albeit, without funding) and waitlisted at the other (never made it off the list), which on yield percentage alone might technically make it my “best” app cycle, so who knows? Ultimately, I agree that it’s probably best to embrace your own powerlessness at this point in the process, hope for the best, and remain confident in your abilities regardless of how the season ultimately shakes out. Good luck!

Agreed with @HenryJams—full names first, honorific plus last name for any subsequent mentions. (I think I’d probably opt for “Dr.” over “Professor,” but if you’re on the fence you could always check out your POIs’ faculty pages to see if they happen to be written in the third person and, if so, how the POIs refer to themselves. I don’t think you’ll be going wrong either way, though!)

I think a greater barrier here than the over-reliance on (or even valorization of) industry jargon—which I agree is a definite problem—is accessibility more generally: academic arguments are typically found in academic journals, which typically exist behind paywalls for those outside of academia who don’t have access to various journal databases. I appreciate Jeffrey Williams’s take on this, which basically boils down to: if academics publish some of their work in mainstream publications, those outside the academy are far more likely to read and benefit from that research. In short, the academy can’t meaningfully impact popular discourse if it doesn’t make a good-faith effort to engage in that discourse. Of course, some subfields are naturally more conducive to mainstream publication than others (20th/21st century Americanist here), but maybe academics should start taking it as a given that part of their work is translating complex thought and argument into something more legible (and, importantly, practicable) to a general audience. That element of public/civic responsibility should be baked right into our conception of who we are as scholars.

So, speaking as someone with an MFA, I don’t believe an MFA program is going to meet your needs (unless you are primarily interested in pursuing literature from the purview of the writer and not the reader or critic). That said, speaking as someone with an MFA from a university with a large English department who also had the opportunity to take a film studies class, I think you can pretty easily find an English PhD program that will allow for the interdisciplinary study you refer to, particularly if your secondary interests are in naturally complementary fields like film or various kinds of sociopolitical/cultural studies. I have similarly varied interests in literature, pop culture, and gender/sexuality studies, and I was able to find a number of programs that seemed like they could accommodate such work (to wit: Carnegie Mellon, Chapel Hill, Chicago, Cornell, Ohio State, Penn State, and Pitt). As noted above, many English departments (especially larger ones and/or ones at larger universities) enjoy close ties with other humanities departments and encourage interdisciplinary study—I might start your search there.

Can you speak a little more to this, Glasperlenspieler? I guess I'm still a little clueless on what we mean when we talk about interdisciplinary study in English. For instance, I've applied to two programs (Carnegie Mellon and Pitt) that are housed in their respective English departments but are billed as literary and cultural studies (CMU) or critical and cultural studies (Pitt) programs. In both instances, it seems like the distinction between literary/cultural studies and straight up English, no chaser has less to do with the coursework itself and more to do with a particular theoretical/practical bent of the program and the faculty, but I could be wrong on that. To be clear, I'd gnaw off my own left arm to get accepted to either of these programs, but I'm wondering if getting a PhD in something other than straight-up English Literature puts one at a significant disadvantage later on when applying for teaching jobs.

Speaking as someone who's applying for Fall 2020 and wishes they'd been more deliberate about preparing for app season, it sounds to me like you're definitely ahead of the curve here. The elements of your application that are most heavily-weighed--and over which you ultimately have the greatest control--will always be the writing sample and the statement of purpose, so my suggestion is to get started sooner rather than later on both of those so you have plenty of time to go through multiple rounds of revision (ideally with a trusted reader or two who knows something about your proposed field of study, or just the discipline more generally). It's also never too early to research schools and identify programs that might be a good fit for your academic interests (as well as your preferences/needs in terms of location and other idiosyncratic deal breakers). I thought I'd finalized my list of schools way back in September, but then I had to drop a few in mid-October due to external circumstances (e.g., Buffalo reportedly being unable to fund its incoming class, Case Western being cagey on the availability of faculty advisors); fortunately, I'd done deep enough research over the summer that I was able to identify two replacement programs pretty quickly and I didn't lose momentum. I guess the ultimate takeaway here is that it's probably impossible to be overprepared, but it's going to be in your best interest to focus most intently on those things that are within your control (where you apply, and what materials you apply with) and not those things that are outside your control (what your rec-writers will say about you, whether that faculty member you're dying to study with is still at the program by the time you get there). Good luck!

Oof, good luck with that essay, Indecisive Poet and onerepublic96--and good luck to all who are still working on apps! You truly are intrepid souls. I finished up with applications a few weeks ago and the waiting is already driving me bonkers. I applied to seven schools, which seems middle-of-the-road for English PhDs; my list was almost three times as long when I applied to MFAs a few years back, and I still almost struck out entirely, so maybe it was foolish to apply so conservatively this time around. In any event, I'm looking forward to biding my time for the next four to five months with you fine folks while we see how things shake out!