ecritdansleau

Depending on how much experience you have with theory, you might want to have the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism on hand (most libraries probably have the new edition by now). I didn't end up buying it until recently, and I don't know why I didn't buy it sooner. It's useful for offering a wide survey of different thinkers (I actually find it interesting just to look over the table of contents, because it's like a historical outline of literary criticism). It is thus a great springboard for figuring out theorists you want to look into in more depth, as well as a good reference for theorists you come across in other writings and want to look up. The brief overviews and extensive bibliographic summaries for each entry are invaluable.

I agree--it seems like a strange, arbitrary page number: are they trying to be more open to applicants who haven't written 15-20 page samples? Or are they simply trying to make it more feasible to actually read more writing samples from beginning to end? Will I seem like an obnoxious rebel if I submit a sample slightly over the limit? Maybe they are trying to test our capacity for conciseness. It just seems kind of funny to me, since for years before I actually did an independent study for my writing sample, I thought "none my 8-12 page papers will be enough to apply to graduate school!" In that way, NYU's requirement is somewhat friendlier to undergrad applicants, perhaps, and a bit annoying for students who went the extra mile to have a longer paper (by doing an undergraduate thesis, getting an MA).

This is interesting; I kind of think I know what you mean. What would be an example of a particularly nuanced view on it, I wonder? I don't know if I see that often.

This is an interesting question, to which my answer is, generally, no. If by lit journals you mean literary critical peer-reviewed publications, then there isn't some ultimate ranking system which decides what journal is the most prestigious of them all or something. This belies the fact that some journals are indeed more highly regarded than others. The difficulty with ranking journals might be that journals carve out highly specified research niches, so it is difficult to say what is objectively better when there are so many different historical fields and points of departure for theoretical inquiry. One of the broad(er) scoped journals I can think of is PMLA (which seeks to publish "essays judged to be of interest to scholars and teachers of language and literature") which is highly reputed. Perhaps others have suggestions too; as I said, I'm not an expert (yet). Each journal has its own set of issues that it likes to address. Often, broader-scoped journals publish special topic issues that allow for a number of articles to address a set of interlinked questions/author/s. As a mere college graduate, I don't have extensive experience with literary journals, but some well-known journals that repeatedly come up for me (with interests in both literary and theoretical questions as well as twentieth century) include New Literary History and Modernism/Modernity. The Journal of Modern Literature. Critical Inquiry. Representations.

There may be "stand-by" testing available, but ETS is extremely adamant about NOT guaranteeing you a seat. It's not the ideal situation to be in, but it basically allows test takers who didn't register to come to a test center on test day and--if anyone at that location canceled registration after the paper tests were sent out--then you can take the test as a stand-by. For registration plus an extra fifty dollar fee, of course. The idea of having to prepare for the test without any guarantee that you will actually be able to take it might dissuade some individuals (understandably!), but it's definitely an option you should consider.

Edith Hamilton's Mythology if you're not familiar with mythological allusions.

I actually think it's wise to do this if you take a productive approach to it--just walking around town or campus might bring to attention university resources/cultural centers that help you realize why the school is a good fit for you (and you can incorporate such facts into your SOP). I recommend thinking beforehand of what might be important to you; for instance, it is difficult for me to imagine being productive without having positive feelings towards a university's library system, and even, ideally the library building, study spaces, etc.. That being said, sometimes there are library tours available, or librarians to speak to, who can easily point to some of the more famous collections they possess--if they have collections pertinent to your research interests, this another thing you can add to your SOP. Keep in mind that the sort of visit one might have before admission is necessarily very different from the kind of visit one has if one has been admitted, and departments put more of their resources and energy into the latter. I think part of the reason for this might be that--much in contrast to the nature of undergraduate visits, where the prospective student is more like a customer--PhD programs give funding/jobs to their students--it follows that they really shouldn't have to do much in convincing applicants they are a worthwhile place to be. Becoming part of a department isn't like joining a gym, and departments would be ill-advised to treat prospective students as such; such a practice could possibly be misleading and give a prospective student a false sense of connection when they need to let their application speak for itself. For a pre-admission visit, I would focus on getting a sense of the atmosphere of the department/school in general, and then, not thinking about it *TOO* much, to not as they say "count one's eggs before they've been hatched".

If it's just an award for writing or something, then it is a feather in your cap, but probably not the deal-breaker that will get you admitted because it it an award for something the committee can judge themselves. However, if you have such awards, definitely list them--if you take the time to enter contests and whatnot, then it shows you're already getting the hang of a lot of what academics actually do (applying for many more things/awards/publications that they will actually get). If nothing else, it shows you have the initiative to do that sort of thing actively.

I know this varies from discipline to discipline, but the statements above completely disagree with advice I have received in regard to the field of English literature (but it might also ring true for other fields in the humanities). The DGS at my alumni's English department specifically mentioned how a committee looks at your transcript, and it's not just about the GPA. First of all, the GPA has more weight depending on the courses you took (If the student opted to take a number of easy 100 level courses to maintain a high gpa, this says something about the student. Instead of challenging one's self intellectually they took the easy route.) Additionally, she said they really like to see students who take relevant courses in other disciplines as electives, like a prospective Shakespeare scholar taking a history course on the Renaissance or in Art History, etc. It tells the adcom something about a student's own intellectual initiative. And also, they like to look at your transcript to see that you've taken courses in a language and at what level if there are language requirements for their program. I'm certain that my DGS would appreciate the inclusion of course titles included somewhere with an application, even if it is not the be-all end-all of the decision.

I definitely wouldn't recommend not studying for it at all. Looking through all the introductions in the Norton's definitely was helpful for the exam (not to mention kind of fun for little tidbits), and it takes a bit of the panic that could arise from the feeling "I've never heard of any of these answer choices" because you'll know Lyly's Euphues, Spenser's Amoretti, and Milton's Il Penseroso, etc. If I were to prepare for it again, I would basically make it a point to familiarize myself with authors I've never heard of, but also, to pick out my favorite poets from each major period and make sure to be familiar with all their poems in the major anthologies (Norton or Longman). This is partly for my own satisfaction, and also partly because I saw just how obscure some of the passages were. For whatever reason, the worst thing would have been not recognizing a poem and later realizing it was Keats or Marvell or Dickinson (all of whom I adore). You can only do so much, so you might as well read what matters to you. Before I really started to prepare for the test, I remember being angry that I would be "forced" to look over synopses of novels I hadn't yet read so I'd be familiar enough with them for the test. I ended up only doing this for certain novels that I don't see myself reading. I'm glad I didn't really bother with "spoiling" novels--it wouldn't have helped much, if at all. I recognized plenty of prose passages from things I'd read in full. Many of them were passages that did not include character names, nor did they give details about the plot of the work. There is a lot to be said for knowing the formal style of an author on this test, and remembering the strange contours of texts you have read.

aahh, yes, I agree. The best thing about the subject test, in fact, was studying for it. Particularly the reading and revisiting of poems outside of my proposed area of specialty, just because I hadn't looked at them in awhile; in fact, I even ended up making a list of texts that I came across for the first time during studying that I want to read fully now that I have the time! I also like the fact that surveying all the major time periods gives me a sort of aerial perspective on english literature as a whole--It actually made me realize how much I'm looking forward to coursework! It does seem like the test was a bit of a "take this" to the idea that the subject test only tests "cocktail party knowledge": although surface knowledge of texts/authors does help with some process of elimination questions, I don't think anyone could excel without having some sort of deeper/ingrained knowledge of particular texts. The problem I have with the test though, is that I feel as if the format (the expectation of more questions that could be answered quickly) caught me off guard and in fact did not allow me to show off all the knowledge I do have--It felt almost psychologically..discriminatory (?) because the performance of someone who is thrown off by the format is going to be skewed exponentially worse, even if that person has the same knowledge as someone who is less psychologically thrown off.

I did the same exact thing--I bet they'll be getting a good number of subject test scores!! It's funny that the information would be announced so late, considering they have basically the earliest deadline of all the programs I've even looked at.

Because of drastically falling registrations, Educational Testing Service, which administers the GRE tests, has decided that the April 2000 test will be the last history subject test it will conduct. According to Kathy O' Neill, director for the GRE subject tests, many of the GRE subject test volumes have been declining in the last few years, but the decreases for history and sociology have been larger than for the other tests. The decline in registration for the history test last fall was so large that it triggered the decision to discontinue because there were too few examinees to be able to perform the necessary statistical analyses. More than 1,800 students took the test in the l995–96 academic year, but last year's volume was only 560 (for all test dates combined). O' Neill stated that when fall 1998 registrations showed that the volume for this year would be even lower, it was clear to the ETS decisionmakers that the statistical equating calculations that were necessary to sustain the history test could no longer be performed accurately. O' Neill added that the decision to cancel the test was also based, in part, on a survey of all 300 graduate history departments conducted last fall by ETS. The results of this survey indicated that most departments had no plans to require or recommend the history test for applicants. The departments responded that they do not consider the history test to be necessary because they believe that it does not predict success and that it serves as a barrier for students. In their admissions decisions they consider the most valuable information to be GPA in history coursework, letters of recommendation, and the GRE general test scores. This feedback led the GRE program to believe that the decline in volume for the history test would not be reversed in the foreseeable future. You can read the rest here: http://www.historian...05/9905new2.cfm I think there is a very similar issue at hand with the Lit in English subject test, especially the idea that the test actually works as a "barrier." Did anyone else who is applying to NYU notice that they no longer require the subject test? Did I read it wrong before, or did they just change the website?

I think there might be more to be gained from eliminating the test from the inside out (through English departments). I have already vowed, earlier today--if/when I am ever of a position of any power within an English department with graduate admissions--to completely disregard the test, not out of spite so much as the fact that it is ridiculously arbitrary and does not reflect upon the unique research skills and writing that are actually significant for literary scholarship. Although some more instant gratification/avenging would be nice right now, haha. The problem is the power structure regarding the test--ETS has a monopoly on it, and as long as English departments view it as something useful, ETS doesn't really have enough of an incentive to be fair to its actual customers by, for instance, informing them of changes in test structure (which they did for the general test--?). I would say that the change in test structure for the subject test is of comparable magnitude, and yet there was no indication/publicization of this whatsoever, and they are still sending out those old practice test booklets as we speak for the next exam. I guess over time the word gets out, but still. I love how Columbia does not stop at saying the subject test is not required, but takes the opportunity to say exactly what they think of it. "Our department does not require the GRE Subject Test in English literature, which we regard as unsubstantive and not predictive of the quality of graduate work." Fun fact: There used to be subject tests in philosophy and history. Now: no more. Let's make English next!

I feel the same way. Like I got hit over by a truck, and then it just kept rolling me over. Where to begin...?!?! I'm particularly frustrated because my experience today confirms that the official practice tests are outdated and do not reflect the format of the test now, and this fact severely compromised my execution of the test. And now I won't have another chance....I feel like so much of the knowledge I had went to waste because I didn't even get a chance--to even glance over--an embarassingly large amount of the test. I am dumbfounded because when I took practice tests, I actually completed them in less than 2 hours and 40 minutes. (Except on the first practice test I took years ago and had a hard time, so I just thought I'd improved by now. Wrong. The practice tests I finished early were just ridiculously easier than the real thing!). "Finishing" was not the case during the sitting today. I can't believe how much of the test I didn't even get to look at. I haven't even anticipated that pacing would be an issue since I had "clicked in" with the practice tests after putting in a lot of preparation. As above posters have mentioned, there were very few stand-alone, independent questions over the course of the test, much in contrast to the official practice tests. All the "giveaway" fact questions are basically gone, because even questions that are somewhat peripheral to the passage at hand (drawing on mythological knowledge or whatnot) still require you to get the jist of the passage to process the question. It was page after page of a passage followed by 5-6 questions, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. It makes it almost impossible/futile to go with the "three pass" route proffered by the Princeton Review's Cracking the GRE. You have to read it, move on, read it move on. Instead I was floundering, trying to first do the passages I instantly recognized and whatnot. There were also only one or two of those questions where they give you five small passages and you match a few of them to three writers below--I kept expecting there to be more "quick"/"brief" questions but they really weren't there! It's ridiculous to say it tests "reading comprehension" because for much of the test you're screwed if you actually try to "read" the passage as an isolated piece of text. You may get a few points for the grammatical questions, here and there. But the strange thing is, I was almost annoyed by all the passages I did recognize, because it made me realize just how off I would have been if I had not known the larger context within the work. And there were many that I did not recognize. As I think about it, it's just ridiculously evil to have so many passages from texts that one has possible never had the chance to read, has never even heard of (especially all the texts that weren't even originally English literature! Why call it the literature in english subject test then?). I was an English major for five years and took around around 20 english courses during that time. And yes, I am one of the nerds who read everything I was assigned. Am I conceited if I say I can't imagine how hard it would be for someone who didn't major in English??? And, worse, is that this year the dates come up so that it is now too late to register for the November test--Am I not the only one who went straight online to check if I could do that to find out that I couldn't? And worst of all, I need to know my score now. Now! So I can have closure and get on with things.

I agree about the identification of Rilke--I noticed, in the official ETS practice test, that they never ask for quote identifications of texts from the continent even while they do expect you to know titles and authors and sometimes have a general sense of say, Strindberg's or Ibsen's significance in the history of drama. I was actually kind of happy to discover this. Although the Princeton Review's method perhaps reinforces your knowledge of someone like Rilke, a practice question with an actual quote identification of Rilke (or someone else big like Moliere, Racine, Proust etc) doesn't seem to reflect the way the actual ETS questions are written--almost all the bare quotation identifications were lines from major authors in English (Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and then some famous/yet lesser known English writers as well). Although, one exception--On the practice test they send you in the mail, there is one identification of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but they make it kind of obvious just because of the accent marks-- Then again, I've never actually sat for the real subject test until tomorrow--hopefully I won't be eating my words!!

Because it is a "self-designed" independent study, I think you should perhaps try to demonstrate (show off, even?) the particular angle/focus that you're taking with the course. Maybe it would help to look over a list of titles and authors you will be studying, and go from there. For instance, depending on your thematic/historical scope, you might title it either "The Frankfurt School: 1922-1952" or "The Frankfurt School and Western Marxism" or even something broader "Aesthetics, Politics and Critical Theory". In my greener days, I took a course entitled "Recent European Philosophy," not realizing that this goes all the way back to Hegel, lol; so thus I learned that "recent" can encompass over two centuries of thought. Also, I would definitely second the above comments in that you should definitely consider how the title will appear on your actual transcript.

If there is someone who is in charge of the Honors program/honors related projects (at my undergrad, it was the Director of Undergraduate Studies), I would contact them; and I imagine they will give you the green light on going for the new reader. If you haven't yet had to officially indicate Prof X as your reader, then it's probably not a big problem at all. Maybe it's one of those strange blessings that your reader is currently at a different uni, because now it seems like you'll end up with a more appropriate reader anyway. Either way, I think it's wise that you're taking care of it as soon as possible rather than later--

^^This! I was the same way as I progressed through undergrad. As a freshman, I was intimidated; but over time, I got the jist of things and could no longer restrain myself from making comments, especially when no one else had anything to say--these were often shocking moments for me (The thought that no one has anything to say about Gertrude Stein's poetry style? About Milton's portrayal of Eve in Paradise Lost? Of art in Portrait of a Lady? AAHH! haha). Sometimes, though, I actually wanted to avoid saying certain things in class because I was already planning on including the same string of ideas in a paper, and I guess I'm attached to the idea that I am surprising a professor the first time they read a paper I've turned in. I guess I also sometimes worry that someone might take the idea, but I guess that's a little paranoid. But I can actually maybe see this happening when I take grad seminars in the future...--? If I'm workshopping an idea, I'd rather talk with a professor one on one about it. I wouldn't call someone out for not speaking much because I think this is how the richest and most complex ideas are developed. But one of the most surprising things about participating so much after not having always done so is how much I can actually learn from sharing my idea in order for it to be tested, or even completely shot down. I realize other angles to my idea that I may not have thought of on my own, at least not so quickly as another person's first reaction to my observation. Ultimately, though, there is something to be said for listening. Ever since I found my voice, so to speak, I find that I am slightly less willing to patiently listen to others' comments because I am so intent on sharing my own dare-I-say "brilliant" insights with everyone . It's great to find a good balance though.

Kaplan Diagnostic: 530 V (Over a year ago) Barron's 1: 580 V (4 weeks ago) ETS Practice Book Test 1: 740 (About two weeks ago) Powerprep Test #1: 800 V (Four days ago) Powerprep Test #2: 620 V (Last night. Really started freaking out at the last second.) Real GRE: 750 V (A few hours ago. Sigh of relief.) So I would say, yes, it really does depend a bit on the set of words you're going to get (so if you make an effort to memorize words, it actually probably will pay off in some way). When I first started taking practice tests, I found the time limit on reading to be very restrictive for me. After painstakingly working through Barron's 3500 List, though, taking the test felt totally different--it really helps to be able to have the vocab precise in your mind so you can whip through the straightforward questions and have a bit more time to ponder the reading comp. Even though the test is changing, I'm a bit suspicious of all this talk that it's going to get easier or something because it will become more "contextual": even on the test now, you can really be thrown off in contextual questions like sentence completions if you do not have the vocabulary down; words are words are words. Other people may have had positive experiences with memorizing word roots (anyone?) but I found that this really takes too much time and guessing and is way too imprecise. I liked the Barron's list because it included example sentences for each word, which somehow helps the meaning to take shape in my memory. Even working through about half of the list significantly improved how I was doing on the practice tests. I memorized words by making notecards on which the word was written all by itself on one side, so that I would get in the habit of seeing the word by itself and being able to quickly know what it meant. I don't know what to expect in the new test--but in my experience, I wish that I hadn't spent so much time in my initial studying on stategies/tricks/etcetera...they can only help so much. If you really want to do well in the verbal, go comprehensive with the vocab. It seems pointless if you think of it like "only one of the words I'm memorizing will be on the test" but the more words you pick up, the more you increase your chances of doing well. Keep in mind, too, that it's not as if it will only test you on about 25 words in 25 questions--there are multiple answer choices so every word you know is one you can more easily use for process of elimination if you're stumped. Also, if you take the powerprep tests and find you do significantly worse on the actual test, I would say to try it again. If you're taking the new test, at least you don't have to worry about it changing anytime soon--~ (until this morning I was very concerned that I would have to invest in all new review books, materials, etcetera if I had to retake the new one.....thank goodness it's over!)

Are you familiar with Berkeley's "Rhetoric"/("Discourse") program or Duke's Literature program? These departments might be a little more flexible for your interests, but the students coming out of them are often literature students, and these programs are open to continental philosophy in the same way comp lit departments often are (at least moreso than philosophy departments). I would recommend checking out the faculty and seeing if there is anyone whose project particularly interests you, and take it from there.

I don't think there's necessarily a simple answer to this question, because different professors might have different opinions about how heterogeneous a literary scholar's interests can be. This is total speculation, but I would imagine that a department/professor especially heavy on historicism would appreciate a tighter delineation on a specific historical period, whereas a more theoretical department might have more leeway for approaching certain conceptual/ideological issues. In either case, if your interests happen to be divergent/disparate, it would be wise to show a way that they are related. It's not as if the adcom expect we can name in our SOP every potential literary interest we've ever had--that would be a joke--(and they don't want a laundry list). One's best bet is to figure out a coherent theme and stick to it.

Although I'm not an expert, professors I have asked about choosing a writing sample unanimously stated that you want to show them your BEST writing in your writing sample. While the interests you outline in an SOP will certainly transform throughout your studies, establishing yourself as a writer with a strong, distinctive voice with a coherent argument in the writing sample is something that should be cemented right then and there, and it is perhaps the single most important indicator of you "performing" what you ideally hope to do for a lifetime. I'm not trying to suggest that the SOP is not significant, but from I've been told by my professors, you would not by any means want to sideline your best possible writing sample because it does not perfectly match your future research interests. My advice is to reread drafts of an SOP and the papers, give yourself some time to think about them, perhaps read up on related research if it would help, and figure out the most logical way to present the two as not being quite so disparate (You could argue that your writing sample shows the way you explore Questions a,b, and c in regard to the content of those works and how this led you to the development of questions X, Y, and Z, etc)

Thank you for the advice! It corroborates the fact that the programs about which I am most ambivalent are the departments and/or geographic locations that I simply don't know as well. It eases the anxiety a bit too, to think that there is no perfect formula or method for applying. In one sense this can be a burden (of uncertainty), but I find it liberating to think of all the different ways people I have known have been ultimately successful in this process.

When tweaking the final lists, is it better to focus more thoroughly on a few applications? Or to cast a wider net? I have my list to about 13, but I'm wondering if this will be too many. I've spoken to friends who applied in the last cycle though, and their prime advice was to apply widely (e.g. applicant applies to twenty schools, and makes it into three of them - and not the "lowest ranked" programs, either - making it a true crapshoot)