JoeySsance

This is directly from their website: "In 2011, the Ford Fellowship program will award approximately 40 predoctoral fellowships..."

I was told on the phone that of the approximately 1000 applications they received, about 800 of them made it through to the review process (I think the bulk of the other ones were disqualified mainly for being incomplete). So ~40/~800 is ~5% odds... Yay!! However, I'm not sure whether those numbers were across all fellowships or strictly predoctoral... So there might still be hope... (0.5%... 1 or even 2% more hope?). Haha, does anyone have anything pleasant to contribute so as to lift everyone's spirits a little bit?

Oooh exciting! Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Thanks, Joey!

Hey Starlajane. It depends on the type of "interview." If you've been "shortlisted," i.e. invited to visit the school and told that their final decision will be made after the visit, while that's not a guaranteed admission in theory, in practice, it tends to be. (The other type of interview that comes to mind usually occurs earlier in the application season and if you had one of those, it probably would have been over the phone or via Skype and sometimes even in person if you happened to live near the school) The extent to which shortlist interviews should be considered likely offers of admission depends on several factors. I was in this situation for Columbia's French/Comp Lit PhD program last year. I brought along some formal attire just in case but it ended up being exactly like every other (non-shortlist, i.e. acceptance) visit I had, i.e. chats with professors, grad students, group events. When you're shortlisted, they basically want to gauge some or all of the following: the level of enthusiasm for the department you show in person; the other offers you've received and the likeliness that you would accept or turn down their own offer; your fit on a more personal and collegial level. While technically they've already decided that you'd likely be a good fit academically and intellectually, in a good friend of mine's case (who's now in Princeton's French PhD program), she and another candidate with very similar interests to hers were both invited to the shortlist visit and it seemed like only one of the two of them would be admitted (which indeed ended up being the case). Of course each department has different needs; sometimes departments may seek more than one and perhaps even several students for the same literary period (in French lit this tends to happen very frequently for vingtièmistes and perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent for dix-neuvièmistes, though it can and does happen for all other periods) and indeed sometimes departments even have the funds to admit and subsequently support more than one person per period. The bottom line is: if it's your dream program or a program which you genuinely would like to have among your options, just show them that you're excited and don't reveal too much about your other offers. (Don't be completely silent about them either; basically, if you're asked by faculty or grad students where else you're considering, just calmly mention the other places but leave it at that. You may be asked where you're leaning and it's perfectly alright to say that you're not sure yet and that you're really hoping to keep an open mind and learn a lot more about each program during these visits) My feeling is that some schools prefer "shortlisting" over just admitting candidates outright because of administrative/funding-related constraints; i.e. they want to be sure to admit a realistic number of candidates (i.e. to account for the fact that some candidates will invariably be wooed by other places) but they also want to keep in mind that if, ideally, everyone were to accept, the program would have the funding to support all of them. Over-committing one year would likely lessen a department's funds for the subsequent year. Moreover, if departments have poor yields, the university administrations can and have taken away admission slots from them in subsequent years; these are all factors that seem to go into the decision to shortlist people. Does that somewhat answer your questions?

Here's some general advice for all of you: Enjoy these visits to the max! It might all seem a little intimidating, but just remember that these departments are all celebrating and courting you; you should feel really excited about it all! Finally, I can't stress enough the importance of seeking out opportunities to talk to the grad students on any visit. I mean we all try to get you excited about our respective departments but you'll find that, in general, we tend to be one of the more candid sources of information you'll find about the strengths and weaknesses of our own department. I hope that's helpful! Bon courage à vous toutes et à vous tous !

I second this advice. This is precisely the approach I took. I realized that the theorists I like the most are concentrated in the late-20th century onward (including contemporary theorists) and represent various schools of thought so I just made that clear in my SOP. As for the generalist/specialist question, it's probably better to be more specific than general. Your best bet is to develop (if it's possible at this point) a rather specific interest in a certain author, theorist or work (or multiple of the above) with a specific and interesting approach, framework and/or set of questions coupled with some general theoretical and literary interests (i.e. the best of both worlds). That way they won't write you off as too lopsided or too general. Remember that your interests can and most likely will change in graduate school, so none of this will be set in stone. They may not expect you to end up working on the same author(s) or work(s) you mentioned in your SOP but they probably will peg you as a prospective 20th century/contemporary student. Literary departments make admissions decisions largely based on students' and professor's period interests, so again, this isn't something you can escape. Of course you could always unexpectedly fall in love with medieval literature (this was a friendly joke amongst fellow students at my departmental visits). Whatever your interests are, make sure you convey a real passion for them in your application, and you should have a fair shot! Best of luck!

Good point. I was going to bring this up, too, actually! But in Two Espresso's defense, I get the feeling that the geographic limitation would be just for grad school... (Right?) At least I hope, for your sake, that you won't be this finicky with the job market. (Alas, no one can really afford to be...) But that is a relatively long way off for you, Two Espressos. While you are shutting out some amazing programs with relatively attractive funding if you restrict yourself solely to the Northeast, you are still left with a great concentration of superb institutions of all kinds, from small LACs to all the Ivies to big state and private research universities. Whether you think your ultimate goal will be primarily to teach, to research, or to strike a balance between the two, even just focusing on the Northeast, you'll be set (in terms of the training you'll get in grad school, that is). Truckbasket is right about the weather in Berkeley and Palo Alto, though. If I were you, I would still apply to maybe two or three schools outside of the Northeast just to vary things up (or as many as a quarter or even a third of your overall schools, depending on your target number). It was repeatedly hammered into my mind that being "bi-coastal" could be an advantage in the job market (e.g. in my case, having gone to both Princeton and Berkeley) and for a while it was a suggestion that I took pretty seriously. Ok, this time I swore to myself that I would write a shorter response and while it's already longer than I anticipated, I hope it's not as tedious as my last few responses. For now, give these suggestions some thought, and in the meantime, I'll see if I can come up with some accessible cultural studies suggestions for your summer reading. If anyone can think of any apposite texts and authors given Two Espressos's interests, by all means, feel free to suggest them before me!

P.S.



I'm sorry about the rough job situation but on the bright side, these are all fantastic summer goals! Great language choice, by the way! Not that I'm biased or anything!

Hey forsberg, your interests are really neat! I've noticed that a fair handful of professors deal with 19th and 20th century lit, so you can't go wrong at most of the schools you're considering.

I'm mostly interested in structuralist and post-structuralist thought, mainly of French theorists, but also the German thinkers who influenced them and their branches in American and international critical theory. I started out interested in Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida which lead to an exploration of Nietzsche, Marx and Freud. Right now I'm most strongly influenced by French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. I'm mostly interested in reconsidering some of the most fundamental axioms of French psychoanalytic theory with regard to the constitution of the subject. I like literary theory but I'm also quite passionate about theory in terms of social critique. My work looks at the intersections between psychoanalytic theory, queer theory and gender studies, race studies, ideology studies and semiotics (to name my biggest influences; admittedly I have a lot of interests when it comes to theory, which has lead to exciting interdisciplinary work so far). I would go into more detail but I'm pretty sure I'd be pinpointing myself rather exactly (if I haven't already)...

As for contacting professors, I really don't think it could hurt to contact a specific professor once to let them know you're excited about applying and that you may have a question or two. That being said, the only way contacting professors might hurt you is if you did so too often and without anything important to say or ask. I think I'm going to contact at least one or two departments' DGS because I have a question about the writing sample (for which I can't seem to find the answers on their websites or the schools' at all). By the way, how are you dealing with the fact that the schools we're considering have such varying writing sample requirements? Also, what did your professors say when they advised you against contacting the faculty at the schools to which you're applying?

Hi Two Espressos! It's always a pleasure to encounter a fellow theory enthusiast! I have some advice and constructive criticisms for you and I hope you realize that they're grounded in my genuine enthusiasm for and encouragement of your theoretical interests. I apologize in advance for the length of my post! I studied French literature in undergrad, at Princeton, and will soon be starting a PhD in the same field at Harvard. When I declared as a French major in undergrad, I ended up forging my own "theory track" which proved to be a rewarding interdisciplinary endeavor. I was able to take classes in big "traditional" disciplines like Comparative Literature, Anthropology, Sociology, English, Politics as well as in smaller programs like women, gender and sexuality studies, race and ethnic studies, etc. I was fortunate to have very supportive advisers who encouraged my interdisciplinary approach. I should note that in my field, one can't really avoid specializing in a particular period. As tenuous and fraught with inconsistencies as labels and categories can be, the job market nevertheless relentlessly particularizes scholars. At the moment, I see myself focusing, broadly speaking, on 20th century and contemporary French and Francophone literature and theory while also considering 19th century French and German philosophy and criticism. More specifically, I too am interested in the field of aesthetics but also in its relation to politics and epistemology. This doesn't mean that I'm completely shutting out pre-19th century texts, authors and movements. There's no way I could be successful in my field if I did that! In fact, despite my (post-)modernist bent, some of the courses I'm most thrilled about in my new department are in earlier periods, for instance, there's a medieval studies class I'm really curious about because, as one professor described it, it will involve a "reflect[ion] on the complex relation between the so-called "Middle Ages" and the so-called "Renaissance." One could claim that Rabelais is a medieval Renaissance man and his good giants (father and son) a powerful metaphor for the rupture and continuity between two "epistemes" to use Foucault's terminology." This professor knew how to draw me, a student of modern and postmodern theory, into a medieval/Renaissance studies class! I'll admit that I'm probably just unabashedly and voraciously nerdy in that I love and appreciate scholarship in various areas, but the point is, older periods can certainly be relevant and worth considering (even if you don't specialize in them). Another class I'm looking forward to is "Reading the 18th Century Through 21st Century Eyes." But I digress...

More to the point, I can't even get a Masters in my field (much less a PhD) without demonstrating that I understand the breadth and complexities of the French and Francophone literary canon, history, politics and culture from the Middle Ages to the present. If you end up applying to graduate programs in English or Comp Lit, you'll find rather similar expectations, so if you're really averse to period specialization, that's something to consider. However it is possible and - in both of our cases even desirable - to strike a balance between specialization and interdisciplinarity. I would recommend that you consider, on the one hand, the interdisciplinary possibilities in more traditional disciplines like English, Comp Lit and Philosophy, and on the other hand, explicitly interdisciplinary programs. In the latter category, a program I don't think I've seen mentioned on this thread yet (thought it's possible I missed it) is Stanford's Modern Thought and Literature department. Have you looked into it? http://www.stanford.edu/dept/MTL/cgi-bin/drupal/ I think other posters have suggested some great programs to you so far. Also, while it may have been mentioned already, I would (echo others who) encourage you to look into Cornell's School of Criticism and Theory: http://sct.arts.cornell.edu/indexLaunch.php?time=1307839787 It's a summer program rather than a full-time graduate degree-granting program, but it's certainly worth considering at some point in your studies. I hope to participate in it, myself, next summer or the one after! One recommendation I do remember reading and that I support as well is Berkeley's Rhetoric program. I would encourage you to look at traditional and interdisciplinary programs and see if you can pick and choose departments from both sides to come up with a list of potential graduate programs that really excite you as a theory scholar in training.

Like you, I used to be wary of and even to some extent uninterested in specializing in a specific period. I wanted to just focus on "pure theory." Guess what I discovered while pursuing that? There is no such thing as theory in a vacuum! Sure, there are courses that look at theory from a more or less rigid historical or philosophical perspective and if you're interested in that, it's out there (albeit not in the form of an entire department or program devoted solely to that). That being said, no serious literary scholar and critic could afford to avoid interdisciplinary studies, and it seems like you have astutely embraced this possibility, which is wonderful! However, the specific post of yours that I'm citing raised a few pretty big red flags for me. For starters, your interest in canonization is, on the one hand, fascinating and certainly merits further study at the graduate level, but on the other hand, seems to come from a somewhat misinformed vantage point regarding the inherently political and cultural aspects of canonization. While you don't seem interested in focusing on cultural studies, race/gender/sexuality, postcolonialism, minority studies, etc. I would urge you to at least take a few seminars on those topics in grad school (and to start or continue doing so while you're still an undergraduate). I'm sure you realize how much those discourses problematize conventional views concerning canonization but I'm not yet sure that you appreciate the extent to which they could enrich your framework. By ignoring them, at the very least, in the job market you'd risk coming across as a close-minded scholar and at the worst, you risk privileging and perpetuating certain epistemic frameworks of canonization, e.g. Eurocentric/White, male, heteronormative, etc. Yeah, I know, I bet I sound like your typical PC broken record but I just figured you might want to give it a little thought as you pursue your theoretical studies. I'm not averse to studying canonical authors whatsoever... As I mentioned earlier, I will need to continue engaging with them to be successful in my field and I fully intend to do so (and I'm even very excited about it)! I'm not sure if you've come across this term but it might help you understand a bit better where I'm coming from: epistemological humility. Here's a clear definition I found online: "This term is used to refer to an understanding of the limits of an epistemological perspective. Epistemological humility reflects a belief or adherence to an epistemological stance as valid or authoritative, but not complete." (http://www.postmodernpsychology.com/Postmodernism_Dictionary.html) I hope that my work will, at its core, always be epistemologically humble and I believe that it's possible to achieve this even in canon studies only insofar as the canon is approached not solely from the omnipresent normative specter of the dead straight White male perspective but with serious consideration of and engagement and dialogue with the "constitutive outside" voices and experiences without which it doesn't even make sense to speak of a canon in the first place.

Another point I'd like to bring up is your stated unsympathetic position toward and disinterest in certain branches of theoretical inquiry. We can't possibly be interested in and much less fully invest ourselves in every conceivable framework. Fair enough. In my experience, though, a genuine lover and scholar of theory, notwithstanding her/his theoretical preferences, enjoys engaging broadly with other frameworks. Let's start with psychoanalysis. You don't have to "believe in" psychoanalysis to appreciate its tremendous contributions to theory and criticism. I happen to be very sympathetic to Freudian and Lacanian theories of subjectivity and while I understand your reservations, once again, I believe they may be misinformed. Sure, in the fields of psychology and medicine, biological and neurological approaches are viewed as more cutting-edge and scientifically rigorous. However, psychoanalysis is still a respected and useful clinical approach (it hasn't universally been written off as outdated as you suggested). Notwithstanding the debates within the scientific and medical communities, none of that takes away from the incisiveness of psychoanalysis in the realm of literary and critical theory (I'm distinguishing here between clinical/medical psychoanalysis and literary/theoretical psychoanalysis in the humanities even though they do have rich intersections). For a theoretically rigorous yet accessible (yes that sounds like an oxymoron but it is possible!) defense of psychoanalytic theory, I would strongly encourage you to read Joan Copjec's Read My Desire: Lacan Against the Historicists. An author whose work might make psychoanalysis even more palatable for you is Slavoj Žižek. He's very interdisciplinary, like you, and blends psychoanalysis with Marxism, Hegel and other German Idealist philosophers (e.g. Schelling) and also film, politics, current events and pop culture. Žižek is a great theorist to bring up when people argue that the humanities are irrelevant and out of touch with the contemporary world because his work eloquently and amusingly proves otherwise.

And now on to Queer and ethnic studies. I'd like to add that like you, I also don't identify as heterosexual. I understand that you might not feel a need to focus explicitly on Queer theory; it's perfectly alright if it doesn't become your specialization. However, if your interest does indeed lie in canonization, then as I said earlier, if you want to come across as a serious scholar in that particular area, you should not brush off considering the Queer and also racial and ethnic "outsides" - indeed the others - of the canon, even if it means just taking one seminar on Queer studies and another on, say, postcolonial literature. When you say, "I'm not opposed to considering culture/cultural concerns, but I don't want to focus on this (sub)field of theory. I'm not particularly interested in postcolonial theory/minority studies" what I'm sensing is either unacknowledged White privilege (i.e. if you are White) or a just as unfortunate privileging of White and Eurocentric canonical studies regardless of your race. Furthermore, when you admit that "As a gay person, I feel like these issues [e.g. heterosexual normativity, deviancy, social constructs of sexuality] are highly important and need to be studied" but then honestly aver that "I'm not particularly interested in postcolonial theory/minority studies" - which is totally your prerogative, by the way, and I don't mean to invalidate your personal experience - you seem to be saying (if you're White, that is) "if it's pertinent to me, it's important, and if not, it's not worthy of my time and doesn't need to be studied." (As a side note, one doesn't have to be a person of color to understand the ethical urgency to engage with issues in ethnic studies; society sees me as White and yet I'm very committed to race studies)

You said: "I realize my "articulation" for each area is more or less "I'm just not interested in this." Lol I don't really know how else to put it. I can assure you, though, that my disinterest is not emotional." From a psychoanalytic or even a philosophical perspective, I wonder to what extent that's true... That fact that you from your subjective position embody the enunciating "I" precludes any fully objective assertion that you're absolutely emotionally detached. That is to say, that as the speaking "I" you necessarily and inextricably implicate your subjectivity with the issues from which you seem to be distancing yourself. Is your disinterest fully non-emotional? What might be going on for you psychically that pushes you away from these fields? (To be sure, interest in these fields should not by any means be construed as a marker of "normality," whatever that could possibly mean. Indeed one could ask the same of someone like myself, who is very invested in these fields: Why am I so drawn to them?) While I appreciate the sincerity in your position, I'm troubled by what comes across as your perhaps tacit ignorance of your own privilege in society and in academia. If you're not White - as entitled as you are not to be interested in ethnic studies, regardless of your race - while it's good that you at least acknowledge that it's a legitimate discourse, I'd encourage you to engage with it just a little further, again, considering your stated interest in studying canonization. If you turn a blind eye to ethnic and racial concerns, regardless of your race, as a scholar, you'd be shirking your ethical duty to the other, whether you want to see that from a Levinasian perspective or a postcolonial one. While it's ok not to have a burning passion for minority studies, I would say that your attitude toward this area of scholarship could be interpreted as socially/ethically, academically and intellectually irresponsible. (I don't mean to single you out in particular. Unfortunately this is a pervasive issue in the humanities, in academia and in society at large.) Moreover, when you've delved deeply enough into Queer and ethnic studies (without necessarily specializing in them), you'll discover that it doesn't make sense to talk about one without the other; they happen to be mutually enriching fields which intersect to yield a hybrid realm of exciting scholarly possibilities! Now there's an example of the beauty of interdisciplinary studies! And you can do that and still consider yourself primarily a canon scholar and a damn versatile and innovative one at that!

Try to keep some of that in mind as you put together your independent study and as you look for the right interdisciplinary program. I think your interests and enthusiasm are certainly admirable and, again, I strongly encourage you and hope that everything works out for you! Again, I'm sorry for the long and somewhat desultory post. I hope my suggestions and feedback are indeed as helpful and constructive as I was hoping they would be. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions about theory and criticism or about applying to grad school in these fields in general!

Hi Two Espressos! It's always a pleasure to encounter a fellow theory enthusiast! I have some advice and constructive criticisms for you and I hope you realize that they're grounded in my genuine enthusiasm for and encouragement of your theoretical interests. I apologize in advance for the length of my post! I studied French literature in undergrad, at Princeton, and will soon be starting a PhD in the same field at Harvard. When I declared as a French major in undergrad, I ended up forging my own "theory track" which proved to be a rewarding interdisciplinary endeavor. I was able to take classes in big "traditional" disciplines like Comparative Literature, Anthropology, Sociology, English, Politics as well as in smaller programs like women, gender and sexuality studies, race and ethnic studies, etc. I was fortunate to have very supportive advisers who encouraged my interdisciplinary approach. I should note that in my field, one can't really avoid specializing in a particular period. As tenuous and fraught with inconsistencies as labels and categories can be, the job market nevertheless relentlessly particularizes scholars. At the moment, I see myself focusing, broadly speaking, on 20th century and contemporary French and Francophone literature and theory while also considering 19th century French and German philosophy and criticism. More specifically, I too am interested in the field of aesthetics but also in its relation to politics and epistemology. This doesn't mean that I'm completely shutting out pre-19th century texts, authors and movements. There's no way I could be successful in my field if I did that! In fact, despite my (post-)modernist bent, some of the courses I'm most thrilled about in my new department are in earlier periods, for instance, there's a medieval studies class I'm really curious about because, as one professor described it, it will involve a "reflect[ion] on the complex relation between the so-called "Middle Ages" and the so-called "Renaissance." One could claim that Rabelais is a medieval Renaissance man and his good giants (father and son) a powerful metaphor for the rupture and continuity between two "epistemes" to use Foucault's terminology." This professor knew how to draw me, a student of modern and postmodern theory, into a medieval/Renaissance studies class! I'll admit that I'm probably just unabashedly and voraciously nerdy in that I love and appreciate scholarship in various areas, but the point is, older periods can certainly be relevant and worth considering (even if you don't specialize in them). Another class I'm looking forward to is "Reading the 18th Century Through 21st Century Eyes." But I digress...

More to the point, I can't even get a Masters in my field (much less a PhD) without demonstrating that I understand the breadth and complexities of the French and Francophone literary canon, history, politics and culture from the Middle Ages to the present. If you end up applying to graduate programs in English or Comp Lit, you'll find rather similar expectations, so if you're really averse to period specialization, that's something to consider. However it is possible and - in both of our cases even desirable - to strike a balance between specialization and interdisciplinarity. I would recommend that you consider, on the one hand, the interdisciplinary possibilities in more traditional disciplines like English, Comp Lit and Philosophy, and on the other hand, explicitly interdisciplinary programs. In the latter category, a program I don't think I've seen mentioned on this thread yet (thought it's possible I missed it) is Stanford's Modern Thought and Literature department. Have you looked into it? http://www.stanford.edu/dept/MTL/cgi-bin/drupal/ I think other posters have suggested some great programs to you so far. Also, while it may have been mentioned already, I would (echo others who) encourage you to look into Cornell's School of Criticism and Theory: http://sct.arts.cornell.edu/indexLaunch.php?time=1307839787 It's a summer program rather than a full-time graduate degree-granting program, but it's certainly worth considering at some point in your studies. I hope to participate in it, myself, next summer or the one after! One recommendation I do remember reading and that I support as well is Berkeley's Rhetoric program. I would encourage you to look at traditional and interdisciplinary programs and see if you can pick and choose departments from both sides to come up with a list of potential graduate programs that really excite you as a theory scholar in training.

Like you, I used to be wary of and even to some extent uninterested in specializing in a specific period. I wanted to just focus on "pure theory." Guess what I discovered while pursuing that? There is no such thing as theory in a vacuum! Sure, there are courses that look at theory from a more or less rigid historical or philosophical perspective and if you're interested in that, it's out there (albeit not in the form of an entire department or program devoted solely to that). That being said, no serious literary scholar and critic could afford to avoid interdisciplinary studies, and it seems like you have astutely embraced this possibility, which is wonderful! However, the specific post of yours that I'm citing raised a few pretty big red flags for me. For starters, your interest in canonization is, on the one hand, fascinating and certainly merits further study at the graduate level, but on the other hand, seems to come from a somewhat misinformed vantage point regarding the inherently political and cultural aspects of canonization. While you don't seem interested in focusing on cultural studies, race/gender/sexuality, postcolonialism, minority studies, etc. I would urge you to at least take a few seminars on those topics in grad school (and to start or continue doing so while you're still an undergraduate). I'm sure you realize how much those discourses problematize conventional views concerning canonization but I'm not yet sure that you appreciate the extent to which they could enrich your framework. By ignoring them, at the very least, in the job market you'd risk coming across as a close-minded scholar and at the worst, you risk privileging and perpetuating certain epistemic frameworks of canonization, e.g. Eurocentric/White, male, heteronormative, etc. Yeah, I know, I bet I sound like your typical PC broken record but I just figured you might want to give it a little thought as you pursue your theoretical studies. I'm not averse to studying canonical authors whatsoever... As I mentioned earlier, I will need to continue engaging with them to be successful in my field and I fully intend to do so (and I'm even very excited about it)! I'm not sure if you've come across this term but it might help you understand a bit better where I'm coming from: epistemological humility. Here's a clear definition I found online: "This term is used to refer to an understanding of the limits of an epistemological perspective. Epistemological humility reflects a belief or adherence to an epistemological stance as valid or authoritative, but not complete." (http://www.postmodernpsychology.com/Postmodernism_Dictionary.html) I hope that my work will, at its core, always be epistemologically humble and I believe that it's possible to achieve this even in canon studies only insofar as the canon is approached not solely from the omnipresent normative specter of the dead straight White male perspective but with serious consideration of and engagement and dialogue with the "constitutive outside" voices and experiences without which it doesn't even make sense to speak of a canon in the first place.

Another point I'd like to bring up is your stated unsympathetic position toward and disinterest in certain branches of theoretical inquiry. We can't possibly be interested in and much less fully invest ourselves in every conceivable framework. Fair enough. In my experience, though, a genuine lover and scholar of theory, notwithstanding her/his theoretical preferences, enjoys engaging broadly with other frameworks. Let's start with psychoanalysis. You don't have to "believe in" psychoanalysis to appreciate its tremendous contributions to theory and criticism. I happen to be very sympathetic to Freudian and Lacanian theories of subjectivity and while I understand your reservations, once again, I believe they may be misinformed. Sure, in the fields of psychology and medicine, biological and neurological approaches are viewed as more cutting-edge and scientifically rigorous. However, psychoanalysis is still a respected and useful clinical approach (it hasn't universally been written off as outdated as you suggested). Notwithstanding the debates within the scientific and medical communities, none of that takes away from the incisiveness of psychoanalysis in the realm of literary and critical theory (I'm distinguishing here between clinical/medical psychoanalysis and literary/theoretical psychoanalysis in the humanities even though they do have rich intersections). For a theoretically rigorous yet accessible (yes that sounds like an oxymoron but it is possible!) defense of psychoanalytic theory, I would strongly encourage you to read Joan Copjec's Read My Desire: Lacan Against the Historicists. An author whose work might make psychoanalysis even more palatable for you is Slavoj Žižek. He's very interdisciplinary, like you, and blends psychoanalysis with Marxism, Hegel and other German Idealist philosophers (e.g. Schelling) and also film, politics, current events and pop culture. Žižek is a great theorist to bring up when people argue that the humanities are irrelevant and out of touch with the contemporary world because his work eloquently and amusingly proves otherwise.

And now on to Queer and ethnic studies. I'd like to add that like you, I also don't identify as heterosexual. I understand that you might not feel a need to focus explicitly on Queer theory; it's perfectly alright if it doesn't become your specialization. However, if your interest does indeed lie in canonization, then as I said earlier, if you want to come across as a serious scholar in that particular area, you should not brush off considering the Queer and also racial and ethnic "outsides" - indeed the others - of the canon, even if it means just taking one seminar on Queer studies and another on, say, postcolonial literature. When you say, "I'm not opposed to considering culture/cultural concerns, but I don't want to focus on this (sub)field of theory. I'm not particularly interested in postcolonial theory/minority studies" what I'm sensing is either unacknowledged White privilege (i.e. if you are White) or a just as unfortunate privileging of White and Eurocentric canonical studies regardless of your race. Furthermore, when you admit that "As a gay person, I feel like these issues [e.g. heterosexual normativity, deviancy, social constructs of sexuality] are highly important and need to be studied" but then honestly aver that "I'm not particularly interested in postcolonial theory/minority studies" - which is totally your prerogative, by the way, and I don't mean to invalidate your personal experience - you seem to be saying (if you're White, that is) "if it's pertinent to me, it's important, and if not, it's not worthy of my time and doesn't need to be studied." (As a side note, one doesn't have to be a person of color to understand the ethical urgency to engage with issues in ethnic studies; society sees me as White and yet I'm very committed to race studies)

You said: "I realize my "articulation" for each area is more or less "I'm just not interested in this." Lol I don't really know how else to put it. I can assure you, though, that my disinterest is not emotional." From a psychoanalytic or even a philosophical perspective, I wonder to what extent that's true... That fact that you from your subjective position embody the enunciating "I" precludes any fully objective assertion that you're absolutely emotionally detached. That is to say, that as the speaking "I" you necessarily and inextricably implicate your subjectivity with the issues from which you seem to be distancing yourself. Is your disinterest fully non-emotional? What might be going on for you psychically that pushes you away from these fields? (To be sure, interest in these fields should not by any means be construed as a marker of "normality," whatever that could possibly mean. Indeed one could ask the same of someone like myself, who is very invested in these fields: Why am I so drawn to them?) While I appreciate the sincerity in your position, I'm troubled by what comes across as your perhaps tacit ignorance of your own privilege in society and in academia. If you're not White - as entitled as you are not to be interested in ethnic studies, regardless of your race - while it's good that you at least acknowledge that it's a legitimate discourse, I'd encourage you to engage with it just a little further, again, considering your stated interest in studying canonization. If you turn a blind eye to ethnic and racial concerns, regardless of your race, as a scholar, you'd be shirking your ethical duty to the other, whether you want to see that from a Levinasian perspective or a postcolonial one. While it's ok not to have a burning passion for minority studies, I would say that your attitude toward this area of scholarship could be interpreted as socially/ethically, academically and intellectually irresponsible. (I don't mean to single you out in particular. Unfortunately this is a pervasive issue in the humanities, in academia and in society at large.) Moreover, when you've delved deeply enough into Queer and ethnic studies (without necessarily specializing in them), you'll discover that it doesn't make sense to talk about one without the other; they happen to be mutually enriching fields which intersect to yield a hybrid realm of exciting scholarly possibilities! Now there's an example of the beauty of interdisciplinary studies! And you can do that and still consider yourself primarily a canon scholar and a damn versatile and innovative one at that!

Try to keep some of that in mind as you put together your independent study and as you look for the right interdisciplinary program. I think your interests and enthusiasm are certainly admirable and, again, I strongly encourage you and hope that everything works out for you! Again, I'm sorry for the long and somewhat desultory post. I hope my suggestions and feedback are indeed as helpful and constructive as I was hoping they would be. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions about theory and criticism or about applying to grad school in these fields in general!

Good point. I was going to bring this up, too, actually! But in Two Espresso's defense, I get the feeling that the geographic limitation would be just for grad school... (Right?) At least I hope, for your sake, that you won't be this finicky with the job market. (Alas, no one can really afford to be...) But that is a relatively long way off for you, Two Espressos. While you are shutting out some amazing programs with relatively attractive funding if you restrict yourself solely to the Northeast, you are still left with a great concentration of superb institutions of all kinds, from small LACs to all the Ivies to big state and private research universities. Whether you think your ultimate goal will be primarily to teach, to research, or to strike a balance between the two, even just focusing on the Northeast, you'll be set (in terms of the training you'll get in grad school, that is). Truckbasket is right about the weather in Berkeley and Palo Alto, though. If I were you, I would still apply to maybe two or three schools outside of the Northeast just to vary things up (or as many as a quarter or even a third of your overall schools, depending on your target number). It was repeatedly hammered into my mind that being "bi-coastal" could be an advantage in the job market (e.g. in my case, having gone to both Princeton and Berkeley) and for a while it was a suggestion that I took pretty seriously. Ok, this time I swore to myself that I would write a shorter response and while it's already longer than I anticipated, I hope it's not as tedious as my last few responses. For now, give these suggestions some thought, and in the meantime, I'll see if I can come up with some accessible cultural studies suggestions for your summer reading. If anyone can think of any apposite texts and authors given Two Espressos's interests, by all means, feel free to suggest them before me!

P.S.



I'm sorry about the rough job situation but on the bright side, these are all fantastic summer goals! Great language choice, by the way! Not that I'm biased or anything!

You're very welcome. And I'm sorry for any hostility you perceived. I know I only recently discovered this thread and haven't offered you as much as advice as others but even I felt slighted when I noticed some of your curt responses. No hard feelings?



Thanks!



Fair enough. I concede that I indeed jumped the gun there.



I'll drop you a line if I can think of any. Good luck to you!

One last question that lingers in my mind from some of the previous posts in this discussion concerns your interest in Harold Bloom's work. When did that start and why do you suppose you're sympathetic to his opinions? (Sorry, that was two questions in one) Oh, and one more multi-part question: do you think you'll get to read some cultural studies texts in your next and last two years of undergrad? Or in grad school? Or perhaps in your own free time (e.g. over the summer)? I'm sure people on this thread would be willing to suggest specific authors and texts for you to check out if you were interested!

Not to belabor belaborable things, but your criteria for where you want to be located might also be problematic w/r/t to academia as a career. Hopefully by the time you're done, things will have changed a bit and there will be some hope for work. But as it stands right now, your geographic fussiness won't fly on the job market either; you really have to go where the work is. And that might mean working in godforsaken and satanically hot places (like LA). I know several professors who commute BY AIRPLANE to their jobs, simply because of family logistics or because their university is located in some total armpit or something. (And BTW, some of the places you ruled out -- like Stanford, Berkeley -- have very moderate temperatures compared to some summers in the North East. The Pacific NW is deliciously gloomy and dank. I also despise sunlight, so I know about such things.)

I can't say I'm really interested in Dr. Bloom's work (I haven't read much of his stuff beyond The Anxiety of Influence, which I happen to mostly disagree with), but I do sympathize with some of his traditionalism. Then again, perhaps in reading more of his work, I'd find myself in the anti-Harold Bloom camp.

Anyways, my university is quite small (I believe there are 9 members of the English faculty) and does not offer graduate degrees (beyond perhaps a Master's in nursing), so taking a graduate course or two at my university, as someone had previously suggested, is not an option. My university does not offer classes in cultural studies, postcolonialism, queer theory, etc (at least, in the two years that I've attended, I've yet to see one offered--with the exception of perhaps one seminar in postcolonialism that I vaguely remember being offered last year), so any exposure to those subfields would have to come either in graduate school or on my own time.

With that being said, I'm completely open to suggestions for summer reading (some works have already been suggested earlier in this topic). I'm (regrettably) unemployed, and I have plenty of free time. My only summer plans are to improve my French skills, teach myself symbolic logic (in preparation for a course in logic that I'm taking next semester), and read. So I'd love to devour any cultural studies texts that you or other posters can suggest!

But yeah, no hard feelings.

Good point. I was going to bring this up, too, actually! But in Two Espresso's defense, I get the feeling that the geographic limitation would be just for grad school... (Right?) At least I hope, for your sake, that you won't be this finicky with the job market. (Alas, no one can really afford to be...) But that is a relatively long way off for you, Two Espressos. While you are shutting out some amazing programs with relatively attractive funding if you restrict yourself solely to the Northeast, you are still left with a great concentration of superb institutions of all kinds, from small LACs to all the Ivies to big state and private research universities. Whether you think your ultimate goal will be primarily to teach, to research, or to strike a balance between the two, even just focusing on the Northeast, you'll be set (in terms of the training you'll get in grad school, that is). Truckbasket is right about the weather in Berkeley and Palo Alto, though. If I were you, I would still apply to maybe two or three schools outside of the Northeast just to vary things up (or as many as a quarter or even a third of your overall schools, depending on your target number). It was repeatedly hammered into my mind that being "bi-coastal" could be an advantage in the job market (e.g. in my case, having gone to both Princeton and Berkeley) and for a while it was a suggestion that I took pretty seriously. Ok, this time I swore to myself that I would write a shorter response and while it's already longer than I anticipated, I hope it's not as tedious as my last few responses. For now, give these suggestions some thought, and in the meantime, I'll see if I can come up with some accessible cultural studies suggestions for your summer reading. If anyone can think of any apposite texts and authors given Two Espressos's interests, by all means, feel free to suggest them before me!

P.S.



I'm sorry about the rough job situation but on the bright side, these are all fantastic summer goals! Great language choice, by the way! Not that I'm biased or anything!

Good point. I was going to bring this up, too, actually! But in Two Espresso's defense, I get the feeling that the geographic limitation would be just for grad school... (Right?) At least I hope, for your sake, that you won't be this finicky with the job market. (Alas, no one can really afford to be...) But that is a relatively long way off for you, Two Espressos. While you are shutting out some amazing programs with relatively attractive funding if you restrict yourself solely to the Northeast, you are still left with a great concentration of superb institutions of all kinds, from small LACs to all the Ivies to big state and private research universities. Whether you think your ultimate goal will be primarily to teach, to research, or to strike a balance between the two, even just focusing on the Northeast, you'll be set (in terms of the training you'll get in grad school, that is). Truckbasket is right about the weather in Berkeley and Palo Alto, though. If I were you, I would still apply to maybe two or three schools outside of the Northeast just to vary things up (or as many as a quarter or even a third of your overall schools, depending on your target number). It was repeatedly hammered into my mind that being "bi-coastal" could be an advantage in the job market (e.g. in my case, having gone to both Princeton and Berkeley) and for a while it was a suggestion that I took pretty seriously. Ok, this time I swore to myself that I would write a shorter response and while it's already longer than I anticipated, I hope it's not as tedious as my last few responses. For now, give these suggestions some thought, and in the meantime, I'll see if I can come up with some accessible cultural studies suggestions for your summer reading. If anyone can think of any apposite texts and authors given Two Espressos's interests, by all means, feel free to suggest them before me!

P.S.



I'm sorry about the rough job situation but on the bright side, these are all fantastic summer goals! Great language choice, by the way! Not that I'm biased or anything!

Good point. I was going to bring this up, too, actually! But in Two Espresso's defense, I get the feeling that the geographic limitation would be just for grad school... (Right?) At least I hope, for your sake, that you won't be this finicky with the job market. (Alas, no one can really afford to be...) But that is a relatively long way off for you, Two Espressos. While you are shutting out some amazing programs with relatively attractive funding if you restrict yourself solely to the Northeast, you are still left with a great concentration of superb institutions of all kinds, from small LACs to all the Ivies to big state and private research universities. Whether you think your ultimate goal will be primarily to teach, to research, or to strike a balance between the two, even just focusing on the Northeast, you'll be set (in terms of the training you'll get in grad school, that is). Truckbasket is right about the weather in Berkeley and Palo Alto, though. If I were you, I would still apply to maybe two or three schools outside of the Northeast just to vary things up (or as many as a quarter or even a third of your overall schools, depending on your target number). It was repeatedly hammered into my mind that being "bi-coastal" could be an advantage in the job market (e.g. in my case, having gone to both Princeton and Berkeley) and for a while it was a suggestion that I took pretty seriously. Ok, this time I swore to myself that I would write a shorter response and while it's already longer than I anticipated, I hope it's not as tedious as my last few responses. For now, give these suggestions some thought, and in the meantime, I'll see if I can come up with some accessible cultural studies suggestions for your summer reading. If anyone can think of any apposite texts and authors given Two Espressos's interests, by all means, feel free to suggest them before me!

P.S.



I'm sorry about the rough job situation but on the bright side, these are all fantastic summer goals! Great language choice, by the way! Not that I'm biased or anything!

Good point. I was going to bring this up, too, actually! But in Two Espresso's defense, I get the feeling that the geographic limitation would be just for grad school... (Right?) At least I hope, for your sake, that you won't be this finicky with the job market. (Alas, no one can really afford to be...) But that is a relatively long way off for you, Two Espressos. While you are shutting out some amazing programs with relatively attractive funding if you restrict yourself solely to the Northeast, you are still left with a great concentration of superb institutions of all kinds, from small LACs to all the Ivies to big state and private research universities. Whether you think your ultimate goal will be primarily to teach, to research, or to strike a balance between the two, even just focusing on the Northeast, you'll be set (in terms of the training you'll get in grad school, that is). Truckbasket is right about the weather in Berkeley and Palo Alto, though. If I were you, I would still apply to maybe two or three schools outside of the Northeast just to vary things up (or as many as a quarter or even a third of your overall schools, depending on your target number). It was repeatedly hammered into my mind that being "bi-coastal" could be an advantage in the job market (e.g. in my case, having gone to both Princeton and Berkeley) and for a while it was a suggestion that I took pretty seriously. Ok, this time I swore to myself that I would write a shorter response and while it's already longer than I anticipated, I hope it's not as tedious as my last few responses. For now, give these suggestions some thought, and in the meantime, I'll see if I can come up with some accessible cultural studies suggestions for your summer reading. If anyone can think of any apposite texts and authors given Two Espressos's interests, by all means, feel free to suggest them before me!

P.S.



I'm sorry about the rough job situation but on the bright side, these are all fantastic summer goals! Great language choice, by the way! Not that I'm biased or anything!

Good point. I was going to bring this up, too, actually! But in Two Espresso's defense, I get the feeling that the geographic limitation would be just for grad school... (Right?) At least I hope, for your sake, that you won't be this finicky with the job market. (Alas, no one can really afford to be...) But that is a relatively long way off for you, Two Espressos. While you are shutting out some amazing programs with relatively attractive funding if you restrict yourself solely to the Northeast, you are still left with a great concentration of superb institutions of all kinds, from small LACs to all the Ivies to big state and private research universities. Whether you think your ultimate goal will be primarily to teach, to research, or to strike a balance between the two, even just focusing on the Northeast, you'll be set (in terms of the training you'll get in grad school, that is). Truckbasket is right about the weather in Berkeley and Palo Alto, though. If I were you, I would still apply to maybe two or three schools outside of the Northeast just to vary things up (or as many as a quarter or even a third of your overall schools, depending on your target number). It was repeatedly hammered into my mind that being "bi-coastal" could be an advantage in the job market (e.g. in my case, having gone to both Princeton and Berkeley) and for a while it was a suggestion that I took pretty seriously. Ok, this time I swore to myself that I would write a shorter response and while it's already longer than I anticipated, I hope it's not as tedious as my last few responses. For now, give these suggestions some thought, and in the meantime, I'll see if I can come up with some accessible cultural studies suggestions for your summer reading. If anyone can think of any apposite texts and authors given Two Espressos's interests, by all means, feel free to suggest them before me!

P.S.



I'm sorry about the rough job situation but on the bright side, these are all fantastic summer goals! Great language choice, by the way! Not that I'm biased or anything!

One word: laaaaaaaaaaaaaaame !

C'mon, these people have dedicated their time to helping you and that's all you can muster? Seriously?! Do you really want to add laziness to the reasons why you're not cut out to be an academic? I guess the fact that more than one person here has called you out on "ignoring your interlocutors" must be an indication of something... I, for one, would like to know what you have to say regarding some of the great points people have brought up in this discussion. You also never indicated what you thought of most of the programs that have been suggested to you on this thread. I realize that you said "thanks" a few times to everyone but it seems more like a cop-out than sincere gratitude. Demonstrate that you are indeed grateful by engaging more sincerely in the dialogue. You did initiate it after all!

[quote name=Two Espressos - Lighthearted Parody ' timestamp='1308083292' post='258396]
Good points, postcolonialists! I feel too lazy to comment upon them, but they really are quite good! Kthxbyeyall!

I'm a bit late following up but I think ZeeMore21, jakebarnes and truckbasket have really covered a lot of important ground! And in a far less circuitous manner than myself. At the risk of sounding perhaps a bit officious, I do have some more advice, mostly building off of the splendid suggestions you have received so far from others. I echo what's been said about how great it is that you're seeking advice now, while you're still in undergrad. I wish I had been as diligent and prepared my junior year as you seem to be! It's perfectly alright that you're still not 100% sure about your plans. You probably won't be until well into your graduate education, so be ready for a few years of relative uncertainty and continually evolving plans and interests. At least you admit that your theoretical interests are still developing. Good for you because you do have a very, very long road ahead of you. Trust me, it's better that we're telling you all of this now as opposed to just before you approach writing your dissertation in grad school. To re-cap some of the most (in my opinion) helpful advice I and others have offered you: you should, on the one hand, read more widely and give certain schools of thought a chance, and on the other hand, you should work on narrowing down your focus somewhat. Both will be indispensable for putting together a strong and successful grad school application and then for succeeding in grad school once you start.

While I'm unequivocally and emphatically in the anti-Harold Bloom camp, I can't possibly expect you to ditch him if you find that you're truly passionate about his ideas. After all, grad school is all the more rewarding if you're passionate about your work. (If you're not, it can really be hell, and you'll find many an anecdote - dare I say, horror story - on The Grad Cafe about this) And academia is definitely about constructive dialogue between scholars that may not (and indeed don't always) agree. However, as I and others have stressed repeatedly, if you want to have a shot at succeeding in academia (i.e. getting into grad school in the first place, doing well there and then eventually finding a job) please, please, please - even if it's just for your own edification - challenge yourself to entertain some non-canonical perspectives on aesthetics! While Yale's English department is, surely, very difficult to get into (and I know you haven't expressed interest in this particular department; it's just an example), to put it bluntly, the fact alone that Harold Bloom is a faculty member there probably wouldn't be anywhere near enough to guarantee you any semblance of a decent shot at admission to that particular program (that is, assuming your interests remain close-minded and unfocused when it comes time to apply). The same goes for all the Harold Blooms in academia (and there are certainly a few out there)! The truth is, whether you like it or not, "traditionalist" scholars (to use your own term) are far outnumbered in the professoriate by those who care a great deal for more progressive and inclusive discourses and scholarship. This isn't to discourage you from being an empowered voice of dissent... If you feel that this is your calling, by all means go for it! But then that's all the more reason not to ignore cultural studies because, as someone astutely pointed out earlier, you'd be shutting out your main interlocutors! How could you ever produce substantive and nuanced scholarship - indeed how could you ever bloom as a scholar at all - if you limit yourself to good old Harry's (antediluvian) worldview?

I have some more advice regarding your issue with period specialization. While the field I know the most about is French literature, I'm relatively sure that there is considerable enough structural overlap with English literature and even with Comp Lit that it wouldn't be completely irrelevant for me to offer it as an example. Take a look at Berkeley's expectations for specialization (http://french.berkeley.edu/grad/guide/grad_guide.php). I'm pointing out their approach because it's a pretty common one in literature departments. Here's a concise excerpt to sum it up, but do read further because it goes a bit more in depth:

"To a large extent, students design their own programs of study, within guidelines set out by the Department and with the advice and assistance of faculty members. The guidelines are meant to ensure the necessary professional specialization in a field within French studies, to point toward the area of an eventual dissertation, and to prepare the student in a general way for research in that area. Each student is asked to define three areas of study within French literature. Each of the areas, while related to the others, obliges the student to view the discipline from a different perspective.

The areas of study for the Ph.D. in French literature are:

1. the work of a single major author;
2. a historical period in French literature;
3. the development of a genre, theme or carefully-delineated topic extending over a period of three centuries."

Approaches will definitely vary from one literature department to the next, but the expectation that one will strike a balance between breadth and specialization is essentially and inevitably a given in all literature departments. If you don't like this, I'll be as candid as others have been: you may not be cut out to pursue graduate studies in literature. Another recommendation I have for you is: check out a bunch of department websites in the fields of English and Comp Lit, since they may align most closely with your background and current training. Take a look at the following three things on each website: current grad students' interests, the faculty's interests and recently submitted dissertations. While grad students earlier in their programs (e.g. in their first, second and even sometimes in their third year) are typically still figuring out their interests, among the more advanced doctoral candidates and certainly among the faculty, you will notice almost exclusively specialists. (Remember, this doesn't mean that you have to radically limit yourself to one sole idea... Indeed, you'll see several grad students and professors who work on more than one time period, on several authors, and who approach their work through various theoretical lenses) You'll also notice that most grad students in literature are trained to grapple with theory. Unless you aspire to become the next Michel Foucault (which isn't even a feasible goal in the first place and I don't think anyone seriously aspires to do so; I mean, it either happens or it doesn't based on both the quality and innovation of your work as well as on factors you can't possibly control like your work's reception in academia and society at large), dubbing yourself the "theory specialist" will not help you succeed in academe. You will just be one theory nerd in a sea of many others and if you don't strive to be more open-minded, those other theory nerds will be way more competitive than you in the job market. You said:



To be perfectly frank, precisely because the job market is so abysmal you must get over your aversion to specialize otherwise you'll never make it in academia. To answer your question succinctly: no, at least not in literature departments. Yet even interdisciplinary programs will expect you to care about and focus on the historical context of your interests, so the answer is unmistakably no for grad school programs in the humanities and social sciences in general. You won't find hiring committees say, "we're looking for a theorist to fill this position." If that were the case, in literature and certainly in interdisciplinary programs, the majority of applicants would be, to some extent, potential candidates. (Ok, an occasion in which they might say that is when they're looking for a specialist in, say, 19th and/or 20th century and contemporary literature and criticism, but again, that requires specializing in that entire historical period and not just a few isolated ideas about aesthetics)

Luckily you still have time! If you decide that specialization and literature aren't your cup of tea, then there are certainly more interdisciplinary paths to pursue! I would reiterate my suggestion that you look for departments in both traditional and interdisciplinary fields (e.g. English, Comp Lit and Philosophy as well as programs like the ones for which several of us have offered you links). Take your target number of grad programs (I applied to 6 but you might want to apply to more than that) and split it however you see fit between traditional and interdisciplinary options (e.g. 50/50; 33.3/66.6; 25/75... you get the idea). Or you may find that you want to apply solely to interdisciplinary programs and that would be alright, too!

Sorry once again for my long response. I know that you've been appreciative of our "tough love" so far but I think you'll be even more grateful for it later! I know I wish some nice grad students had guided me when I was in your shoes. Trust me, like you, I used to believe that I could specialize purely in theory and I also didn't care for being restricted to one particular period in literature. In my experience, while I definitely had a handful of undergraduate friends and peers who were, to varying degrees, also keen on studying theory, I found that, overall, it was decidedly not a popular route for undergrads. I did feel somewhat isolated at the beginning. However, I eventually found exciting company among my classmates in graduate-level seminars. Perhaps this might just be the dynamic at Princeton, but I have a feeling that in general, undergrads passionate enough about theory to continue pursuing it at the graduate level are a relatively small crowd. (There may be a lot of them on this site, but then again, this is a pretty self-selecting group of people... Emphasis on the word "pretty," of course ) In all seriousness, though, if you find that this is the case at your school, too, then see if you can enroll in a grad seminar or two and try to meet others with similar affinities! In a way, I feel like I'm offering advice to a slightly younger version of myself... Though a key difference between us may be that I discovered my passion for theory in a Queer studies class my sophomore year in college... but that's a whole other story.

Some final thoughts: give yourself time to explore and discover your interests. Also, set a short-term goal (e.g. the rest of undergrad) of finding a stimulating thesis topic about which you're really passionate which could eventually double as your writing sample for your grad school applications. And remember that you don't have to specialize in this exact area in grad school (though you may well find it to be a useful starting point). You might even end up going in a completely new direction later on, and that's alright and even expected! But you will have a hard time even getting into grad school if you don't make an effort to focus your interests now and to be more open-minded as you do so. Make use of the resources you have in college; work closely with your professors; keep nurturing your drive to be independent but realize that it's alright to feel lost and it's perfectly respectable to ask for help. Sorry for such a sappy ending to my post but I do believe that The Grad Cafe is an excellent place to look for grad school-related help when you need it. I certainly found this to be a tremendously useful community when I was applying and I owe my success, in part, to the wonderful advice I garnered here. I suppose this is my way of "paying it forward." Good luck, Two Espressos!

As a quick response to your latest post:



Those are all great ideas! I'm glad our advice has been helping you to put your interests into perspective. But don't give up on academia just yet. Yes, it's probably wise to have back-up plans, but it would be a shame to lose an individual as passionate about theory as you to, say, the corporate world! L L (You can always consider taking a gap year after undergrad - I did this - if you prefer to try other options before making the marriage proposal to academia, as a friend of mine once put it, semi-jokingly) You'll figure things out in due time and you're certainly on the right track!

I'm a bit late following up but I think ZeeMore21, jakebarnes and truckbasket have really covered a lot of important ground! And in a far less circuitous manner than myself. At the risk of sounding perhaps a bit officious, I do have some more advice, mostly building off of the splendid suggestions you have received so far from others. I echo what's been said about how great it is that you're seeking advice now, while you're still in undergrad. I wish I had been as diligent and prepared my junior year as you seem to be! It's perfectly alright that you're still not 100% sure about your plans. You probably won't be until well into your graduate education, so be ready for a few years of relative uncertainty and continually evolving plans and interests. At least you admit that your theoretical interests are still developing. Good for you because you do have a very, very long road ahead of you. Trust me, it's better that we're telling you all of this now as opposed to just before you approach writing your dissertation in grad school. To re-cap some of the most (in my opinion) helpful advice I and others have offered you: you should, on the one hand, read more widely and give certain schools of thought a chance, and on the other hand, you should work on narrowing down your focus somewhat. Both will be indispensable for putting together a strong and successful grad school application and then for succeeding in grad school once you start.

While I'm unequivocally and emphatically in the anti-Harold Bloom camp, I can't possibly expect you to ditch him if you find that you're truly passionate about his ideas. After all, grad school is all the more rewarding if you're passionate about your work. (If you're not, it can really be hell, and you'll find many an anecdote - dare I say, horror story - on The Grad Cafe about this) And academia is definitely about constructive dialogue between scholars that may not (and indeed don't always) agree. However, as I and others have stressed repeatedly, if you want to have a shot at succeeding in academia (i.e. getting into grad school in the first place, doing well there and then eventually finding a job) please, please, please - even if it's just for your own edification - challenge yourself to entertain some non-canonical perspectives on aesthetics! While Yale's English department is, surely, very difficult to get into (and I know you haven't expressed interest in this particular department; it's just an example), to put it bluntly, the fact alone that Harold Bloom is a faculty member there probably wouldn't be anywhere near enough to guarantee you any semblance of a decent shot at admission to that particular program (that is, assuming your interests remain close-minded and unfocused when it comes time to apply). The same goes for all the Harold Blooms in academia (and there are certainly a few out there)! The truth is, whether you like it or not, "traditionalist" scholars (to use your own term) are far outnumbered in the professoriate by those who care a great deal for more progressive and inclusive discourses and scholarship. This isn't to discourage you from being an empowered voice of dissent... If you feel that this is your calling, by all means go for it! But then that's all the more reason not to ignore cultural studies because, as someone astutely pointed out earlier, you'd be shutting out your main interlocutors! How could you ever produce substantive and nuanced scholarship - indeed how could you ever bloom as a scholar at all - if you limit yourself to good old Harry's (antediluvian) worldview?

I have some more advice regarding your issue with period specialization. While the field I know the most about is French literature, I'm relatively sure that there is considerable enough structural overlap with English literature and even with Comp Lit that it wouldn't be completely irrelevant for me to offer it as an example. Take a look at Berkeley's expectations for specialization (http://french.berkeley.edu/grad/guide/grad_guide.php). I'm pointing out their approach because it's a pretty common one in literature departments. Here's a concise excerpt to sum it up, but do read further because it goes a bit more in depth:

"To a large extent, students design their own programs of study, within guidelines set out by the Department and with the advice and assistance of faculty members. The guidelines are meant to ensure the necessary professional specialization in a field within French studies, to point toward the area of an eventual dissertation, and to prepare the student in a general way for research in that area. Each student is asked to define three areas of study within French literature. Each of the areas, while related to the others, obliges the student to view the discipline from a different perspective.

The areas of study for the Ph.D. in French literature are:

1. the work of a single major author;
2. a historical period in French literature;
3. the development of a genre, theme or carefully-delineated topic extending over a period of three centuries."

Approaches will definitely vary from one literature department to the next, but the expectation that one will strike a balance between breadth and specialization is essentially and inevitably a given in all literature departments. If you don't like this, I'll be as candid as others have been: you may not be cut out to pursue graduate studies in literature. Another recommendation I have for you is: check out a bunch of department websites in the fields of English and Comp Lit, since they may align most closely with your background and current training. Take a look at the following three things on each website: current grad students' interests, the faculty's interests and recently submitted dissertations. While grad students earlier in their programs (e.g. in their first, second and even sometimes in their third year) are typically still figuring out their interests, among the more advanced doctoral candidates and certainly among the faculty, you will notice almost exclusively specialists. (Remember, this doesn't mean that you have to radically limit yourself to one sole idea... Indeed, you'll see several grad students and professors who work on more than one time period, on several authors, and who approach their work through various theoretical lenses) You'll also notice that most grad students in literature are trained to grapple with theory. Unless you aspire to become the next Michel Foucault (which isn't even a feasible goal in the first place and I don't think anyone seriously aspires to do so; I mean, it either happens or it doesn't based on both the quality and innovation of your work as well as on factors you can't possibly control like your work's reception in academia and society at large), dubbing yourself the "theory specialist" will not help you succeed in academe. You will just be one theory nerd in a sea of many others and if you don't strive to be more open-minded, those other theory nerds will be way more competitive than you in the job market. You said:



To be perfectly frank, precisely because the job market is so abysmal you must get over your aversion to specialize otherwise you'll never make it in academia. To answer your question succinctly: no, at least not in literature departments. Yet even interdisciplinary programs will expect you to care about and focus on the historical context of your interests, so the answer is unmistakably no for grad school programs in the humanities and social sciences in general. You won't find hiring committees say, "we're looking for a theorist to fill this position." If that were the case, in literature and certainly in interdisciplinary programs, the majority of applicants would be, to some extent, potential candidates. (Ok, an occasion in which they might say that is when they're looking for a specialist in, say, 19th and/or 20th century and contemporary literature and criticism, but again, that requires specializing in that entire historical period and not just a few isolated ideas about aesthetics)

Luckily you still have time! If you decide that specialization and literature aren't your cup of tea, then there are certainly more interdisciplinary paths to pursue! I would reiterate my suggestion that you look for departments in both traditional and interdisciplinary fields (e.g. English, Comp Lit and Philosophy as well as programs like the ones for which several of us have offered you links). Take your target number of grad programs (I applied to 6 but you might want to apply to more than that) and split it however you see fit between traditional and interdisciplinary options (e.g. 50/50; 33.3/66.6; 25/75... you get the idea). Or you may find that you want to apply solely to interdisciplinary programs and that would be alright, too!

Sorry once again for my long response. I know that you've been appreciative of our "tough love" so far but I think you'll be even more grateful for it later! I know I wish some nice grad students had guided me when I was in your shoes. Trust me, like you, I used to believe that I could specialize purely in theory and I also didn't care for being restricted to one particular period in literature. In my experience, while I definitely had a handful of undergraduate friends and peers who were, to varying degrees, also keen on studying theory, I found that, overall, it was decidedly not a popular route for undergrads. I did feel somewhat isolated at the beginning. However, I eventually found exciting company among my classmates in graduate-level seminars. Perhaps this might just be the dynamic at Princeton, but I have a feeling that in general, undergrads passionate enough about theory to continue pursuing it at the graduate level are a relatively small crowd. (There may be a lot of them on this site, but then again, this is a pretty self-selecting group of people... Emphasis on the word "pretty," of course ) In all seriousness, though, if you find that this is the case at your school, too, then see if you can enroll in a grad seminar or two and try to meet others with similar affinities! In a way, I feel like I'm offering advice to a slightly younger version of myself... Though a key difference between us may be that I discovered my passion for theory in a Queer studies class my sophomore year in college... but that's a whole other story.

Some final thoughts: give yourself time to explore and discover your interests. Also, set a short-term goal (e.g. the rest of undergrad) of finding a stimulating thesis topic about which you're really passionate which could eventually double as your writing sample for your grad school applications. And remember that you don't have to specialize in this exact area in grad school (though you may well find it to be a useful starting point). You might even end up going in a completely new direction later on, and that's alright and even expected! But you will have a hard time even getting into grad school if you don't make an effort to focus your interests now and to be more open-minded as you do so. Make use of the resources you have in college; work closely with your professors; keep nurturing your drive to be independent but realize that it's alright to feel lost and it's perfectly respectable to ask for help. Sorry for such a sappy ending to my post but I do believe that The Grad Cafe is an excellent place to look for grad school-related help when you need it. I certainly found this to be a tremendously useful community when I was applying and I owe my success, in part, to the wonderful advice I garnered here. I suppose this is my way of "paying it forward." Good luck, Two Espressos!

As a quick response to your latest post:



Those are all great ideas! I'm glad our advice has been helping you to put your interests into perspective. But don't give up on academia just yet. Yes, it's probably wise to have back-up plans, but it would be a shame to lose an individual as passionate about theory as you to, say, the corporate world! L L (You can always consider taking a gap year after undergrad - I did this - if you prefer to try other options before making the marriage proposal to academia, as a friend of mine once put it, semi-jokingly) You'll figure things out in due time and you're certainly on the right track!

Thanks ZeeMore21. I'm glad you appreciated my post and I couldn't agree more with your sentiment!



Apology accepted. By the way, what do you think of the programs I and others have suggested? Your thoughts might help us in guiding you better. I have one last lengthy response that I'll be posting subsequent to this post and again, I apologize in advance for imposing on your time, but I really would like to help you as best as I can!

I'm a bit late following up but I think ZeeMore21, jakebarnes and truckbasket have really covered a lot of important ground! And in a far less circuitous manner than myself. At the risk of sounding perhaps a bit officious, I do have some more advice, mostly building off of the splendid suggestions you have received so far from others. I echo what's been said about how great it is that you're seeking advice now, while you're still in undergrad. I wish I had been as diligent and prepared my junior year as you seem to be! It's perfectly alright that you're still not 100% sure about your plans. You probably won't be until well into your graduate education, so be ready for a few years of relative uncertainty and continually evolving plans and interests. At least you admit that your theoretical interests are still developing. Good for you because you do have a very, very long road ahead of you. Trust me, it's better that we're telling you all of this now as opposed to just before you approach writing your dissertation in grad school. To re-cap some of the most (in my opinion) helpful advice I and others have offered you: you should, on the one hand, read more widely and give certain schools of thought a chance, and on the other hand, you should work on narrowing down your focus somewhat. Both will be indispensable for putting together a strong and successful grad school application and then for succeeding in grad school once you start.

While I'm unequivocally and emphatically in the anti-Harold Bloom camp, I can't possibly expect you to ditch him if you find that you're truly passionate about his ideas. After all, grad school is all the more rewarding if you're passionate about your work. (If you're not, it can really be hell, and you'll find many an anecdote - dare I say, horror story - on The Grad Cafe about this) And academia is definitely about constructive dialogue between scholars that may not (and indeed don't always) agree. However, as I and others have stressed repeatedly, if you want to have a shot at succeeding in academia (i.e. getting into grad school in the first place, doing well there and then eventually finding a job) please, please, please - even if it's just for your own edification - challenge yourself to entertain some non-canonical perspectives on aesthetics! While Yale's English department is, surely, very difficult to get into (and I know you haven't expressed interest in this particular department; it's just an example), to put it bluntly, the fact alone that Harold Bloom is a faculty member there probably wouldn't be anywhere near enough to guarantee you any semblance of a decent shot at admission to that particular program (that is, assuming your interests remain close-minded and unfocused when it comes time to apply). The same goes for all the Harold Blooms in academia (and there are certainly a few out there)! The truth is, whether you like it or not, "traditionalist" scholars (to use your own term) are far outnumbered in the professoriate by those who care a great deal for more progressive and inclusive discourses and scholarship. This isn't to discourage you from being an empowered voice of dissent... If you feel that this is your calling, by all means go for it! But then that's all the more reason not to ignore cultural studies because, as someone astutely pointed out earlier, you'd be shutting out your main interlocutors! How could you ever produce substantive and nuanced scholarship - indeed how could you ever bloom as a scholar at all - if you limit yourself to good old Harry's (antediluvian) worldview?

I have some more advice regarding your issue with period specialization. While the field I know the most about is French literature, I'm relatively sure that there is considerable enough structural overlap with English literature and even with Comp Lit that it wouldn't be completely irrelevant for me to offer it as an example. Take a look at Berkeley's expectations for specialization (http://french.berkeley.edu/grad/guide/grad_guide.php). I'm pointing out their approach because it's a pretty common one in literature departments. Here's a concise excerpt to sum it up, but do read further because it goes a bit more in depth:

"To a large extent, students design their own programs of study, within guidelines set out by the Department and with the advice and assistance of faculty members. The guidelines are meant to ensure the necessary professional specialization in a field within French studies, to point toward the area of an eventual dissertation, and to prepare the student in a general way for research in that area. Each student is asked to define three areas of study within French literature. Each of the areas, while related to the others, obliges the student to view the discipline from a different perspective.

The areas of study for the Ph.D. in French literature are:

1. the work of a single major author;
2. a historical period in French literature;
3. the development of a genre, theme or carefully-delineated topic extending over a period of three centuries."

Approaches will definitely vary from one literature department to the next, but the expectation that one will strike a balance between breadth and specialization is essentially and inevitably a given in all literature departments. If you don't like this, I'll be as candid as others have been: you may not be cut out to pursue graduate studies in literature. Another recommendation I have for you is: check out a bunch of department websites in the fields of English and Comp Lit, since they may align most closely with your background and current training. Take a look at the following three things on each website: current grad students' interests, the faculty's interests and recently submitted dissertations. While grad students earlier in their programs (e.g. in their first, second and even sometimes in their third year) are typically still figuring out their interests, among the more advanced doctoral candidates and certainly among the faculty, you will notice almost exclusively specialists. (Remember, this doesn't mean that you have to radically limit yourself to one sole idea... Indeed, you'll see several grad students and professors who work on more than one time period, on several authors, and who approach their work through various theoretical lenses) You'll also notice that most grad students in literature are trained to grapple with theory. Unless you aspire to become the next Michel Foucault (which isn't even a feasible goal in the first place and I don't think anyone seriously aspires to do so; I mean, it either happens or it doesn't based on both the quality and innovation of your work as well as on factors you can't possibly control like your work's reception in academia and society at large), dubbing yourself the "theory specialist" will not help you succeed in academe. You will just be one theory nerd in a sea of many others and if you don't strive to be more open-minded, those other theory nerds will be way more competitive than you in the job market. You said:



To be perfectly frank, precisely because the job market is so abysmal you must get over your aversion to specialize otherwise you'll never make it in academia. To answer your question succinctly: no, at least not in literature departments. Yet even interdisciplinary programs will expect you to care about and focus on the historical context of your interests, so the answer is unmistakably no for grad school programs in the humanities and social sciences in general. You won't find hiring committees say, "we're looking for a theorist to fill this position." If that were the case, in literature and certainly in interdisciplinary programs, the majority of applicants would be, to some extent, potential candidates. (Ok, an occasion in which they might say that is when they're looking for a specialist in, say, 19th and/or 20th century and contemporary literature and criticism, but again, that requires specializing in that entire historical period and not just a few isolated ideas about aesthetics)

Luckily you still have time! If you decide that specialization and literature aren't your cup of tea, then there are certainly more interdisciplinary paths to pursue! I would reiterate my suggestion that you look for departments in both traditional and interdisciplinary fields (e.g. English, Comp Lit and Philosophy as well as programs like the ones for which several of us have offered you links). Take your target number of grad programs (I applied to 6 but you might want to apply to more than that) and split it however you see fit between traditional and interdisciplinary options (e.g. 50/50; 33.3/66.6; 25/75... you get the idea). Or you may find that you want to apply solely to interdisciplinary programs and that would be alright, too!

Sorry once again for my long response. I know that you've been appreciative of our "tough love" so far but I think you'll be even more grateful for it later! I know I wish some nice grad students had guided me when I was in your shoes. Trust me, like you, I used to believe that I could specialize purely in theory and I also didn't care for being restricted to one particular period in literature. In my experience, while I definitely had a handful of undergraduate friends and peers who were, to varying degrees, also keen on studying theory, I found that, overall, it was decidedly not a popular route for undergrads. I did feel somewhat isolated at the beginning. However, I eventually found exciting company among my classmates in graduate-level seminars. Perhaps this might just be the dynamic at Princeton, but I have a feeling that in general, undergrads passionate enough about theory to continue pursuing it at the graduate level are a relatively small crowd. (There may be a lot of them on this site, but then again, this is a pretty self-selecting group of people... Emphasis on the word "pretty," of course ) In all seriousness, though, if you find that this is the case at your school, too, then see if you can enroll in a grad seminar or two and try to meet others with similar affinities! In a way, I feel like I'm offering advice to a slightly younger version of myself... Though a key difference between us may be that I discovered my passion for theory in a Queer studies class my sophomore year in college... but that's a whole other story.

Some final thoughts: give yourself time to explore and discover your interests. Also, set a short-term goal (e.g. the rest of undergrad) of finding a stimulating thesis topic about which you're really passionate which could eventually double as your writing sample for your grad school applications. And remember that you don't have to specialize in this exact area in grad school (though you may well find it to be a useful starting point). You might even end up going in a completely new direction later on, and that's alright and even expected! But you will have a hard time even getting into grad school if you don't make an effort to focus your interests now and to be more open-minded as you do so. Make use of the resources you have in college; work closely with your professors; keep nurturing your drive to be independent but realize that it's alright to feel lost and it's perfectly respectable to ask for help. Sorry for such a sappy ending to my post but I do believe that The Grad Cafe is an excellent place to look for grad school-related help when you need it. I certainly found this to be a tremendously useful community when I was applying and I owe my success, in part, to the wonderful advice I garnered here. I suppose this is my way of "paying it forward." Good luck, Two Espressos!

As a quick response to your latest post:



Those are all great ideas! I'm glad our advice has been helping you to put your interests into perspective. But don't give up on academia just yet. Yes, it's probably wise to have back-up plans, but it would be a shame to lose an individual as passionate about theory as you to, say, the corporate world! L L (You can always consider taking a gap year after undergrad - I did this - if you prefer to try other options before making the marriage proposal to academia, as a friend of mine once put it, semi-jokingly) You'll figure things out in due time and you're certainly on the right track!

Thanks ZeeMore21. I'm glad you appreciated my post and I couldn't agree more with your sentiment!



Apology accepted. By the way, what do you think of the programs I and others have suggested? Your thoughts might help us in guiding you better. I have one last lengthy response that I'll be posting subsequent to this post and again, I apologize in advance for imposing on your time, but I really would like to help you as best as I can!

Thanks ZeeMore21. I'm glad you appreciated my post and I couldn't agree more with your sentiment!



Apology accepted. By the way, what do you think of the programs I and others have suggested? Your thoughts might help us in guiding you better. I have one last lengthy response that I'll be posting subsequent to this post and again, I apologize in advance for imposing on your time, but I really would like to help you as best as I can!