bfat

Good point. I take back what I said, though. I actually can't read stories that are about animals because they're usually way too sad. I'll stick to the theory. Funny you should mention this. It's been in my Amazon cart for like a year, and I keep saying I'll read it as a reward when I'm satisfied with the amount of work I've gotten done... heh. It's shameful that I haven't read it though. Ah the literary doors that will open up for me when I finish my thesis (but right now I have to stay away from things I may be tempted to try to work into said thesis...)

I can talk about dogs all day. My thesis is in posthumanism, but I fluctuate between the animal studies/phenomenology of the "other" and the cybernetics/biotechnology side of things. Now if someone wrote speculative fiction on cybernetic dogs, I think I'd have an aneurism.

Is this for real? Nothing on the results board yet, and last year they didn't send invites for interviews until the very end of Jan... Hoping this is just a fluke and the rest of the invites are still on their way.

Hey Krempel! I live near Baltimore and know a few people who work at BCCC. Do you mind if I ask where you got your MA? (You can PM me if you'd rather not post it). Good luck this season!

Aw shucks.

This is by far the most ambitious semester I've ever undertaken, and I'm terrified. I'm teaching for the first time (2 courses), taking an upper-level theory course, and finishing my thesis (which I'm pretty behind on). And all with a baby that's under 6 months old.

You know, I've been handling this waiting period very patiently and maturely for over a month. I've really been able to distract myself with research and preparing for next semester... and then I decided to watch the third season of Glee (don't judge--it's a guilty pleasure) and there's an episode where everyone was getting admissions results for college and suddenly I was like ZOMG I MUST HAVE MY RESULTS NOOOOOWW!! Has anyone else gone through these periods of brief but desperate impatience/anxiety? How did you get through them?

Posthumanism is divided and often misunderstood. On the one hand there is "trans-humanism," which seeks to transcend the boundaries of the human through technology. However, this is really an intensification of humanism and its concept of a disembodied essence (or Cartesian dualism). Cary Wolfe calls this "bad posthumanism." What posthumanism really is, is the deconstruction of the notion of the human essence, and of "fantasies of disembodiment." It offers a paradigmatic shift away from the notion that humans are superior because of this essence (opening the doors for animal studies, and other cognitive research). It is "liberating" in that it offers a return to embodiment, biology, and, really, diversity--if there is no "great family of man" (i.e. Barthes), there is no unified essence that the arts must aspire to. (Unlike Freud, this area is my bag, baby)

While I in no way would defend empiricism as a literary methodology--I think "truth" and the human experience are far too subjective--I appreciate the insights that science and analytic philosophy can bring to literature, especially in terms of paradigmatic shifts. And I think that these scientific discoveries, if anything, have the potential to verify what people in the humanities have been saying all along. For example, the discovery that the notion of "race" is biologically/evolutionarily unfounded (see this or this) has verified the previous theoretical deconstruction of these boundaries by people working in the humanities. But I also don't think that literary theory or analysis needs to be "validated" in any way either. Instead, both approaches can be used to inform one another--philosophical thought inspiring scientific inquiry, and scientific discovery opening new doors for literary endeavor and/or analysis. Part of "breaking down boundaries" is tackling the wall that has been constructed between the humanities and the sciences, and I think that's where a lot of future work in English and literature will be. If I'm not mistaken, I think this is what Two Espressos was getting at. Though, of course, there will (and should) still be plenty of room for investigating the psychological states of Lear vs. Gloucester, or examining how Foucault's notion of the panopticon plays out in Orwell. These ideas can never be "invalidated" by science, nor should we assume they could.

This made me laugh. I love the TV series, and I read the first book (which helped me remember all the names), but I just can't get into the deep fantasy stuff. Nup, just can't do it. Speculative fiction, hells yes, but fantasy... Philip Pullman is about as far as I'll go down that road.

Two Espressos--are you familiar with Paul Churchland? Your approach sounds similar to his. I'm interested in how analytic philosophy applies to literature and theory. My current research is in posthumanism, which I think offers a solution to these seemingly opposed approaches (a deconstructive solution? hmm...) ETA: By "seemingly opposed approaches" I mean empiricism vs. "humanistic" approaches, analytic vs. continental, etc.

Thank you!! In film school, I was something of a pariah because I have a real problem with Kubrick adaptations. I agree that he is a wonderful director, but I disagree with his adaptation philosophy (complete transformation--including theme--rather than just a transformation of media). Also not a huge fan of The Shining for the same reason. I once had a dream where Anthony Burgess and I were sitting on my couch and bitching about Kubrick's adaptation.

I'm catching up on feminist film criticism for the course I'll be teaching, so reading several articles on that topic, but for my thesis, some other things I'm working on... Galatea 2.2 (Powers--yay, a novel!) alterity & transcendence (Levinas) The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common (Lingis) Alien Phenomenology (Bogost) The Animal That Therefore I Am (Derrida) and Tournier's Friday is on the back burner for my course next semester, but I have a whole week before I have to think about that.

I just meant within literary texts as well as theoretical ones, which is what I think of when I think of the history of ideas. But of course you may have meant that as well. Anyway, yes, agree to agree. On to something else. Anyone want to tackle Derrida? I think only Two Espressos has even mentioned him. Personally, I'm down with his ideas, but his deliberately frustrating language directed at frustrating linguistic conventions drives me bananas. Practicing what you preach blah blah blah JUST SAY IT! For the love of god define your terms!

In my case, no, not at all. I was using the notion of the uncanny via Masahiro Mori as applied to posthumanism, so pretty damned far from psychoanalytic theory, yet based very much on a paper of Freud's. However, I'm also teaching a class in feminist film theory this semester, and drawing heavily on psychoanalytic theory for part of the course--i.e. Mulvey, Clover, etc. In a course like this, these ideas are definitely still relevant, especially for a kind of "intro" to media theory course. Plus, the Clover stuff is just fun.

I guess I meant a little more than "history of ideas" being important, etc. In this case, because Freud's ideas were so culturally pervasive that they actually "infected" many texts themselves, not to mention their contexts. His influence wasn't just on the history of ideas, but on entire cultural understanding of psychology for many many decades. Some texts may, for example, exhibit a Freudian influence inadvertently--but many are/were intentional. While I agree that his work was "pseudoscience" in many ways, it was nevertheless adopted as the dominant folk psychology for some of the 19th and much of the 20th century. Of course, this opened the doorway for retroactively interpreting older texts through a Freudian lens, which may be ahistorical and irrelevant, but that's a whole other thing... ETA: Amendment: As far as the work itself, while much of it has been "debunked" by current neuroscience and psychiatry/psychology, I don't think we can dismiss his more theoretical notions as "pseudoscience" if we approach them as philosophy, rather than psychology (which I think someone else already mentioned). His notion of the uncanny, for example, is relevant to the work I've been doing in the last year. Come to think of it, that particular concept has even been verified by more recent "real" science... so there, or something. ... also: dear got I can't believe I just devoted 2 posts trying to defend Freud... it's so not even my bag, baby.

I feel the same way about Freud as I do about Plato or Newton: their ideas were fundamental and world-changing in many ways, so it's important to understand them, even if they've been "debunked" by future philosophers/scientists/theorists. Whether or not Freud is "relevant" is, well, irrelevant. His ideas were kind of an evolutionary springboard, especially in media studies, as Swagato mentioned. It doesn't mean you need to approach any work or future project through their methodology, just understand that it was important. (See, we can all get along )

It's true that being able to compress your ideas into short abstracts is very important when moving forward in academia. However, a 500-word SOP is incredibly difficult 1) because the usual format is around 800-1000 words, and cutting something that's already condensed in half is tough, and 2) because this isn't the abstract of an article or even a book, but of one's entire academic life--past, present, and future. I struggled with the one 500-word SOP that I had to write too.

Yeah, it was the 15th. And I did find the checklist section there (all is okay). Still can't figure out Penn State though. Their interface is kind of awful, and the "app status" only has letters and GRE scores.

Heidegger. Not because of his ideas, or even because he was a Nazi, but because his writing makes me want to murder kittens.

The question is, is it a comedy or a tragedy? ... we find out next month! (Just as long as it's not a romcom)

Thank you, I do see that these were received. I hate to email the other programs so close to the deadline, but it would be nice if they provided a way to make sure the transcripts got there. I hate just putting something like that in the mail and hoping it lands in the right place.

For programs that require hard-copy transcripts, do you know if there is a way to see if they have arrived, other than by calling them? Specifically, I'm looking to verify for Penn State, U Michigan, and Carnegie Mellon. As far as I can tell from the websites, there's nowhere that transcripts show up on any checklists. Thanks!

I would basically gnaw off my own arm to go. Unfortunately, I need to be earning $2700 this summer, not spending it... I think I'll apply and see where I can get with funding.

lol, yup. Lately I've been having this double-edged panic attack: Oh god, I'll feel so ashamed if I don't get in... but holy crap, what if I DO?? Is it possible to have imposter syndrome before being accepted? Either way it's anxiety soup and I'm a-swimmin' in it. And Re: AW scores--I got a 5.5 my first round, but tanked the verbal. Then when I re-took and destroyed the verbal, my AW dropped to 5. Still not bad, but makes me grumpy. The AW essays can suck a big hairy one. I don't think they mean much.