BadgerHopeful

No, I'm not sure. The best person to contact for that information would probably be the DGS. You can find the contact information on their website.

They usually admit around 100.

That's terrible news. How do you know that?

I am such a glutton for punishment. I spent about an hour today just perusing Wisconsin's department website. It was all information I have seen and read before, and it just confirmed that this is the perfect program for me. What is taking them so long up there?!

Thanks for sharing, and sorry for the bad news. Though now I'm even more worried than I was before...

omg I'm not even going to tell you how many times I checked the my.wisc.edu today. It's embarassing. I don't have any insider information, I was just basing it on the results from previous years. Also, the first Wisconsin rejection has been posted.

This is just awful. I know the decision is coming any day now - any second, really. And it's all I think about.

Sooo it is very possible that Wisconsin will release its decisions tomorrow. Is anyone else sick to their stomach with anxiety?

We will be hearing from Wisconsin any day now.

Plese forgive my ignorance, but could someone please tell me what H-Net is? I've never heard of it before.

Well, it's finally arrived. The first acceptance for Fall 2011 has been posted on the results page. Anyone want to claim credit? (And congrats!)

Love.

Agree. Just because we will inevitably disagree, rsldonk, doesn't mean we can't be civil about it. And kemet, Sword in the Stone is perhaps the best movie of all time.

It could just be me, but I have certainly detected a bit of hostility creeping about the History forum lately. I know that this is a stressful time of year - we are all working on our Masters theses, or finishing up undergrad, or generally twidling our thumbs while waiting desperately and anxiously for decisions. Or perhaps we are all just cranky from our New Years diets. In any case, I think it's important to remember that we are all in this together, and hostility doesn't help, well, anything. Disagreement among historians regarding historical matters is an inevitability. Indeed, disagreement can be very productive, as we learn from each others varying viewpoints. But there is healthy disagreement (a civil discussion of differing opinions) and unhealthy disagreement. Let's make a more concerted effort - all of us - to stay the course of the former.

The OP - and you - will take whatever position he can get, community college or not.

He's been working on it since the mid-90s. I'm not really sure what the hold-up is.

Yes, those works and authors have already been mentioned in previous posts. Chauncey is currently working on his "sequel" (for lack of a better word). The new work will focus on immediate postwar New York to the late 70s, I believe. Also, the exclusive nature of Chauncey and Houlbrook's work is not a bias on their part. Rather, their work is single-sexed because there are very, very few sources with which to work when it comes to ,lesbianism during this time period.

Wiconsin will be the first to notify. Based upon previous years entires, we could hear as early as the end of this month! And boy am I nervous!

Quite right. Whether it's fair or not, the "rank" or "prestige" (however erroneous those terms may be) of your program matters when it comes to the hiring process. If two otherwise equal candidates apply for an open position (similarly impressive references, writing samples, publications, conferences, etc.), the applicant from the top 20 program will be given an advantage over he who isn't.

I agree that it does not do you any good to be stuck on the mindset of "Top 10" or "Ivy League." It could very well be that the advisors who best suit your interests are not housed in a top 10 program. It is worth looking at a vast range of programs, and it's much more important to chose a program based on fit than on prestige.

Having gone to a prestigious, highly-ranked university is not a pro. It's what you did with your time there that could result in pros. Similarly, having gone to a mediocre state school is not a con. Adcoms, at least in the humanities, don't care about the prestige or rank of your undergrad institution. They care about the quality of your SOP, writing sample, and LORs (as well as GPA and GRE).

Barricades, you didn't have to tell us you do modern French history - your username gives it away

The university I currently attend has a grand total of zero* black academics on staff. There is not a single black faculty member, in any department. *Yes, you read that right.

Let's hope so, for my sake!

Ticklempink, I see what you're saying now. I'm glad you clarified. I really feel compelled to say that queer history is not a "big field" already. Sure, it may seem big compared to 40 years ago, when there was close to zero scholarship on queer history outside of the ancient world. It only seems like a "big field" because there was virtually no scholarship on queer history (except ancient Greece/Rome) 40 years ago. The field of queer history has a long, long way to go. How many programs can you name that do not have at least one facultyperson focusing primarily on women's history? I would guess zero. How many programs can you name that do not have at least one facultyperson focusing primarily on queer history? Several. If you're already in a program, how many students focus on women's history? How many on queer history? As we progress into this century, I think we will see an explosion of sensitive, thorough, and though-provoking scholarship on queer history. I think one day it will be common - standard, even - to have at least one facultyperson in every program that focuses primarily on gay history. Several students in the program will focus on queer history instead of just two or three. It will be much more common to have both undergraduate lectures and graduate seminars that focus on queer history, more articles will be dedicated to the subject in our most prominent journals, and more books will be published in the area. Of course this isn't to discount the significant strides that have been made in queer history, particularly American and English queer history, in the past few decades. If you're insterested in gay history, check out: George Chauncey: urban gay history of the early 20th century, particularly New York (Yale) John D'Emilio (University of Illinois, Chicago) Judith Butler: gender, the body, masculinities, feminities (Berkeley, moving to Columbia) Michael Sherry and Lane Fenrich (Northwestern) Nancy Enke and Susan Johnson (Wisconsin) Matthew Houlbrook: 20th-century English gay history (Oxford)