Two Espressos

It was sincere actually. I was referring to the General Exam, which most every English Ph.D. program I know of requires. I agree that the Subject Test in Literature is just a useless trivia test--hence why I didn't even take it.

I've run into this issue on an application as well, though I cannot remember which one. My GPA is #.#9, so I'm pretty sure I'm justified in rounding that shit up.

Yes, it's probably the case that the most well-qualified applicants usually do well on the GRE. That seems quite plausible to me.

Here, I think, is the fundamental disagreement between us. I don't think that academic work can or should be "read and written like [...] literary texts." To the contrary, I see my "work"--scare quotes added to emphasize the anachronistic nature of speaking of such as an undergraduate-- as part of a continuum with the sciences. At present, I'm really interested in seeing what the importation of more mathematical/scientific paradigms into literary work could do. If I'm fortunate enough to pursue a Ph.D. in English, I want to take math and science classes in addition to literature and philosophy ones and start thinking about how literary studies could be more "scientific." It isn't a straw man. I'm simply responding to the concerns raised on a previous page on this thread by rems about "how far" sociological theories could go. I'm not saying that marginality is the end-all-be-all of sociological theory in literary studies. I'm not ready to throw my arms up in the air and proclaim that questions of aesthetic value in literature have no answers. I guess that makes me somewhat of a traditionalist in this regard. Thinking about "good literature" might be a fucking can of worms, but by all means, let's open it. (As a discipline, I mean. We don't need to--and probably shouldn't-- go into those things here. It isn't the best place for them.) This perfectly encapsulates why conservatives hate academia: they see it as conflating activism, ideology, and knowledge. What happened to the relatively disinterested pursuit of knowledge? Shouldn't the point be that, instead of advancing political causes? You say also that there is no "correct" school of thought. Really? What if I wanted to start a school of thought antithetical to the aims of queer theory, critical race studies, etc. and try to suppress these marginalized groups once more. Would that be correct? If what you intended to say is that "there is no [one] 'correct' school of thought," then yes, I agree with you. But there seems to be a weird kind of attitude in literary studies wherein many people try to have it both ways: to an extent, it appears to be the case that anything goes, but most people would vehemently oppose the hypothetical anti-gay, anti-minority perspective outlined above. Either there are criteria for judging the validity of a theoretical or methodological paradigm, or there aren't. This directly connects with my concerns earlier in this thread.

I know, right? Departments seem to downplay the importance of GRE scores, but when they release the average figures, they're almost always uniformly stratospheric.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Where do we draw the "literature" line? I'm aware that these issues have been argued to death, but I've never read a satisfactory answer. All I know is that the "everything-is-a-text" movement--I'm not including you in this of course-- surely dissatisfies me.

Ugh so many people have responded since I last did. I don't feel like writing 2000 words in response to all of this, so I'm just going to say that like thestage I'm far more interested in the theoretical or philosophical questions than the sociological ones. The sociological ones are important, of course, but I'm mostly uninterested in them. I agree that the sociological route will eventually reach a zero point if all it attempts to do is search for increasingly specific marginalized groups. Thankfully, there are plenty of other sociological questions that can be pursued, so the sociological readings face no danger in that respect. I agree with much of what thestage has said in this thread. S/he is far more eloquent than I am.

I was wondering about this as well. I appreciate Dark Matter taking the time to respond. I skipped that question on all my applications, but I'll go back and fill in those sections.

I want to preface this post by apologizing for completely derailing this thread. I do it all the time. I guess I already have the whole go-on-crazy-tangents professor thing down. I don't think you sound like that at all, no worries. Well I'm in no position to talk about B.Q.S. specifically as I have no knowledge of the field. But I think the question here is one of epistemological justification. What justifies a theoretical/methodological approach as valid? I may just be ignorant, but it seems to me like literary studies as a whole sorely lacks in this area. Could you expound upon the "you gotta make your own reading" quote? What exactly do you mean by this? I haven't read enough contemporary scholarship to comment on it, but in my relatively uninformed state I'd place myself into the skeptical of "easily acquirable theoretical apparatuses" camp. I can see the value of that for student writing for the sake of expanding students' minds or something of the sort. But professional scholarship? Not so much. I'm quite skeptical of the whole buffet of theory thing. It's almost farcical to me in a way. In summation, I think my concern here is of epistemic or methodological justification, as noted above, as well as the objectivity/subjectivity of literary knowledge. What is "progress" for literary studies? Other disciplines seem to have a better grasp of this.

This happens to me all the time! Real life example: I'll go to write the word "sky," and it'll feel totally alien to me. This is such an interesting phenomenon. Too bad the more science-oriented students don't post here often; there's probably a neat scientific explanation for it. As a subjective experience though, it's totally wild and bizarre.

Are you saying that every theoretical or critical movement helps progress us forward? I'm not sure that that is self-evident. Plus, what are we using as the criterion for progress here? What do we even mean by progress? Again, I don't know if I agree with this. What are we using as criteria for a critico-theoretical apparatus here? I'm playing the devil's advocate here, I know.

Quit. Do not let fast food steal your human dignity. I speak from experience. Plus, you've already answered your own question by pointing out that the job isn't really necessary, as others above have noted.

Galloup11: I'm not applying to Penn State, but since you offered, I've got a question for you! A professor of mine referred to Penn State as very traditionalist. She offered a mostly negative appraisal of the program. Do you agree with her, or is her statement contrary to your experience?

Do not capitalize theory. Personally, I don't know why anyone would. I see no logic in it. Bizarre capitalization like this seems to pop up from time to time in the humanities though. Check out, for example, this flier for an upcoming CUNY conference: http://web.gc.cuny.e.../homo_info.html See especially the last paragraph. Why are words like "scholars," "activists," and "complicity" capitalized? It's fucking erratic. (Nota bene: this is not meant to be an attack on the CUNY conference itself. It sounds interesting, and I plan on attending. Maybe we can organize a GradCafe hangout? )

I think the general rule of thumb is that you shouldn't get your B.A. and Ph.D. from the same school unless that school happens to be Harvard, Yale, etc. If you hail from one of those kinds of places, I'd say go for it.

Hopefully you remembered correctly and got 169 on the verbal! If so, that's an awesome score; I'm positive it'll place you in the top 1%.

Yeah, I think it takes about two weeks or so for scores to post for the General Test. If you took the computer-based exam, you should have received your scores at the end though. I wrote down my scores upon finishing the exam and searched online for my tentative percentages.

Do you care to elaborate? I think I'm missing something here. I knew what B.Q.S. stood for, but I also know nothing about it. So you're not the only ignorant one, no worries! Today's hip is tomorrow's passé. The trick is trying to find those intellectual questions and topics that won't go out of style, at least relatively speaking. Or being prescient enough to somehow predict the next academic fad.

I find your tone overly dismissive, even somewhat offensive. But there is some truth to what you say.

This is the exact position I'm in as well! My writing sample (disclaimer: it has yet to be written!) is going to be a reflection of what I've been working on up to this point in my independent study. I understood this study specifically to see if the sorts of ideas and questions I'm pursuing are something I want to work on further in graduate school. The answer is "yes," so my writing sample and SOP are very much going to be in alignment.

The other people in this forum already supplied really great information, but I'm going to chime in and say that I'm largely in the same boat. I'm not really interested in cultural studies, but I'm primarily a theory and philosophy kind of guy. As I wrote in another thread, I mostly want to do philosophy in an English department: by this, I mean that I want mainly to study a subset of theoretical/philosophical issues in context of a period of literature. I think that's okay...hopefully?

Scream: your stats are good, so I wouldn't worry about your "numbers." Your GRE scores are better than a lot of people on here (i.e., mine). Weak points: "just start[ing]" on a foreign language--assuming this is your first-- is a serious disadvantage. Also, if you haven't taken many English literature courses proper, as wreckofthehope discusses above, that's something you'll need to address in some way. Overall, though, I wouldn't worry about applying to English Ph.D. programs with a philosophy background. Philosophy has a reputation for being more rigorous anyways, so notwithstanding the two issues I delineated, you should be relatively competitive. So go for it! I'd imagine that a more or mostly philosophically oriented perspective on literature is perfectly acceptable at many places. At least that's what I'm hoping, seeing as I pretty much want to do philosophy in a literature department, more or less.

Yeah my SOP, once completed, is only going to be maybe 500-600 words. Maybe that's a bad thing? I know some programs only want <500 words, so I don't know...

I'm interested in teaching at the secondary level, so it's good to know that I won't need extensive French for that! I'm not sure about my top three regions, as I know little about them. I'm mostly basing my choices on the places suggested to me by my professor, after I've done some independent research on my own about them of course. I do really like Strasbourg, from the little I know. I like its close proximity to Germany, relative proximity to Switzerland, etc. My other two choices will probably be two of the places I've listed in my above post. I'm really excited about the prospect of teaching in France. I think it would be really good to push me out of my comfort zone, become more cosmopolitan, etc.

Yeah, TAPIF is what I'm referring to above, not the Fulbright program. I think I'm relatively competitive for the TAPIF program, not so for the Fulbright. I'm extremely self-conscious about my command of the French language though and constantly worry that I won't be strong enough for the TAPIF program, but one of my French professors, a Parisian, keeps assuring me that my French is strong enough, so I guess I'll be okay. I think I need 24/7 exposure to the language to really supercharge my abilities anyways, which is one of the reasons I so desperately wish to go abroad. For what it's worth, I have five semesters of college-level French; I'm taking an advanced course now and another one in the spring. TAPIF recommends a minimum of three French courses, and I'll have had six when I apply, so I'm probably okay. But yeah, I'm glad you're enjoying TAPIF! I'm completely okay with living on a low stipend (the aforementioned professor, upon hearing the monthly salary, started laughing). I'm trying to save up some money now so I'll be able to do some travelling while I'm over there. If you don't mind me asking, where are you stationed? My professor especially recommended Strasbourg, Rennes, Toulouse, Lyon, and Nantes, but I understand that being placed in these cities proper is rare and highly competitive. But I'm pretty much open to anywhere cheap and culturally interesting. Yeah this is also a possibility. In the best of all possible worlds, I'd go teach in France now, pursue a Ph.D. thereafter, and then during the Ph.D. research my dissertation abroad. How cool would that be?! It seems like doing doctoral research abroad is easiest at the most prestigious schools, the ones that have the most money and can provide the most financial help.