kfed2020

I applied to 7. I was also advised only to apply to my top choices -- to only apply to schools I would absolutely want to attend. OTherwise, it wouldn't really be worth the money; even if such a school were the only to accept me, why go somewhere that would make me miserable, give me 0 funding, not be supportive of my project, etc?

I contacted a couple from each. More often than not they referred me to fellow faculty (and grad students in my field) anyway.

Agree -- Michigan would be a great choice.

Boo-hoo? "Hyperbole and histrionics." Apparently, for you, claiming victimhood is only okay when a white person uses it as a counter-claim against a person of color. People wouldn't react the same way to a white person getting arrested because it'd seem (to many people) far less likely that the person were getting arrested because they were white. That's the key difference. Again: consult history. On the other hand, given the abundance of 4th amendment issues in this particular case, if this had happened to a (relatively famous, elderly) white person, many people most certainly would have raised similar questions about the officer's conduct. If you want sympathy for white people, look no further than the news. You're much more likely to see reports on missing white children (mostly female), or white women who've been murdered by their husbands (be they OJ, Scott Peterson, whomever else...) than you are of similar situations involving people of color. White victims are everywhere; where's your protest?

Please. You say histrionics, I say History.

I hope you're not aiming for a racially mocking tone, there. Is the opposite device -- seeing victimhood nowhere -- really so much more productive? Still not convinced of his threatening actions -- neither of his actions being threatening, nor of the cop being threatened. How is a relatively young, built police officer (you know, those people with guns, night sticks, etc.) going to be threatened by a tired, admittedly loud, old man? That doesn't add up. And, as far as Gates is concerned, a "Yes, massah" for good measure. Because suggesting that a black American appeal to a white authority by having 'good manners' has no historical precedent at all.

Not all of us. =) We're not all demons. Though many are. But speaking of going to good schools as an undergraduate/MA student... Probably the more important thing is faculty familiarity -- which is related to the "quality" (as implied by the name) of a school but still very distinct from it. "She went to Harvard" matters less than "She went to Harvard and has glowing recommendations from Elaine Scarry and Homi Bhabha -- plus the personal statement/writing sample to back it up." But I would imagine that's kind of the same for any applicant, from anywhere; faculty fame never hurts. On the whole, though, there are many more important things. At the admit weekend for one school, 4 of the accepted students were from schools so small none of the rest of us had heard of them.

I did something similar last year. Only, instead of mentioning work by the professor I'd read and admired, I focused on just a quick (one sentence) statement of my current research project, named my current advisor (VERY important, I found, because you never know who's friends out there; turns out my advisor was very well-regarded)... And, probably most importantly, I asked a non-generic question about the program. I wanted my emails to feel like they were motivated by something more than just getting my foot in the door, and also, as someone with really interdisciplinary interests in a typically not-as-interdisciplinary field, I did genuinely want to know about how I would fit into each program. It's also a good way to show that you're inquisitive and serious about the program -- remember, if you have a successful run at applying to grad school, these people will be your colleagues. This initial contact is v. important. I was also sure to post a subject line that made clear that I was referred to them by another Prof, because I often was,and because -- again -- these profs are much quicker to respond if you're being sent to them by a friend, I've found. With that format, I got responses from everyone I e-mailed -- legitimate, page-long responses from most of them, including the DGS at a top 10 program in my field, who even helped me edit my personal statement, believe it or not. And after getting into a few of those programs, the profs I had contacted mentioned that they'd kept an eye on my file and were really supportive of it in the process, even if they weren't on the actual adcom. They'd remembered our email conversations. These e-mails can definitely help. The responses you get are a great way to measure your marketability -- and as far as admissions, that's what really counts.

I hardly think anyone who offers a diatribe on the difficulties of being poor and white as you did above is in any position to accuse someone else of victim mentality. But I'm at least reasonable enough to acknowledge that this intersection of identities does have its drawbacks. If anything, I'd have expected that your experiences would have made you more sympathetic to the difficulties of other disadvantaged groups. I'm feeling now that they haven't. And I guess that's that.

Minnesotan, Genuine privilege is much more intangible than -- but not entirely exclusive of -- money. I'm of course moved by your story of growing up poor and can partially relate, but this is not what 'white privilege' refers to; you're fighting a scarecrow, because any reasonable person would acknowledge the difficulties of growing up lower class of any race, anywhere. People don't go out of their way to celebrate white men because, well, that would be ludicrous. White men represent 43/44 US Presidents, the majority of major CEO's, the vast majority of Supreme Court judges over the history of the US, I could go on. Privilege, then, is partially a matter of representation in leadership -- 'Power,' for short. White male senators were extremely worried about Sotormayor allowing her identity to inflect her decision-making because, let's face it, a high precedent for this has already been set by the history of white male leadership in the US. This country's rules were first set by white men, and they're still mostly overseen by white men. The majority of professors, administrators and presidents of major universities of the US -- still white men, white men who were likely all taught (mostly) by white men, given that segregation is, historically, a lot more recent than people seem to think. So there's education. In short: white men are, historically, quite dominant. Cause for celebration, indeed. The fact is, while your class status may have kept you from thinking you had a serious chance at becoming President, etc., you never eliminated yourself from becoming these things based entirely on your race or gender. You never grew up thinking these things could be impossible. Consider the impact this is had on you, and the impact it's had on others -- and consider the fact that you've never really had to consider this before. Privilege. If you'd prefer that we discuss this in more literary terms, consider why so many "Great Books" courses -- which tend to want to offer the "best" of the West -- are nicknamed "dead white men" by their students (and, often, by the professors teaching them). Actually, I'll end this point here because the white male emphasis that persists even in contemporary literary study is hopefully pretty obvious. If not, check your syllabi. On the whole, sorry to say, can't feel too bad for you as a white male -- that is, on the basis of your white maleness. As a fellow low-income American, sure. But otherwise, no thanks. I'm sure you haven't lost any sleep over it.

Minnesotan: There was no name-calling. I didn't -- and wouldn't -- call you anything. I claimed that you seemed comfortable in your whiteness. This is my way of asserting that perhaps our difference of opinion can be attributed to the fact that as an educated and successful person of color (and a black man, no less; and a black man studying Literature, even less) I'm continually forced to think about incidents like this in direct relation to my own life -- not as an outsider looking in, but as someone who recognizes the implications of this happening to someone like me. This is how identity works. I could never say that images of the plight of Mexican immigrants escaping into America, for example, have the same impact on me that they would have on the direct descendants of this immigration. They pain me on a human level, of course, but on the level of identity, it is not the same pain. My assertion is that the Skip incident moves me in a way that it doesn't move you because, in a sense, the worry of being reduced to the expectations of my black maleness (that I'll be violent, that I won't 'belong' in a predominately white community like Skip's neighborhood) is something that is continually going to be on my mind in a way that it won't be on yours. That's what the 'cultural trauma' and its subsequent cultural programming refer to. When a successful, educated white person is arrested, does it remind you of the limits and expectations of your skin color? By claiming that someone is comfortable in their whiteness, I'm suggesting, not only that they cannot directly relate by virtue of identity, but also that it feels to me that they haven't tried; though, I guess, in your defense, why would you? Your identity allows that you don't have to. Perhaps you would prefer I said that I felt you were comfortable with the privilege of not having to try, because that's truly what I meant. It's not 'racist' to think so. And as an aside, I find it truly odd that someone would in one sentence accuse people of pulling the race card too often and in the next accuse someone of being racist simply because they reminded them of their white privilege. The worst thing about privilege, it seems, is that people will tend to want to remind you of it. Tough. Forgetting something? The OJ Simpson case wasn't just big because black Americans made it big. And it most certainly was not big simply because he was a black man who'd killed someone. We can't really discuss OJ without reminding ourselves of that small detail of his victim being a white woman. Why? Because accusations of violence between white women and black men (and the often subsequent consequences for black men) have a distinct and undeniable history in the US, and this is what black people were thinking of at that time. Whether or not we believe he did it was almost secondary to the powerful symbol of a black man evading the cultural lynch mob. This is a tangent, but I felt it worth pointing out. These are the kinds of understandings that I'm talking about. Finally, I think the argument is relevant to the Lit board because he's a colleague, and also for the reasons that Yellow #5 offered, but I see your point about us not discussing a text (rather than book; I would hope that the lit board were open to a broader range of texts than just books.) Still, that doesn't justify saying that identity is not a matter of literary study. It is, and for precisely the reasons that are playing out here, no less. But that's a separate argument altogether.

Definitely agree. Good luck!

The race card has been burned? As of when? To be honest, I don't even know what that means. Please do give us a point of reference; because, from what I've seen lately, Minnesotan, you're a little bit too comfortable with your whiteness and it's getting hard for me to see where you're coming from. Weak. In this case, it didn't happen to a white person. But if it had been Helen Vendler, and not Skip Gates, this wouldn't have happened. Few people would have called the cops on an elderly white woman -- even if she had broken into her house the same way. At the very least, many people would have gone over to see was going on before getting 911 trigger happy. Why is that? Why is it that someone like Gates would be considered a) more likely to be breaking in, more of a threat? No one "would have given a good god damn" because the situation would have been quite different. Social categories matter. Are you going to say that works written by people of every gender, nationality, race, sexuality, religion, etc. are all interpreted, appreciated, distributed in exactly the same way? Are you going to say that people of every gender, nationality, race, sexuality, religion, etc. -- given the local cultural histories of each of these categories -- all read and interpret things of every subject the same way -- and that, there for, there's no reason for literary study to take into account these differences? You're also going to say that the histories of literary production for each of these groups are remotely similar? Really? That's awfully stupid.

You really can't see why this would be significant?

Good. I haven't listened to the 911 tape yet, but I'm glad she acknowledged he could've lived there, and I thank you for pointing that out. I think you pose an interesting, difficult question about Skip's response. 4th amendment violations are a big deal, and few people seem to be talking it, including Skip himself. My instinct is that the bigger trauma for him right now, and maybe the bigger trauma more generally, is the feeling that despite his many successes it's been proven for him, somewhat forcefully, that he hasn't transcended the expectations of his race. As in, the range of acts expected of black men. It ultimately wouldn't matter how justified the woman felt she was in calling the cops; 'success' for many black Americans (and especially the black bourgeois) is at least partially defined by the expectation that people won't randomly call the cops on you, that people around you will recognize that you're not violent or a thug, or however you want to describe it -- however problematic that desire may be. I think this incident destroyed that illusion for Professor Gates; this, I think, is what his instinctive reaction would be. So, to maybe answer your question, I don't think it's a matter of black men having to prove it was a matter of race so much as this is their instinct. Especially the black middle class. Even when/if they're in the wrong.

I got into top flight English programs this year with scores similar to yours. My Lit GRE scores sucked, as well; and so did those of some of my fellow incoming students. And my grades outside of my major were weak. I had a lot working against me. Only, not really, because I worked hard to make sure my personal statement and writing sample demonstrated that I was very capable and a great fit for each program. Do what you can to convince the program that you're an intellectual fit and a capable scholar and your GRE scores won't matter quite as much. They're not going to turn down someone with great potential to be a historian if that person happens to be bad at geometry. Academics aren't exactly well-rounded, themselves.

I don't think it's fair to argue off the bat that it's his fault for his neighbors not recognizing who he is; that feels akin to blaming a rape victim for wearing a short skirt. It could be true that he's not involved in the local community. Or it could be true that he is involved and his neighbors are ignorant. We don't really know which it is, but neither seems sufficient justification. I know that there were times at night when I forgot my swipe card to my dorm and, on occasion, people would hesitate to swipe me in. I was very active in my dorm's social life, mind you. My fault for forgetting my swipe card, but everyone does that; is it my fault that they hesitated, too? Either way... It's hard for me to believe that a fundraiser at the university's alumni magazine doesn't know which university celebrities live on her street. It would seem to me that this level of familiarity is part of her job. Plus? Bragging rights. I would know if one of my neighbors was a dude who was on Oprah all the time -- was a pal of the President, no less. Also, if I'd seen someone breaking into a house with a ton of luggage, I would've gone out to investigate a little before calling the police if I were really that suspicious. Burglars don't often intend to move in and stay awhile.

Oof. Math camp sounds rough, you guys. Kind of glad that I never have to deal with math ever again in my life. Do most WWS folks do math camp?

You'd have to be careful -- because, for exactly the reason stated above (that intellectual interests don't always fit neat little boxes), you might have faculty members appearing or consulting with multiple admissions committees because their interests aren't so neatly confined. And if they notice repeat entries, you might come off as indecisive or immature in your interests. I bet this is especially true with programs that share great overlap of methods/faculty -- at Yale, for example, where they have American Studies, Comparative Literature and English, it'd serve you well to pick only one; they don't all do the same thing and they each have their own culture, and you need to do the legwork to figure out which is the best fit.

I hope I hear soon, too. One of my fellow cohort also hadn't heard by earlier this morning, and he applied for GC (like me), whereas a friend from college who'll be at woodie woo applied to the GC and heard yesterday. Lame =) Really they should just give me a closet in Firestone to sleep in. Let's be honest -- that'll be the best bang for my buck, anyway.

any news for you all? still none for me. =\

Cool. A woman I just graduated from college with will be joining you two. No news for me, either. But another guy in the English department got his contract for Butler before noon EST.

What depts are you all in?

The road is killer, yes. It's fun to compare lists. I've actually started compiling a 'queer fiction/poetry' list because I think I'll want to do an independent course on it. So some of the stuff below is from my own summer reading list, some I've read, and some I know of and recognize as important contributions to the genre but haven't yet read them. In no particular order: Giovanni

I got it Saturday by mail. But I live in New Jersey, so I'm guessing I'd get it more quickly than someone overseas. =)