thepoorstockinger

I'd wait and see how this lawsuit pans out first: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20090731/tc_pcworld/kindlelawsuitfiledoverorwell1984ebookdeletionsbyamazon As of right now Amazon can access your kindle and delete your books (and associated notes!).

Those three areas all seem to be pretty common... and two out of three seem pretty easy to find with the new found popularity of Atlantic World history... I have a sort of secret interest in doing a field in the history of sports. When I am done my MA and have to apply for the PhD somewhere I will likely have to put that idea to rest, however.

I promised myself that I wouldn't wade into this mess, but here I go: I don't have a problem with the concept of "identity politics" I do have a problem with the way that what counts as an identity is often defined. Particularly in the academy people increasingly ignore class as an identity and class and poverty as forms of oppression. Race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality are all forms of oppression and it gets us nowhere to argue over which one is most important. (I would also be inclined to add "region" or geography to the list) Being white is an identity. Being white and poor is an identity. I would argue that systematic oppression against whites in the West is a myth, but systematic oppression of poor whites is certainly not. Different forms of oppression require different tools to combat it. Affirmative action (and let's not pretend that affirmative action is something new - we've had affirmative action in North America for centuries, it just always worked the other way and was action on behalf of whites) can be a tool to combat racism, sexism and homophobia in the present, but we need other tools to combat class based oppression as well: better public schools, more funding for needs based bursaries, reduced tuition fees, etc. for all students. Just because poor people have it shitty doesn't mean we shouldn't also try to make sure that black people don't have it shitty as well. I also feel that the "pull yourself up by the boot straps" mentality is in a way defeatist. Being born relatively poor and a minority in a (pseudo)backwater region made me want to work harder, but it also made me question the idea that anyone should be born poor at all. Systematic and structural change needs to attack class divisions as well as oppression along the lines of sexuality, gender, race and ethnicity. I also think that to some degree the role that class played in the Professor Gates incident has been overlooked by many people. There is a certain sense that Gates' shock at this comes as much from the fact that this reminded him that he's black. That he was being treated just like any other black person. At times it's come across that he's shocked that as a professional he's subject to the same treatment as poor blacks and most poor blacks who encounter this kind of idiocy by police all the time know that you just shut up when a cop get douchey if you're alone. Professor Gates felt that he could act differently given his class standing. (This is not to excuse the cops' behavior) I would also suggest that this thread should be locked. It's moved a long way off from a discussion of the issue and is now (or soon will be) just personal attacks. I know the fact that a mod is involved complicates things, but maybe another mod should step in to lock this down before it gets out of hand? I don't know if any of that made sense, I just got in the house from playing sports and am tired, but it was an attempt at an intervention on the topic.

The hardest part for me is that I will be incurring all kinds of expenses before I actually get paid. Our lease started this month even though we're not moving up until the middle of August, and by the time I get my first SSHRC check I will had to pay three months rent (August, September, plus the last month of the lease). My first TA check doesn't arrive until the first of October and tuition fees are due on September 28th. I have a spreadsheet I made that has stuff budgetted both on a monthly basis (i.e. $45 a week for groceries, $60 for cable/internet/phone, $400 for rent, etc.) and for one time costs ($1000 in moving expenses, three installments on my tuition fees, travel, etc.), plus costs that will be sporadic and spread out throughout the year (book purchases being the main one). The key for me when it comes to budgeting is to record everything you spend immediately so you can actually see how much money you have left. I am sharing an apartment with my partner who is entering the same program with the exact same funding packages, so it does make things a bit more manageable. Plus she has managed to save more money than I have.

The way you posted this makes it really hard to figure out what exactly you're going to be putting in there. Maybe it's just the way you posted this but it all seems really, really vague: you taught different students, you engaged in various projects, I want to do research in "this environment", etc.

Most schools I looked at require that you not work another job if you're full time in the program and if you did work another job (at least pre-thesis writing) you risked losing your funding. I would e-mail the director and ask. 2-3 grad courses a semester plus TA duties seem like a fair amount to throw a job on top of but I think it depends on: a) How well you are at balancing these things What the job consists of (i.e. if you're sitting at a desk of a res and just calling security when some kid locks her/himself out of their room then you can just read) c) What your courses actually consist of, particularly how much reading you're going to have to do. d) What exactly your TA duties are. If you're attending lectures and reading for the class on top of marking then you're going to be in a time crunch anway. Exam invigilator or the like might be good, and lots of grad students I know work in the writing centre at the university (almost always something they do after they're done coursework and funding runs out). I think the best job would be something like front desk person in a residence or one of those people who sit at a desk overnight and make sure people sign in with their ID cards to get into the labs or something similar. Anything where you can read.

The odds of you getting into one of your top three choices is exactly 52.3%. The chances of you getting into your second choices are 61.7% and there is an 11.9% chance that you won't be admitted anywhere at all during this admission cycle.

English is insanely competitive and you may be better off going to a good or decent Canadian MA program rather than going to a less than decent US one. (UofT is certainly in the "good" or better category for English). UofT's lack of funding is only an issue if you can't get a SSHRC (they top up MA sshrcs with an extra $4k). I will say this: I really, really regret not applying to some good US PhD programs (I am in history) this year instead of just the Canadian MA programs I did apply to - I think I underestimated my application and would have gotten some offers from schools I would have wanted to go to. Apply widely. Also remember: the PhD SSHRC the PhD CGS from SSHRC (aka the super SSRHC/Uber SSHRC) can be downgraded to a regular PhD SSHRC and brought across the border, so if you can get a tuition fee waiver you can potentially get some SSHRC funding to cover other fees. None of the degrees you mention are graduate degrees. They're professional degrees. This advice is not applicable to professional degrees.

This is the program that Pam from The Office is/was in last season, right?

I'd say that the interest in "transnational" history and "atlantic history" are new (and possibly "trendy") but social history, gender history and cultural history have been in the centre of the profession since at least the early 80s in Canada and probably aren't going to fade away any time soon. Not paying attention to culture, race, and gender doesn't mean you're not trendy, it means you're out of date.

biblio.com It's a network of thousands of independent used bookstores. I regularly find academic books for $1 plus shipping on there.

As Fuzzy just said - you don't actually have to be at the same school for this to work, you just need to be in the same city. Look at schools in big cities as well as schools in university towns (for example, I am from a Canadian city of 300k people which has six universities with graduate/post-grad programs).

The website should have information on funding/finances. If they don't then I don't think that there's anything wrong with sending a polite but brief "Hell Dr. X, I am considering applying for Program Y and I was wondering if the program provides funding for MA students?" to the grad director. Just be quick and polite with it.

Except that there is a huge pool of very bright, very qualified PhDs out there without TT positions who are amassing teaching experience and publications who are also trying to wait out those older professors... and that pool is only getting larger with each passing year.

What era/region are you looking at? Chauncey is at Yale and he still has to be the go-to guy in terms of modern US gay sub-cultures. Marc Stein is at York university in Toronto and his book on gay Philadelphia is pretty good. Queens in Canada has both Paul Jackson (who is junior but fantastic) and Karen Dubinsky if you want to do modern Canada. Beyond that it might be worth looking at queer studies programs and seeing if they have a more historical focus/historians cross-listed and look at the history programs at that school.

I was reading historiography book from 1987 and it was talking about how bad the job market was and that it had never, ever been worse. This is not a new problem and will probably only get worse for years to come. That said: since we all want to go to grad school we are all convinced we can beat the odds!

Dude, if your shit was so brilliant that tenured faculty members are going to risk stealing it (keep in mind that more than one person at each school will read your SOP) then you would not be re-applying.

I think that it would be reasonable to have one non-academic reference if you had at least two strong academic references, but I may be wrong. The SOP should be specific enough to show that you have a handle on the topic, but you need to show a connection to the broad themes, regional/chronological areas, and the existing wider historiography. If it makes sense, you need to use a specific topic to show that you understand things more widely.

It can mean about a hundred different things depending on what the context is.

Don't base your decision on what field to study on your law degree. You can pitch your legal career as helpful for any field (research, clear communication skills, etc.) but you'll be miserable if you somehow end up in a field you don't like. You need academic references. There's no real way around it. You may want to consider taking part time courses (ideally graduate level) in your field to meet professors so that you can get references. If you think you can get straight into a PhD program then do it. I applied to MA programs only (I am from Canada so at least I am well funded) and am now sort of regretting it. I'd consider applying for a variety of programs if I were you: some top tier PhDs, some mid-range ones, a few MA programs, and depending on your field maybe even some outside of the US. re: SOP Be as specific as possible. You don't just want to show what your research interests are, you want to show that you can intelligently write about those interests and that you understand what sort of research a historian does and what sort of questions a historian should be asking.

http://forum.thegradcafe.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=17779&start=45

This is the sort of thing that Facebook is for.

How did this get pinned as an announcement?

Working in a call centre to pay for rent and groceries. Cooking and reading in my spare time. My reading list is mostly comic books and books on post-war US history, particularly Black Power and the New Left, as well as some historiography. I am also working on an article for publication with a former professor and going to visit my soon to be new hometown in order to find an apartment. My advisor for next year is letting me and my partner stay with him and his partner which should be an adventure.

There are reasons to be nice to people that don't involve getting something out of them later.