oscarwildebeest

I'm having this kinda day - To slow it down: New Order- Power, Corruption, Lies To pick it up: The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning Strike To rock it out: The Stooges - Fun House To break it down: Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash

Love it. Tina Turner can be the queen of my post-apocalyptic dystopia anytime.

It sounds like we're interested in a lot of the same topics - multiculturalism and environmentalism, certainly. And I'd have to say that I'm ambivalent at best towards "modernism", though the same is true of "postmodernism": I like Foucault quite a lot, and have a "take some, leave some" approach to folks like Derrida and Lyotard. A longer way of phrasing my interest in ontology would be something like: "investigating the ways that certain social and political institutions both presuppose and give shape to specific understandings of moral worth and what it means to be human." Strangely enough for someone with my interests, I've yet to do any substantial reading from Heidegger. But I've been greatly influenced by Arendt and Taylor so the line back to Heidegger is certainly there. Unfortunately my school really lacks for 20th century theory, but I'm hoping I'll get to study Heidegger some as I do my grad work.

No, I haven't heard anything from Gillespie. Did he send you a message this weekend? On Saturday I got a really nice e-mail from Euben I'm supposed to call and chat with him about the program sometime. In the message he talked a little about his class and projects, and about how they related to my research interests. I was really impressed by the last part because it showed he had, at some point, read and thought about the work I discussed in my personal statement. Anyway, it's cool to run into someone else who's going this weekend - especially since it seems likely we'll be classmates. What sort of theory stuff do you go in for?

Wait, really? How many do they normally accept?

Good advice. Though it's my experience that some people are miserable as a vocation, and I'd be wary of passing on a good offer on account of its' being disparaged by the sort who wouldn't have been happy anywhere. What might be more useful is to know what about your choice ended up disappointing you - inaccessible profs? cutthroat classmates? - so that those of us going to visits can be on guard.

JHU hasn't notified yet.

Got the official "no" from Princeton. This was not a surprise... hindsight says that their heavily liberal/Rawlsian focus would have made a poor match for my interests.

Ha! I totally agree. At this point I only have one option (though I'm expecting at least another two to drop), but I feel I should investigate before I sign away my soul to the academy, right? I mean, Duke looks terrific from all I've read and heard, but what if I get there and suddenly realize that I just can't live in North Carolina? Unlikely, but I'd definitely share your apprehensiveness about taking an offer without ever having seen the place. I also share your curiosity as to what, exactly, we'll be doing. The Duke e-mail indicated a nice dinner with the profs in the subfield, which sounds both pleasant and uncomfortable, thought it allowed me to justify making a coupe of nice additions to my "business cas" wardrobe. I mean, I know this is supposed to be low-key, but these folks have to know what they're asking for by telling undergrads to "dress comfortably." As for hazing, the worst I could fear is that they'll try to get me drunk and make me pledge my inebriated allegiances to Leo Strauss. So yeah, they're visiting weekend is March 1- 3, I'm hitting that up, and I'm really hoping to meet some of their senior theorists. Duke is a nice but sort of unique fit for me because every one of their senior theorists does something - for most, a few somethings - that I find cool and related to my study. But no one does exactly what I want to do either. Though that's not so much a reflection on Duke as on my eclectic interests and kind of non-conventional approach to political theory... and short of a last-minute Chicago intervention, I think Duke is probably the best place to take my weird little projects. I think chatting up some of the theorists will give me a lot of insight into the kind of match the department will make. I just... don't want to do anything embarrassing in front of my future classmates.

Sorry. When you posted above that you were 2 down, I thought you were implying that you had gotten 1 admit. Which given the high caliber of your choices, would have been impressive alone. I didn't mean the offense, I really did think there was something to congratulate you on. Hopefully, there will be when decision 3 comes along.

Well, it's not like you picked three safeties. A lot of people would come up 0 for 3 shooting HCP, so congrats on the successful execution.

At this point, I think most of us have heard some good news - if not, you know we've got our fingers crossed for you. For those of you who have got one or more acceptances under your belt - congratulations. The purpose of this thread is to discuss and plan for school visits. Here, you can network with other prospective students who are visiting your programs, think about which kinds of questions to ask and which sorts of things to be on the look-out for, stress about what to wear, and the rest. Hopefully, this will assist in exorcising some of the lingering anxiety from the acceptance process (which for most of us is still grinding on even if we do have some offers) and help everyone make the most of their visits. So let's start with the basics: When are the visiting days for the departments you've been accepted to? Are you going to go? Which faculty are you hoping to meet? What are you interested in researching?

Nice work! If GJ is your thing, P-ton is totally where you belong.

Is that the guy who does "Trendspotting" on the Daily Show? If so... lotta love.

Yeah, the one offer I've received said that the university would pay the cost of my tuition for me. So it's like... if a friend picks up the tab for me at a restaurant. There was a bill, it was my bill, but someone else paid it. Hurray! But I never had the money so it shouldn't be taxed. (Obviously I know nothing about any of this)

I selected 8 schools pretty carefully. In retrospect, I can think of at least one that I should have probably not applied to based on program match, but I think the other 7 were solid choices. And I didn't apply anywhere if I couldn't say "if this was my only choice, would I be happy going?"

My impression is that stipends are taxable income. The percentage you pay depends entirely on your gross taxable income after exemptions and deductions... but if you're living entirely on your stipend, I think you'd be in the 15% bracket. Of course income below $8000-ish is taxed at 10%, so you'd probably end up paying somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in taxes.

Brutal. Where did you hear the six figure? Not doubting, just curious.

Oh, certainly. I'm not pitying myself here. I'm just a little anxious to hear because, at this point, Chicago and Northwestern are the only schools that could dissuade me from attending Duke (even Princeton, for all of its merits, just doesn't fit my interests as well). If I knew conclusively that my number was up at both of the Chi-town schools, I could sort of put this process behind me.

I'm glad we're all equally pessimistic. I'm counting myself out of the running for Chicago, Northwestern and Penn at this point. Looks like I won't have too hard a decision to make this spring.

Ha! Somehow I can't imagine Benhabib being into that. Maybe in someone's liberal utopia... Me too!

Intriguing. Who do you read as falling in Riker's liberal-democratic lineage?

I'm writing about the psychological and institutional bases of Reinhold Niebuhr and Judith Shklar's critiques of liberal theory, and what kind of reconstruction a "transformative" politics would need to respond to their arguments. I'm gonna take a nap and then get to work on section II, which features guest appearances by Seyla Benhabib and Richard Rorty.

My tactics: longer workouts, harder partying on the weekend, more time with the PS2, reading more comic books - not that I consider these things vices. Upside: Keeps me worn out and away from my computer, more time on treadmill/dancefloor makes stress-eating more acceptable Downside: I'd like to not fail my senior thesis

Clearly this is going to be a nervy week.