StrangeLight

also... research papers from seminars are great bases for conference papers. i would NOT recommend submitting them for publication. the only place that a seminar research paper is likely to be accepted is in a graduate student journal, and your time is better spent getting one publication in a real (sorry, but it's true) journal than 10 graduate journals. a research seminar paper can certainly serve as the jumping off point for your MA and for an eventual publication, but the work it takes to move it from being a class paper for a publishable article is more than just a few weeks of redrafting it. and while you may think it's too early to worry about this, it's not. when you're on the job market, you want to present a clear arc to your published and soon-to-be-published research. if you're going to be a historian of sex and gender in ancient china, then all of your publications should at least touch upon sex or gender in ancient china. just because you have a good research seminar paper on gender in europe doesn't mean you should get it published. when you look for jobs, the search committees will look for every published thing you have out there (if you make it to the top 10 list). if you've got 10 grad journal publications, they'll ignore it as early work (and potentially ignore some good work!). if you've got 2 or 3 articles in really random fields (your regional field but not at all close to the cutting edge work you do in your dissertation), they'll doubt your scope and vision as a scholar. i know that's a ton to put on your plate at this point, so the tl;dr version: use research seminar papers for conferences (but ONLY conferences where professors will be attending as participants on panels, not just as chairs/discussants/keynote speakers). work on your MA from day 1, in addition to everything else you're supposed to do. don't worry about publications until a prof approaches you and says "X is great, you should really try to get it published." and try to get it published in refereed journals, not grad student publications.

i'm using zotero in chrome on a mac and it's a goddamn pleasure, let me tell you.

you're supposed to work on your thesis IN ADDITION TO all that other stuff. semester 1 - take all those courses, do all your requirements, and meet with your advisor to read some books in your topic/field. work on finalizing your topic (since these always change, regardless of how set you were in your original topic when you applied). semester 2 - if applicable, start writing grants and applying for summer research funding money. this is the point where you should go beyond a topic ("af am's experiences in US southwest") to a research question ("how did af ams negotiate with non-state actors in indian territory?" or something). start researching where your sources are located. can you order them as microfilm through interlibrary loans? or do you need to travel? if you have access on campus to some of your sources, start reading through them and taking notes (or however else you collect data). summer 1 - in addition to doing more language work (if you need it), the summer is THE time to do your primary research. we don't get summers off anymore, we just get summers (usually) free of coursework. but you're still working, make no mistake about that. if your language class goes from may to june, spend july and august at your archives, collecting your data, reading/sorting it, and writing your outline. semester 3 (year 2) - ideally, you should finalize your outline this semester and finish reading through all of your data. i would strongly recommend also writing the first draft of your MA this semester (yes, in addition to everything else you have to do). this will also be the semester that (if you still want to go) you'll be applying to PhD programs. these take a lot of time, but if you get a draft of your MA done early in the semester, you may wish to use it as your writing sample. semester 4 - redraft your MA however many times are necessary and defend it. summer 2 - if your PhD applications went well, then relax. this is probably the last free summer you will ever have until you're tenured somewhere, which will be 12 (at the shortest) to 20 years away. enjoy it. take a couple language courses if you still need it, read a few more books in your field, and if your MA advisors say so, consider submitting your MA for publication. if the PhD apps didn't go well but you still want to apply, in the summer you should be writing and rewriting your SOP. your now-finished MA thesis can be your writing sample (redraft as necessary). make contacts with potential advisors in september, do it early. as for conferences and conference papers, you should apply to those all year, starting in the first month of your MA. if all you have to do is write an abstract, then write one. make it up. pick a title for your paper that is broad enough that if your research changes by the time the conference rolls around (and it always does) you can write a different paper from the one you proposed (again, everyone does this) but it'll still fit the topic and the panel you're on. i strongly recommend that you only apply to conferences that are either regional (i.e. mid-atlantic council of latin american studies) or inter/national (i.e. caribbean studies association). DO NOT APPLY TO PRESENT AT GRADUATE CONFERENCES. these don't appear to be as rigorous on a CV because it is fellow grad students that are selecting your paper for acceptance, not tenured, seasoned professors. while it may be fun, while you may get a lot out of it intellectually, it won't be taken seriously by prospective PhD programs. p.s. the whole timeline i described above is exactly how i did my MA. i didn't take languages in my first year, but i took both languages and i taught in my second. during my MA, i also presented at 5 conferences. every time i submitted an abstract it was accepted, even though some of them were garbage. i learned a lot from the experience and only presented at one local grad conference because it was held at my institution and i did it as a favour to our area studies center. while i didn't have to apply for PhD programs in my second year, i was applying for a competitive national fellowship, and the grant writing process is at least as intense as the SOP writing process. this isn't to brag; it's to say that it can be done. you CAN do all these things at once. it's actually considered to be the norm for most high quality programs.

congratulations, sendiri!! i have to say, i like yale's move towards interviews and i hope more programs follow suit. the sciences already make interviews part of their admissions process and i think both the applicant and the program can learn a lot about each other (good and bad) before any decisions are made.

the thought of going to the dean because your professor is too harsh in their criticism of your drafts is ridiculous. i know the OP won't do this, but to everyone else... DON'T EVER DO THIS. holy jeebus.

that last part is the sort of stuff you need to communicate with her. she may not even realize what she is doing when giving you good feedback in round one and making you panic with negative feedback in round two. conversely (just for a bit of perspective) i know a prof that always give the harshest critiques up front so students can catch and fix their mistakes early. while this probably saves them time in the end, it also has made some of his advisees feel as though NOTHING they do is right, and that they only complete "adequate" work (it's actually very strong work, but they don't see it) after he tells them what needs to be fixed. my guess is your advisor thinks her style is working for you, so let her know it isn't and maybe you two will develop a more helpful feedback system.

a couple things. i agree on NOT going over her head to the dean. you will make NO friends among the faculty in your department if you do that. other professors won't want to work with you and your current advisor won't work with you anymore either if you run to the dean before trying to sort this out internally. her behaviour is not without some fault, but there are a few things to consider: how substantially do you change your project between the first "good" draft and the second "bad" one? sometimes the work you do to fix something good can actually generate more problems. she also may be noticing problems on a second read-through that she didn't see on the first look, which is normal. and correcting her own additions is also normal, because as writers we are supposed to self-edit and not every suggestion she makes will ultimately be a good one (and hopefully we will all recognize that in our own writing). story time! when i was working on my MA, i showed my advisor a full outline that she loved. i then executed the outline to her specifications and on a quick read through, she said it was all good, no worries, she'd give me a full edit in a few days. then, two weeks later she emailed me letting me know she'd re-read my paper carefully 3 times because there were such huge problems and i had to do a full re-write. total do-over. on an outline she had enthusiastically endorsed. and you know what? she was right. the original draft WAS a mess. but neither of us could see that from the outline version or even from a cursory reading of the full paper. my guess, however, is that isn't exactly what's happening here. i have seen professors sabotage their own students. they hold them back for years at a time. they completely derail talented students. some stuff is deemed brilliant, then immediately ripped apart. this is not a constructive working relationship in the long term for you, particularly if it attacks your confidence without ever rebuilding it. i suggest speaking to the director of graduate studies about this problem. BE SPECIFIC. it's the DGS's job to try and sort these things out, so don't go in there and make things seem better than they are. be blunt. the DGS knows this professor and (since this happens to other students) probably knows about this particular issue. he/she can help you navigate your way out of it. i also feel like some students (especially the best ones) need to be broken in a little. we arrive in grad school having never failed. but in order to grow as thinkers and scholars, we need to really push ourselves, which means (for some of us) that we need to be told our best work still isn't good and then we need to dig deep, move past it, and produce something even better. not every student would benefit from this sort of process, but in retrospect i feel like it's made me MUCH better at what i do. it's possible that this sort of logic is informing your advisor's actions. that doesn't make it healthy or normal, but it means it might not be malicious either. in any case, it's clearly not doing you any good (whatever her intentions) so i suggest speaking to your DGS about how to either build a better working relationship with your advisor or to switch to someone else. good luck.

zotero's newest (as of a few weeks ago) version is great for citation management. just adds a button to your browser. click it when you're on the page with the citation you want to save and it'll do all the magic for you. for files, i use dropbox for all of my working documents. main folders: comps, conference materials, dissertation, grad courses, grants and fellowships, grad student organization (i'm prez), MA thesis, TA material, and maybe 3-4 free floating documents i haven't sorted yet. each folder has a million subfolders as needed. i have dropbox synced on my laptop (primary computer), netbook (for fieldwork/travel), phone, and one of the computers in our grad lounge. not to mention it's all stored on dropbox's server. in addition to having everything easily accessible and keyword searchable, it's backed up in a million places with exactly zero effort on my part. it definitely isn't ideal to look at a computer monitor all the damn time, and typing my notes out slows down my reading speed, but the trade off in my time and vision is worth it. this summer, i plan to scan the books i'll need in the field before going on an 8-month research trip because libraries aren't very accessible from my field sites and i can't lug that many books around.

do any of you have your web browser set to notify you of incoming email? gmail gives me a little tag on the top right corner of my screen when i get emails, including who it's from and the first line of the email. it (theoretically) allows me to "work" (play) on the internet and stay on top of all incoming emails without actually looking at my empty inbox and hitting refresh.

sandy, pitt has started sending out a couple acceptances, but most of the acceptances won't be decided until next week (or maybe even the week after). so a few are hearing already, but definitely not everyone.

they do not care if you have a light courseload for a year or two. they don't really pay attention to WHEN you took your classes, to be honest, unless there appears to be a strong upward (or downward) trend in your GPA over time. if you have extra time at the end of your degree, i strongly suggest to use the time to take foreign languages. LANGUAGES MAKE OR BREAK AN APPLICATION, EVEN FOR AN AMERICANIST OR BRITAINIST. if you're studying US history, but you have korean, you could potentially write a dissertation about korean migrant workers in the textile industry in los angeles. already your project sounds super cool and it stands out. it'll also help you in the long term to get a job if you have a ton of languages. i've seen profs gush over a student's application with 2 or 3 languages on it. they can teach you how to do history in a year or two (and will teach you how, even if you think you already know how when you get there). teaching you an entire language is a lot more time-intensive. now, you should also have fun and have a life, so i'm not saying you need to fill your free time with classes... but if you're going to take some non-history courses, MAKE IT LANGUAGES. you'll thank me later (or not, it's ok).

re: pitt, congratulations, teachgrad!!! if i remember correctly, you're a latin americanist. so am i. feel free to pm me with any questions you might have about the program. i feel like i gave some people bad information now... i asked around on monday to see how far into the process they were, and it definitely didn't seem like they were ready to make offers yet. also, based on when they've notified in the past, i had no reason to believe they were doing things on an earlier schedule this year. if they are ready with decisions this week, i have an idea of why that might be... but i'll keep that to myself. anyone curious can pm me. i am so unreliable. sorry, people. edit: PS, i will ask tomorrow and get what info i can. it's genuinely hard to gauge if pitt gives notice in one day or 5 days or whatever because in past years, not that many applicants posted on the board here. don't give up yet! PPS, pitt doesn't accept students for a terminal MA (unless it's the joint program with the education department), but when students apply to the PhD program and don't have an MA already, they're admitted to the MA. that admission comes with 5 years of funding (usually), and the admission into the PhD program happens after the defense of the MA. all that is to say that admissions to the MA and PhD happen at the same time and are seen as part of the same applicant pool. it's just a formality that non-MA holders are admitted officially to the MA instead of the PhD.

holy shit, pitt is done?? i need to spend more time in the department... they didn't look done on monday.

to people waiting on pittsburgh, they're super not done with admissions. they usually don't notify people of acceptances or rejections until the first week of march, and this year looks no different. sit tight.

yep. tell your advisor and the director of graduate studies that you're not sure if academia is for you, that you're unhappy doing the work itself and, at least right now, you can't see your future in this field. then ask to take a year's leave of absence so you can reassess your situation. they will all say yes. they will understand. PhD programs have very high drop-out rates (somewhere around 50% of those that begin never finish) and the sooner you know you want out, the less time and money you waste there, the more easily they'll let you go with no hard feelings. once you're out, i strongly recommend that you don't trash your program in any way that could get back to them (i.e. on facebook). if you do decide you want back in after a year (and you might), it'll be difficult if they know you bad-mouthed them. also, let me say that there is nothing unfair about putting a first-year MA student in a classroom with PhD students. you're not expected to compete with them. NO ONE is comparing the 3rd year PhD to the first year MA. you're expected to learn from them. someday, you would be the 3rd year student and some first year student might feel the same way about you that you do about your peers. also, when a class assigns 2 books + articles per week, the professor doesn't expect you to read every word of every page. in order to survive the rest of the semester, i suggest that you read the articles in their entirety and the introduction and conclusions of the books VERY carefully. then read the first and last pages of each chapter. if you have time, try to read the chapters more thoroughly. if you don't, that's okay. good luck on getting out. you should be fine.

i agree in principle with everything you're saying, pudewen, except this part: i think foucault's discussion of the body in relation to power-knowledge left plenty of room for physical violence in the panopticon. his point, as i read it, was that constant surveillance kept the threat of violence alive at every moment for every transgression, which is why it didn't actually need to be exerted. but in any case, i find foucault an invaluable theorist whose own historical case study was so sloppily argued that even some of his biggest champions wouldn't defend the method. even then, i have yet to read a cultural or intellectual history published in the last decade that didn't use discourse analysis (granted, this is what i'm being assigned, not necessarily representative of the work being done in my field). i don't think we can do gender or sexuality without engaging with the concept of bodies that he (and those that wrote in response to him) built. and i don't think we can do good intellectual history without power-knowledge. one of the things i like about foucault (in addition to him being an unapologetic asshole) is, when he was challenged with theoretical inconsistencies between one work and the next, his answer was that theory is a toolbox, and you take out the best tool to tackle a given issue. need a hammer, grab a hammer, need a wrench, grab a wrench. i think that the scholars that have seen postmodern theory as an important tool among many others (structuralism, marxism, etc.), to be used when the case at hand needs that type of engagement, are the ones that have been the most successful with it. the ones that go down the rabbit hole, as you described,.... yeah, i'm not defending that. but i'm actually more alarmed that texts on theory, historiography, and method from the 1980s and mid-1990s are being taught as current (or, at least, absorbed as current, even if that's not the instructor's intention) than i am that some po-mo historians have gone off the deep end. i actually think that the scholars who refuse to engage postmodernism when it makes sense for their project are more dangerous/problematic than the postmodern historians that are handcuffed by the linguistic implications of their theory.

i have a prof that flails madly as he speaks. he's brilliant. i think there's something there...

.... is he tenured?

awesome. his work seems really fascinating, which was how i found my way onto his princeton profile in the first place. one of my favourite profs wears jeans, slip-on ankle boots (winter) or sandals (summer), and a slightly different blue plaid button up shirt EVERY DAMN DAY. i think there's a causal relationship between brilliance and casual dress.

i have not met him, but i did see his tremendously pretentious department profile photo he used to have up. sitting in front of an open window, curtains blowing, his pressed white shirt open down his chest, as he pouted those pretty lips to the camera. i mean, goddamn. i've seen some terrible profile pictures (profs with their cats, pictures of obi wan), but i nearly bruised a rib laughing at that. i was disappointed to see he changed it. i'm sure he's a cool guy, though.

yeah, that's why i said generally speaking. even if there are people who will do the cutting edge work, the culture of the departments at ivies tends to be intellectually conservative (although not necessarily politically conservative). this is why i like interdisciplinary conferences. the objectivists are usually in the minority.

damn... are any of you being taught that postmodernism was a much-needed and necessary intervention into our field?! where are all the cultural turn historians at your schools? i mean, there are plenty of objectivist professors that subscribe to the harvard-princeton echo chamber at my program, i just don't talk to them. hahahaahah.

oh yeah... i read some of cannadine's book in an undergraduate history seminar. i... yeah. i didn't like it. but then, i've changed a lot since then. i still probably wouldn't like it. well, the ivy league in particular is an intellectually conservative space (within history departments, very generally speaking). but places like michigan and berkeley are very friendly to boundary-pushing and cutting-edge argumentation. in many ways, i think we're products of our teachers' teachers, and mine have spared me the false hope of objectivity. we only read the historical establishment to trash it, basically (which is fun, but not always productive).

i loved EP thompson. (i also loved the new one that joan scott tore him). y'all are breaking my heart here.

you guys, the 90s was still 12+ years ago!! georg iggers wrote a book called "historiography in the twentieth century: from scientific objectivity to the postmodern challenge" that was updated with a new epilogue in the mid-2000s. his engagement with postmodernism (or lack thereof) is actually pretty problematic, but it's still a decent overview of historiographical trends since ranke. and it at least gets to postmodernism, even if the section heading is "the end of history?" i don't know of any historian that's written a good how to do history in the 21st century book, but... frankly... historians aren't very good at theory. that said, i think many of them have incorporated the lessons of postmodernism pretty well already. situate yourself, acknowledge your inherent biases, acknowledge multiple readings of sources, multiple legitimate historical narratives, destabilize the "objectivity" of historical sources, etc. ... i liked hayden white. but then, i also really liked foucault (for the theory, not for his "history").