indalomena

Hello folks

I've been through the British system to MA level, so perhaps I can offer some inside info.

Funding is extremely scarce at the master's level. Most people just suck it up and pay (I worked for a year and saved before my MA) because you cannot get a British PhD without a master's degree, and PhD funding is not quite so impossible to get, though still very difficult.

Be a bit cautious about Oxbridge MSt/MPhil degrees. I have not met a single person who had a positive intellectual experience on one of these courses. Of course there are huge compensations -- as an American coming to the UK for a year, you would have quite a magical time at Oxford or Cambridge, and meet some fascinating people (the people I know who did these courses loved Oxford/Cambridge, just hated the course/department). But the courses are often rather poorly run and master's students not treated extremely well. This is why I steered clear of Oxbridge for MSt/MPhil. But you need to think about what you want, and these universities certainly have a lot to offer in terms of resources, social life, eating every day in a Hogwarts-like hall ...

It's VERY different at the PhD/DPhil level, because it's all about your supervisor (although, bear in mind that at Oxford you don't get to choose your supervisor...) If you have a good relationship with him/her, then you'd have a very positive experience. This is the case at any UK university, where there is no coursework towards the PhD.

You're right to be concerned about employability after a UK PhD but please bear this in mind: you can circumvent the difficulties yourself by being extremely self-motivated. You won't have so much in the way of professional preparation so you really have to take the initiative yourself, which is wonderfully possible due to all that freedom you have. Make absolutely sure you keep track of calls for papers and get out there, go to conferences. You will get teaching experience if you push for it. I did a lot of "professional activity" on my MA but I was the only one who did -- it just didn't occur to many of my fellow students, even though they were very brilliant.

I'd be happy to discuss this over PM if that helps anyone. And I hope I didn't give too negative an impression of Oxbridge/Britain in general -- the system is wonderful if you are well-prepared and self-motivated, with a clear idea of your research direction and the initiative to pursue it independently. It really is a case of getting out what you put in.

I think it's comments like this that tend to present a problem. It's perfectly reasonable to ask people to be specific in the information they require. It's unreasonable to tell them you're not prepared to "waste your time". Offering to help is great Doing it aggressively tends to upset people.

If only you'd been nicer about it and not bookended the comment with "dick" and "asshole". Your info on Penn is very helpful! So thank you! I really like the idea of Penn, but I think their early modern work is a bit too history-of-the-book focused for me, so I didn't apply. What's your focus?

In other news, I can't believe how late in January it is already. This is terrifying, decisions will be with us soon!

I wonder if I should give up gradcafe for the next two months, I have a feeling this could get ridiculously painful


UNLESS I GET IN

I think it's comments like this that tend to present a problem. It's perfectly reasonable to ask people to be specific in the information they require. It's unreasonable to tell them you're not prepared to "waste your time". Offering to help is great Doing it aggressively tends to upset people.

If only you'd been nicer about it and not bookended the comment with "dick" and "asshole". Your info on Penn is very helpful! So thank you! I really like the idea of Penn, but I think their early modern work is a bit too history-of-the-book focused for me, so I didn't apply. What's your focus?

In other news, I can't believe how late in January it is already. This is terrifying, decisions will be with us soon!

I wonder if I should give up gradcafe for the next two months, I have a feeling this could get ridiculously painful


UNLESS I GET IN

YES, because this was the week last year for Northwestern. First notifications went out on the 26th. Tomorrow could be the day. Obsessively checking everything all the time.

Right. It's bad news all around. Which is exactly why there's no sense in turning on each other.

Hoorah, rat brains rule the world these days!

I hear many say here rhetoric/comp is for rat brains. It's not intellectually stimulating at all. That's why lit people look down on rhetoric/comp folks. FYI Purdue's lit program isn't strong at all, I think, it ranks in the bottom tier. The rhetoric/comp PhD is for people who are very enthusiastic about teaching, above all else. If you have years of teaching experience at a high school or community college and loved it (which is very rare), the rhetoric/comp PhD is the way to go. The reason the job market looks better for rhet/comp PhDs is there are a lot of community colleges and small universities in the middle of nowhere where you have to teach 4/4 comp sections or more every year with a low salary. Yes, these are TT positions, and you have to teach like that for the rest of your life. These schools don't usually look for PhDs from prestigious schools (Harvard, Yale, Berkeley) because it's all about teaching, I mean, teaching often mentally challenged kids at a crappy school.

I guess I just see things differently. Maybe we have a different definition of brilliant scholarship -- I've never read anything I thought was brilliant but not engaged and forward thinking.

I also don't think utility is the most important way to judge literary scholarship.

Thinking about the profession, and impressing professors, and creating a product, is very important, and a good antidote to those naive attitudes we might have held as undergraduates. But it is possible to balance a sense of the artistry of criticism and the somewhat loftier aims of scholarship with the drive for success in a PhD program, and following that, in the academic profession. I don't think I am thinking of myself too highly when I try to do this.

I'm sure this varies school to school, and has a lot to do with how willing the dept is to accept transfer credits.


The only school that I looked at that explicitly said they prefered students without an external MA was Penn. Interestingly, they only want incoming students to apply to the MA, so who is applying to their PhD program? Additionally, they encourage students who did an undergrad and masters at Penn to go to another university for their PhD, but an external student with the same degrees wouldn't be wanted? I don't know; someone is smoking crack over there.

I don't know if that was aimed at me, but I don't think it's very meaningful: obviously, originality can't exist in a vacuum. Our ideas are formed by a multitude of influences, some too subtle to discern clearly. I just think that "molded" is a strong word to use in this context. Remember, I come from the British system, which typically involves a much more independent style of learning.

I have no problem satisfying my professors, but I absolutely disagree about your characterisation of the purpose of writing. You seem to suggest that artistry and satisfying professors are mutually exclusive. I don't write for approval. My writing gains approval, and it needs to, but that is not my prime motivation. I'm not striving for a brilliant career as an end in itself, but rather as something that will enable me to pursue those goals that go beyond that constant striving for approval.

I hope that made sense. I may have misinterpreted your post. I was a little offended by it.

You rang?


(I kid, I kid...)

I don't know if that was aimed at me, but I don't think it's very meaningful: obviously, originality can't exist in a vacuum. Our ideas are formed by a multitude of influences, some too subtle to discern clearly. I just think that "molded" is a strong word to use in this context. Remember, I come from the British system, which typically involves a much more independent style of learning.

I have no problem satisfying my professors, but I absolutely disagree about your characterisation of the purpose of writing. You seem to suggest that artistry and satisfying professors are mutually exclusive. I don't write for approval. My writing gains approval, and it needs to, but that is not my prime motivation. I'm not striving for a brilliant career as an end in itself, but rather as something that will enable me to pursue those goals that go beyond that constant striving for approval.

I hope that made sense. I may have misinterpreted your post. I was a little offended by it.

I don't know if that was aimed at me, but I don't think it's very meaningful: obviously, originality can't exist in a vacuum. Our ideas are formed by a multitude of influences, some too subtle to discern clearly. I just think that "molded" is a strong word to use in this context. Remember, I come from the British system, which typically involves a much more independent style of learning.

I have no problem satisfying my professors, but I absolutely disagree about your characterisation of the purpose of writing. You seem to suggest that artistry and satisfying professors are mutually exclusive. I don't write for approval. My writing gains approval, and it needs to, but that is not my prime motivation. I'm not striving for a brilliant career as an end in itself, but rather as something that will enable me to pursue those goals that go beyond that constant striving for approval.

I hope that made sense. I may have misinterpreted your post. I was a little offended by it.

I don't know if that was aimed at me, but I don't think it's very meaningful: obviously, originality can't exist in a vacuum. Our ideas are formed by a multitude of influences, some too subtle to discern clearly. I just think that "molded" is a strong word to use in this context. Remember, I come from the British system, which typically involves a much more independent style of learning.

I have no problem satisfying my professors, but I absolutely disagree about your characterisation of the purpose of writing. You seem to suggest that artistry and satisfying professors are mutually exclusive. I don't write for approval. My writing gains approval, and it needs to, but that is not my prime motivation. I'm not striving for a brilliant career as an end in itself, but rather as something that will enable me to pursue those goals that go beyond that constant striving for approval.

I hope that made sense. I may have misinterpreted your post. I was a little offended by it.

I was in a similar boat my senior year (2008-2009). I applied to and was accepted by the MA program I wanted, but I decided to take folks' advice and take some time off to be sure. I ultimately only took a year and worked a crappy insurance job, but I can honestly say my professional work experience totally, 100% reframed my approach to grad school. That is, I stopped looking at graduate school as "school" and really started to see it as a professional endeavor.

Looking back, I think this change of thought was something I couldn't really have understood as an undergrad -- I mean, you and I aren't the same person, so take this with a grain of salt -- but I didn't have any idea what it meant to be a professional, let alone a professional academic. Sure, people will tell you grad school in the humanities isn't a professional degree -- and I suppose it's technically not -- but it's probably way more of one than you'd imagine. You're not being taught by your professors, really -- you're teaching yourself, teaching your classmates, and being taught by them. You're not a student either, really -- you're a colleague, so you need to think, act, and contribute like one.

Now, since I've finished my MA, I've built in a year of teaching at a community college before I apply to PhDs. I decided not to go straight from one grad program to another because I saw how beneficial it was to take time off. Now, with my year off, not only am I able to retake my GRE General Test (and hopefully increase my scores) as well as teach (a lot), but I'm also able to present at a couple more conferences (this spring and summer) and really prepare well for the Subject Test.

I don't know -- do what you think is best, obviously. It's hard to get work nowadays, so you might take a year off and end up screwed for work and feel like you're wasting time... which you might be. But you could also really grow, and that growth would be invaluable as you move into whatever grad program you decide to attend. Either way, good luck -- sounds like you're committed and interested in the field, so I don't doubt you'll get where you want to be.

Hello friends,

I am looking for suggestions of authors/articles/books that explore different areas of critical theory. I love theory, and would therefore really appreciate any and all proposals. And even if theory isn't your thing, I'm sure a majority of you have had some sort of experience with it, if only through researching your own field of interest.

So anyway, any suggestions for theory readings? I am particularly interested in performance studies, disability theory, identity politics, diaspora politics, feminist theory, linguistic theory, Marxist theory...okay, let's be honest, I'm interested in it all. So please, help me form a Spring/Summer reading list!

My first suggestion: On Photography by Susan Sontag. I'm reading it now and really enjoying it. It was written in the 70s so lots has changed in the field of photography, but I think she provides a very profound foundation for understanding the influence that cameras/photographers/photographs have had on constructing culture. Plus, her theories are made all the more interesting when applied to comtemporary photography and global technology.

grievance: I WANT THIS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!! And waiting is soooooooo painful!! I'm obsessing so much that I've gone onto google street view for everywhere I've applied and tried to imagine I'm there. Lame, I know.

Forget-me-nows.

Female authors being termed "all just so awful" has physically transported me into periods in time when women began or sustained their careers under male pseudonyms.

You know, like the Brontës, George Eliot, etc., etc., etc.

ooooooops.. Sorry! I just wanted to acknowledge the necessity of a thread like this, given that we all have so many worries. But any slight hint of a crack in my resolve and the negativity just leaks out!

When I applied last time (three years ago), I checked at least twenty times a day. It was pathetic and unheathly. This time around, once February hits, I'm not ckecking at all. I will still continue to check the forums and post things, but I refuse to check the results board. It sometimes skews your perception. My acceptances to MA programs didn't arrive until late March, and, but that time, I had ruled everything out because I kept seeing all of the acceptances/rejections in late February/early March.

Anyway, for the month of February, I bought some Good Luck incense. I plan to burn one a day for the whole month. That's how I'm doing it. No results board...just incense.

I think it's comments like this that tend to present a problem. It's perfectly reasonable to ask people to be specific in the information they require. It's unreasonable to tell them you're not prepared to "waste your time". Offering to help is great Doing it aggressively tends to upset people.

If only you'd been nicer about it and not bookended the comment with "dick" and "asshole". Your info on Penn is very helpful! So thank you! I really like the idea of Penn, but I think their early modern work is a bit too history-of-the-book focused for me, so I didn't apply. What's your focus?

In other news, I can't believe how late in January it is already. This is terrifying, decisions will be with us soon!

I mean, I'm more than willing to be helpful and answer questions that people might have. I'm still more than willing to do that.

But I won't put up with entitled people who make snide/passive-aggressive statements about common sense.

I'm glad what I said was helpful. It's a shame you're not interested in history of the book--I know that that's Stallybrass's specialty...and that man is insanely brilliant. His story is one of my favorites too. He worked as a mortician for years, and is an autodidact...he would just sit in the morgue all night for years reading nonstop.

And I'm interested in Contemporary/Digital Poetics myself.