OctaviaButlerfan

The spare money will definitely be a factor in whether I end up taking it. I'll have limited funds and most of it will be going toward actual application fees, sending the transcripts, sending the GRE scores, etc. I've only come across a couple programs that interest me/seem like decent fits that require the test, but I've got like 15 that don't require it. I'm still leaning toward taking it possibly, but it just might not happen.

I am looking for a graduate program (in Canada, the US, or the UK) that will give me the resources, funding, and flexibility I need to study cosplay. I have an MA in English, and am looking for a PhD program. I'm particularly interested in cosplay as a rhetorical fan practice, in relation to gender, in science fiction/fantasy fandoms. Right now I mostly focus on Doctor Who cosplay, but I'd like to branch out.
 
Should I focus on programs that specialize in fan studies, look for a rhet/comp program, a gender studies program, a sociology program, or find a place with lots of SF/F scholars? I'm having a hard time finding a place where I'd be a good fit, and there seem to be very few options for someone who wants to study fan practices instead of reception.
 
Any suggestions on programs or the type of program I should look for?

I have little of worth to add to what's already been said. You do have a space, but you'll have to carve it for yourself, and you'll (probably) have to be extraordinarily careful with what you say/write.
 
Though it gets just as irritating from the other side as well. If you're female/LGBTQ and you're interested in gender studies or -- to come up with a slightly more innocent example -- you're Asian-American and you're interested in East Asian politics, sometimes you end up being pegged as someone who has a stake in the outcome, and that carries with it its own problems and assumptions about your research (i.e. you're not "objective" enough, as if objectivity is something to strive for in all cases).

Yes, there can be a place for you in women's studies. What you have to understand is that the whole academy is your place by default, and that the creation of spaces that don't devalue voices unlike yours is an incredibly important function of women's studies departments. If you don't understand why that is, I imagine you don't really get what the discipline is about and don't have much of a future in it.

I don't think that's anyone's intention. It's not about you. Overall, we're comparing ourselves now to our younger selves, who most certainly did not know as much about life. And obviously we weren't as sure about our life goals because we're at this point now. If you've got it at worked out, and plenty of twenty-somethings do, good for you. The assumption that we're trying to counter is that there's no upside to taking time away from school. That's not to say that those who go a traditional route are less capable. Again, it's not about you.

The other thing that I was thinking about this line of discussion since Swagato's question, is this question in response:
 
Say Swagato (or any of the other folks recently out of undergrad) didn't get in this season, then didn't get in the next season, either.  Then let's say "Swagato"  (used just as an example/name now, not as an actual reference to the person) decides  he/she needs to get a job to pay the bills because 9-12 months is a long time to wait between application/enrollment seasons and, hey, a person needs to eat and live under a roof, right? Or let's even say that Swagato decides that he/she is a little burned out by school and applications, and decides maybe a year break to focus on things other than applications might do him/her good.
 
Let's say this person then gets a reasonable job, say at a publishing firm or a nonprofit, doing somewhat interesting stuff -- editing; communications; social media related work.  It pays the bills and it's just that far from flipping burgers or making cold-call sales work to be justifiable to existence.  So now it's 2-3 years since school, and Swagato has a steady job, no longer has to live off ramen noodles, and starts to get a little comfortable.  Swagato still watches films [if this is his/her field], tries to keep up with some of the current discussions and hot topics in his/her field, and satisfies him/herself that they are keeping intellectually satisfied. Another year or 2 passes of steady job, weekend entertainment, and literature/film studies is now a hobby enjoyed in free time and in conversations with friends, and he/she has at the back of his/her head that he/she'll probably return to academia because that's who he/she is deep down, but for now he/she's making money, building a life, and gaining some interesting experience and knowledge -- including about some literature/film that he/she wouldn't probably have delved into if he/she had been within the confines of the degree program topic area he/she had applied for 3-4 years ago.
 
Then say it's somewhere between 5-7 years out of school, and Swagato is starting to feel that the 9-5 thing is just really not for her/him.  And there are these new film/literature interests he/she's developed in the last year.  Should Swagato consider going back to get his/her PhD?  Wait, he/she is now 5-7 years older than other folks who may be applying -- won't that be a hardship for getting accepted?  And let's say Swagato *does* get accepted, won't the 5-7 (heck, let's say 10) year difference that there might be between him/her and other folks applying for the tenure-track job once through the PhD program be a challenge to landing the job?  
 
Should Swagato give up on his/her preferred career/life choice now, [at age 28-33, say] because of the 5-10 year age difference that might pose a hiring challenge at top schools, and not even try?  Keep grinding out at the 9-5 job because, hey, his/her life is basically over now anyway, or at least set in stone now, right? No way academia has a spot for him/her, and he/she should probably just keep going in a direction that won't ever satisfy him/her, right?
 
Wow, that's a crazy question.  

I think Fayre's advice is sound. 
 
But as some anecdotal advice: a friend applied to the PhD program at UVa a few years ago without taking or submitting subject test scores. The department told them that they could submit the scores if they were offered admission -- which means for you that you could potentially take the test once you get to the US and begin the program -- although even after enrolling and completing their degree, they never bothered to take the test or submit the scores and was never offered any grief about it.
 
I'll bet that if you emailed the DGS or department secretary, they'll be willing to work with you so that you can still apply.

One thing that’s worth mentioning, and something that I think comes up indirectly or directly in all of the old timers' posts: Life is not a straight shot from point A to point B. Or, at least in my opinion, life is a windy, confusing set of divergent paths, and each turn of the way highlights something new about the traveler. If I had married my first love or gotten a PhD in what I was interested in at 18, oh, man. Good thing I took some years to figure it out. Life should not be about the pot of (tenured) gold at the end of the (academic) rainbow. Those of us "non-traditional" applicants have taken time out from the straight and narrow to hold unique jobs, travel, start families, maybe fuck up a bit, change life paths several times, and all of this has brought us back to academia with a fierce determination to make it a life. This is not the only life we have led, so, as BlueSiren rightly points out, we have a unique appreciation for it, even knowing the difficulty inherent in starting a PhD later in life. When the POI at my top university told me that my "non-traditional" status made me attractive to the admissions committee, I was a bit thrown off. I have never thought of myself as older or academically disadvantaged, but I am. And, like BlueSiren, my status made me interesting. In each of the interviews I did, the more I talked about my past in and out of academia, the more fascinated the interviewer became. I don't know if this will translate to the job market, but if it doesn't, there are, for me, other options. Obviously, I would prefer to have all the intellectual acumen, life experience, and emotional maturity I have now at 30 in the body of a 24-year-old. Certainly that would make this all easier. But since that's not an option, I have what I have now. And maybe this is a little too fluffy for some, but I think it's most important to develop as a human being. A career pales in comparison to that.

Excellent! GradCafe shenanigans will have to ensue 

I will also be presenting!

I will also be presenting!

I will also be presenting!

I feel that the best professors are those who marry their research and teaching into a seamless program, and one that students couldn't get anywhere else.

Example: a graduate student in Irish studies decides to focus on medieval Irish lyrics. There's not much out there, so he expands his focus to medieval Irish lyrics and their reception insular and external. This leads him to Breton lais, and he starts researching intercontinental parallels. Now he is working in Irish medieval and Norman/ Anglo-Norman literatures. There's enough there to keep him busy for the next thirty, forty years. In his survey course, he starts making connections between the work he is doing and other medieval texts as well as later literary traditions in Britain. Now he's working in Anglo-Saxon, and even Middle English, because you really can't do Anglo-Norman without looking at Anglo-Saxon. His classes have started becoming more and more comparative in nature. As he finds the parallels and the resonant themes and underlying ideas, and starts connecting and critically comparing scribes and scribal choices, his classes are taking a profound shift towards this sort of material. His students are learning how to compare a literary tradition with another, and they are applying this to other courses. Reading Yeats, he clearly sees the thought patterns that directly tie into the tradition he is researching of reverberation between the medieval cultures he's working in, which makes sense since Yeats steeped himself in them. He is able to incorporate THAT into his survey classes. Now he's started a program of research for himself that has turned into a program of teaching that is clearly having a positive effect on his students' ability to foster connections and to spot similarities and differences and critically analyze them for whether or not they are intentional or not. His teaching has grown and shifted with his research patterns, and the whole thing is going in the direction he, himself wants to go as an academic -prepping for class becomes a natural part of his research work, rather than a separate duty. This way, the teaching is part of his research - he's testing his theories and ideas in the classroom, taking the critical feedback and questions his students raise, and refining it all into articles, talks, conference presentations, perhaps a book or two.

I think great professors do this sort of thing as a matter of course, and I think it makes for the best teaching and writing, because you are working specifically in what you want to be working in, and it all goes together. You're not constantly fighting with your teaching schedule and duties versus your research and writing schedules and duties - it's all a program that works together. I feel like that is good scholarship.

Indeed, I am interested in musical pleasure. I am just starting some research about the neural mechanisms of music-induced pleasure.
 
It's a fascinating question why music causes pleasure in the first place. I believe it can happen in three ways: 1) by conjuring episodic memories with emotional associations, 2) by conveying some semantic meaning that the listener feels emotionally attached to, or 3) by pure sequences and combinations of auditory tones.
 
That last one is especially interesting to me. To the extent that music conjures memories and meaning, it is not surprising that music evokes pleasure at all. But why would seemingly arbitrary sequences and combinations of auditory stimulation cause pleasure? It has no apparent biological value. It's not particularly abstract like visual art - it can be, but not always. For some reason, particular arrangements of sound are sufficient to cause a pleasure response. It's weird, but interesting.
 
Anyway -- I'm taking your survey now.   
 
Edit: OK, a bit of feedback - I find the choices to be too limiting. Liking music isn't dichotomous, just "like it" or "don't like it." There are continuous degrees of liking. If you only have two choices, it's difficult to decide where to draw the line between them. And the third choice, "I know it," doesn't really make sense. Knowing is independent of liking. You can like something you have never heard before, and you can dislike it as well. Why not create two scales, one called Familiarity, the other called Enjoyment? Then you will get continuous data on both dimensions. I am doing something similar in my own research - except I'm looking into the different ways people can enjoy music.

Interestingly, I've applied to the same program three times. The first two, I got in with no funding, and the third time I got in with full funding! I'll be going in the fall. I have slightly difficult academic interests (Mediterranean archaeology intersecting anthropology) so it's been difficult to find program with a good fit.
 
Here is what happened to me:
Round 1: Senior year of college. 1 PhD acceptance (no funding); 3 MA acceptances with funding
Round 2: Finishing MA #1. PhD acceptance (same school no funding). 2 MA acceptances
Round 3: Decide to do a second MA (this is a big decision and I only recommend it if you have a strong idea rom faculty that it could help your education).  While in the second year, I apply, and get 3 PhD acceptances, all funded.
 
I say it's worth a shot. If they want you, they'll take you. In my case I had difficulties due to a restricted search region and my own research interests, as well as the fact that languages are not my strong point and they are really emphasized in Mediterranean archaeology. Hence doing two MA's to build up those skills.
 
Keep your chin up! I know it's hard, I've been there.
 

How did you choose which language(s) to study for your PhD? Or, how will you choose? Also, if you had no constrictions on availability and/or practicality, which language(s) would you choose? Which language or languages do you feel are most relevant to your particular interests, and why?

It depends on the field and particular anthology and journal you are comparing (e.g., in CS the most prestigious publication venue is conference proceedings, not journals). Generally, anything that is peer-reviewed is better than a non-peer-reviewed venue. In my field, journals are normally considered better than edited volumes (with caveats for particular journals and particular books edited by particular scholars). However, if the anthology is widely circulated in your subfield and is well regarded, it may be a better choice compared to a journal that will yield less exposure for your work. This is really something you should consult with your advisor about, because they will know the specifics about the publication venues in your (sub)field and how well your paper fits with particular venues that your work might be suited for. Not knowing your work or the venues you are considering, I think it'll be hard for anyone here to give very specific advice in this case.

Fingers crossed for you too!
 
On the off chance your proposals aren't accepted, when they sent that first rejection to me, they said they were going to be posting a list soon of sessions with extended deadlines to get more submissions. So maybe if your original submissions don't work out, then check out that list and see if something grabs you.

One of my professors did say I sounded like a PhD. student today.
 
 

Woo! After endless worry about admissions, and then endless worry about funding, I'm going to Georgetown's MA program with funding! Now comes endless worry about my girlfriend finding a job and an apartment and getting my a$s back to the U.S.A. in time.

It should not hurt your application or your CV at all. Yes, it is important to convey a focus (particularly in your SOP), but it's also important to show that you're capable of engaging in the sort of professionalism that the field demands. I think the fact that you can engage with different media can be a way into exploring how you can bring Victorian Lit to students through digital humanities (see! Anything can be spun to relate to your field!)
 
Just as an example, I am a contemporary British lit and postcolonial studies MA student (soon to be PhD). I have one presentation on my CV that deals with contemporary British poetry, but the second presentation concerns itself with adaptations of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. The first is in my field, but the second is not, and when I went on PhD visits, every school that I went to mentioned how appealing of a candidate I was because I had actively participated in conferences. None of them brought up that one of my presentations was outside of my focus.

I'm more of a Project Muse gal myself.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person worried about getting cut off from Jstor after graduation!

Ha! The moment this forum has been waiting for... when fat studies and animal studies converge.

Seriously, I need help here.  I have to randomly search JSTOR several times a wk to see what other people have to say about all the random thoughts in my head.  I graduated with MA in December...they are about to cut me off from my access through the school.  What will I do!  No JSTOR for one year until I "hopefully" get into a Phd program.  I must find new hobbies!