Rupert Pupkin

I disagree with the last post. While an MAT may not help you get into an English PhD program, teaching English classes while you get your MA can be a factor. It's not going to count more than the quality of your writing, but when schools are potentially investing years of funding in you, the certainty of your teaching ability is something they're likely to at least consider.

Since when are historicist and conservative synonyms?

Half of these figures are canonical.

It must suck to go through life constantly suspicious and skeptical of everything, never open to the intensified moments of consciousness a great work of art can give you. Is it really so bad to let yourself experience a work of art, to say "this work touched me in a unique way," rather than explaining those feelings away and exposing it of some wrongdoing? What is the result of this skeptical framework? What happens when you finally surmount the boogeymen who have been trying to brainwash you with Shakespeare? What are the ends of a literary criticism driven entirely by suspicion? Because we've been doing it for several decades now and, quite frankly, I don't really feel a lot of vigor left in the project.

/end profession. If Paradise Lost can't be deemed superior to anything else other than in the context of empire and ideological control, we've lost the plot.

How do you determine what works you study? Whatever you happen to stumble upon? If we've entered a "post-medium condition," why not read your grandpa farting as a "text"?

But an "aesthetic worth valuation system" is necessary to determine what works are used in the more interesting pursuits. If not, we enter a nihilistic abyss. Aesthetic value is irrelevant in choosing the african-american and queer works you study? Why do you study them then? Two Espressos isn't saying our entire project should be to categorize and rank works based on aesthetic value. I believe he's saying, as literary scholars, aesthetic value should play a role in determining which works we choose to study; otherwise, we just become second-rate social scientists. ETA: This was in response to Trip Willis.

TE, I have observed your posts and can relate to your agonizing over specific interests. It definitely seems like you are asking the "right" questions and making the "right" kinds of inquiries. You are already articulating your interests much more clearly than you were several months ago, and you've got months to go until applications are due; I certainly was an unrefined applicant at this point last year. Your passion shines through in all of your posts, and I think based on the progression you've shown on the board, you've got a great shot at success next year. I know a lot of the anguish you feel about your interests is personal in nature, but I think that a lot of the pressure we feel to neatly define attractive interests comes from just how damn competitive this process is. It sure made me crazy as I attempted to stand out from the crowd.

I sense a developing trend (or at least a more accepting stance) back toward formalism. As a formalist myself, I feel as though I won't necessarily be a pariah within my department the way I might have been 10 years ago. My department has actually hosted a conference on "New Formalism" in the past couple years, which has me pretty excited. Based on my interactions on this board and elsewhere, I sense that there are many scholars of our generation who are disenchanted by the domination of cultural studies and seek a return to aesthetics.

Has it not sunk in for anyone else? This still seems totally unreal to me. I can't even envision myself being in grad school, especially not while earning money for it.

This. I spent the summer prior to the application cycle writing my sample from scratch. Focusing more on research/thinking/organization than length, I spent a month reading every single piece of relevant scholarship that I could find, a month writing my paper, and a month revising. I ended up having a paper that easily fit the 15-20 page requirements I was facing, however, the 12-13 page paper I ended up with after revision was much stronger.

Thanks Two Espressos. It really is a great program. I just thought I would add to the conversation and hopefully make other people realize that these types of thoughts are normal.

Sadly, I feel some of this too. While I am truly excited about my top 25 destination, I still feel a little sore when I read people talking about some of my dream programs. I feel pretty guilty about it when I do, but I've always had this petty prestige envy. I think it stems from the fact that a lot of my cousins and family members left the southeast to go to really top-tier schools, while I stayed at my state university. I should just feel lucky that I got in anywhere and extremely gracious that I got into a school so highly ranked, yet I still feel envious when I see people discussing tip-top programs. I hate it.

Are you saying that you think Universities only admit lower-class students out of tokenism?

Yes, the job market is very weak, but I feel like everyone who is embarking on this journey already knows that. Sometimes I wonder why there are so many people who get off on trying to dissuade us. Sure, some people believe they are offering pragmatic advice to naive, starry-eyed students, but I sense that a lot of people criticize this process out of envy, bitterness, and resentment. The job market in the humanities is not the only thing currently in shambles. News flash: the entire economy is. I am currently working 30 hours/week at $10/hr as an errand boy at a large, soulless corporate law firm. If I want to continue my literary study in a fully funded program (funding that is more generous than I am currently receiving), why on earth would anyone tell me otherwise? This isn't 30 years ago. Most of us aren't turning down potential $50k+ salaries to languish away in grad school. For me the financial outlook a grad program provides is superior to the alternative, regardless of the woeful job market at the other end of the doctorate. Also, do the people who write these doom and gloom articles not realize that graduate study provides intrinsic worth? It strikes me that the type of person that would pursue a graduate degree in the humanities is the same type of person that would not conform to the worship of the dollar. Most academics are far leftists. It comes as no surprise that an argument founded upon "you won't be able to monetize your degree as much as you could in generations past" would fall on deaf ears. Why can't they understand that maybe, just maybe, we want to go to graduate school because knowledge provides us with more value than a dollar ever could.