MichaelK

Congrats! Best of luck at the interviews.

Wasn't me (thank you Shaggy). Guess that makes me 0/1. Congrats to the lucky winners.

Thanks, cquin. Trust Duke to add just a bit more anxiety with double the program announcements.

Just for clarity, as far as I can tell, only the Literature program applicants have heard something, correct? The English apps are all still out, I believe.

Thanks for sharing this, Enzian. I'm applying to law schools simultaneously and law applicants post their info regularly (so regularly, in fact, that they've graphed applications and results based on the two main metrics). It's great to get this sort of insight into who had success (and also great to see you "overcome" any weaknesses those numbers might have suggested). Good luck!

Perfect.

You guys all apply lit? I'm waiting on the English side of things (and hoping against hope that the two divisions don't work on the same schedule).

Looks like you're already batting 100 koolherc. Congrats: where'd you have success at already, if you don't mind my asking?

Asked and answered above. Ivandub's for Lit.

Hey congratulations Ivandub. I've not received anything in my inbox, but it's fantastic that you're in. Best of luck at the interviews!

Just an FYI to those of you lucky enough to get invited: according to some GradCafe research, last year they interviewed 14 and had spots for 6. So, unfortunately, this first invitation won't guarantee admission. Not to be a downer about this or anything. Just trying to keep hopes/heart rates on a realistic pace when the e-mails do hit.

Prof. Rita Barnard at Penn's most recent publication is on place/space theory and Apartheid. Worth a read.

I've got a copy of the big daddy: the Norton Anthology of Critical Theory. While I haven't nearly skimmed the surface of that monster, if you're focused on theory, that might be a good pickup. Lately I've been interested in pragmatism: Sontag, Rorty and Knapp and Michaels have been on my reading list in the last couple weeks. Otherwise, I'm getting ready to rewatch Paul Fry's class on the subject. I'm waiting until I get accepted somewhere until I start, however. It's my little way of not fully committing every last ounce of free time I have to this dream. The online course, however, is very good: http://oyc.yale.edu/english/introduction-to-theory-of-literature/content/sessions/lecture01.html

I believe I read on a previous thread that Duke also does a round of pre-admission interviews. It's interesting (and a bit sad, really) that interviews aren't a bigger part of lit admissions. One would think that sitting down with students soon expected to teach others would be important. Alas...limited finances and time, I suppose.

I second Aubergine's point, but I've also got a question about these updates. I received one of these e-mails last month and everything looked "in" (except for the official transcripts, which they don't need until an offer has been made). In my e-mail yesterday was another one of these e-mails, seemingly identical to the first. Am I missing something? I've gone over each of the items...it seems like everything's ship shape, but this double e-mail has me spooked.

Penn. What would I give for a spot in that program? A few toes? A kidney? Yeah, I'd probably be up for that.

I did some searching through old posts but didn't find any specific advice on this subject. Are there any old posts someone could direct me to that I've missed? If not...perhaps you could share your opinion. As far as my applications go, here's my plan with the samples: I've got two papers that I'm working with. One, the third chapter from my thesis, is 14 pages long. The other, a seminar paper I'm particularly proud of, began as just eight pages. My thought is, first of all to do a bit of lengthening: I want to beef the thesis chapter to 18, including an abstract (to contextualize the chapter), rewrite the first page, and add some choice paragraphs here and there. As for the seminar paper, I'm aiming for something near 15 pages, either by adding an entirely new element to the argument, or, (more likely) expanding on summarized areas already there (and, by nature of it being an eight-pager, there are plenty of condensed areas in need of expansion). Lastly, of course, comes an uber-copy edit looking for all the little things. Why the two samples? The decision comes out of a lack of confidence in my thesis, despite my advisor's assurances that I have nothing to worry about, and the experience of a grad student-friend, who submitted six applications sporting his best sample (he thought) and one application with his second-best, and was accepted only to the school he'd sent his second sample to. As a related question...my SOP is VERY bound up (read: three-four whole paragraphs on the subject) with my thesis research. While I'm relatively happy with my SOP, I'm worried to a certain extent that submitting anything but my thesis chapter will raise eyebrows among adcomms. Agree/disagree? Anyone else have any thoughts on this stuff? What was/is your experience like editing papers you hadn't dealt with in a while? Any advice?

Congrats to the OP. I've got a few video games that I've been holding like a carrot until I'm done with this stuff. As for me, I've still got to do: 1. Edit writing samples (I'm working on two of them...start in tomorrow) 2. Write fit paragraphs 3. Submit I can see the end. But I'm worried about this sample stuff. I've left it till the end primarily because I can't stand looking back at old essays like this. Now that it's the last minute, so to speak, it's time to dig in.

Well said, Sparky. I was wrong to let my rant get the better of me. A failure of empathy on my part. Complain about the system, by all means, about the crap odds, the research requirements, the foreign language abilities, the financial barriers, but when push comes to shove I believe there are more deserving applicants than I (the marathon runners out there). And they should take precedence. Your suggestion that it is at moments of our greatest passion, when we have the most at stake, that we have the greatest responsibility (because we have the greatest temptation) is something I'm still learning, I'd say.

I'm afraid I can't speak to the question of aesthetics, but I can offer you my list of schools (chosen by myself and my advisor for their strong modernism programs and an openness to inquiries involving philosophy and literature). My list follows: 1. UCLA 2. Duke (tons of modernists) 3. Johns Hopkins (you've mentioned) 4. Maryland (Richard Cross) 5. Virginia (already on your list) 6. Penn (on your list) 7. Rutgers (check out Prof. Walkowitz, sp) 8. Brown (Paul Armstrong) 9. WUSTL (Vincent Sherry, Julia Walker, Steven Meyer, William Maxwell) 10. UNC 11. Stanford

To qbtacoma- You're right, of course. Despite the efforts of the past 30 (or is it more?) years, the academy still has plenty of white males. That's one thing they're definitely not short on. But rather than evidence of some underlying racism or sexism, (which I hope you're not suggesting that I'm guilty of, because, though I'm guilty of many things, it's not that), I think the reason this came out is because I was summing up all of the difficulties of the application process, all the things that threaten my application. These graduate applications are an important thing to me (and to many of my fellow applicants). Our careers, our dreams are at stake. And, whether or not I approve of affirmative action, race and gender are a factor for some english departments (Stanford, for one). After doing a tad bit of research this morning, I think my mentioning of these factors is the result of my applying simultaneously to law schools (which tend to have stronger affirmative action policies). But the point, and the reason that this made its way into my rant, is that my skin color and gender don't "feel like" the ideal of today's applicant. There are more scholarships for minorities. Departments almost all have statements encouraging diversity. All things being equal, I sense that a black woman might have a better shot with an admissions committee than I would. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing (though a discussion affirmative action is worth having). Seen through the perspective of the history of inequality, allowing a passionate woman or a passionate person of non-white race to take precedence over my (white, male) application seems a just thing. Both groups (as we all know) have certainly been seated last for far too long. But, seen with unobjective eyes, with the pressure of having 13 (17, if you count law) of these applications before you, and with so many things that "could go wrong," I wrote my rant with the sense that my race and gender are one more strike against me. For this applicant, the process seems like a field full of those old fashioned bear traps, and race and gender are one more thing that might catch me before I can make it across. Some of the other things I listed here: 1. Errors of omission in the personal statement 2. "Newness" of research 3. Financial barriers 4. The difficulty of securing recommenders 5. General level of contextual preparedness 6. The small cohort sizes, the massive number of applicants 7. The importance of foreign language ability For a more eloquent defense of using race in admissions decisions than the one I have offered, see this: http://merrill.ku.edu/IntheKnow/policyarticles/stewart.html I do apologize if my statement has offended anyone. My reference to race and to gender was meant in this context.

To Rems, While I think I have a slightly less dim view of the value of criticism, I think your point about the influences of money and prestige on English department is well taken. There are reasons for the limits placed on scholars of literature, and not all of them are as high and pure as we would like. Universities care about publishing rates, awards, grants, fellowships, and rankings. And that pressure plays a role in what type of study is sanctioned.

To Gruntydagnome: Thank you for your perspective. Like you, I've been able to put at least some distance between myself and school. I actually graduated in December, so I've had a year without the every day pressure of this stuff. But, despite my moaning, and frustration, and anger, what I can't help but return to is that deep down I accept the terms of the game. I accept that to read and write and think for seven years is to live in poverty (frankly, I'm sometimes surprised they're willing to pay us at all). I accept that most of what graduate students write must be derivative, that it must fit within the critical narrative of the time we live in. I accept that the job prospects on the other end are crap. I accept that it is impossible to get into. I accept that I will feel always (or at least for years) that I am far out of my depth because I have not read widely enough, studied far enough, learned enough languages. This is the hand we have been dealt. And, despite how horrible it is, I'm willing to play it. The reason I'm still applying this season is because I went home after graduating in December and dove into works of critical theory that I hadn't read before. I couldn't help myself. I started reading Henry James. I started in on the GRE subject test material and read books I wouldn't otherwise. I love reading. I love talking about books. And I especially love doing it with people who are as passionate as I am about it. And the chance to continue doing what I love, even if it's at $12,000 a year, in the middle of the most awful city in America, with my research wings clipped down to size--even that seems like something of a miracle.

Responding to Two Espressos: I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this matter (it's a problem that I've been wrestling with, off and on, or some time now). I believe we are in agreement on the point your maxim sums up so nicely: "There is more than one right answer, but there are many wrong ones." I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, and would not attempt to argue that all criticism is of equal merit or value. Rather, the two points that I've been attempting (badly) to get across are: first, an objection to the process by which we select the right and wrong criticism, and, second, an objection about the level of emphasis that literary studies places on research in general. To the first of those objections, I want to suggest that when it comes to deciding what criticism is "wrong," (or, put another way, in determining the merit or value a given piece of scholarship has earned), we have become reliant on criteria that seem unnecessarily limiting. First, the demand that scholarship "fit" within the accepted narrative of critical development: i.e., should I submit as my writing sample an essay on Henry James which traces an element of biography through The Ambassadors, it is likely that an admissions committee will object to my use of an "outdated" critical method. Second, the demand that scholarship "say something new": i.e., should I submit an essay on Henry James' Ambassadors that, while it genuinely expresses what I felt/thought while reading the work, treads on ground already covered, an admissions committee will object to my regurgitation of old critical scholarship. Obviously these points are interrelated: "saying something new" in literary criticism often means employing the latest techniques to analyze a point of literature. My point here is not to say that "newness" of research or an awareness of the status and trends in critical conversation and methodology are useless and to be cast aside. There is much value in both of these criteria: scholars must be aware of the conversations at hand to be an educated part of the critical community and I'm not entirely sure that research that fails to say something "new" can be rightly deemed research...perhaps "personal exploration or narrative with a text" would be a better characterization of such work. But my conclusion is that literary studies today have made these criteria (even for us applicants, struggling still to gain our footing) absolute and final requirements in the valuation of critical scholarship. In reading the posts on this forum, in speaking to my literary friends, I wonder if there isn't a better way? Must all accepted criticism meet these standards? Must scholars who seek to be accepted bend into these hoops? What of scholars who (returning to my second objection, the over-emphasis on research) regardless of their skill at close-reading, their depth and complexity of literary understanding, their prodigious talents at teaching, are turned away from the academy because their research does not meet these standards? In my utopian, well-funded school, I want there to be room for such people as well.

A final point, which I think might be the real crux of the matter here. The paradox of the modern scholar: 1. Truth is relative. 2. But some works of critical scholarship are more valid (true) than others. At least for me, these are two conflicting premises, both of which I hold to be true. From what you've written, Swagato, I'd venture to say that you agree at least with #2, and that one basis you might suggest for determining which works of research are more valid than others would be "correctness" of method. If Criticism A employs a critical methodology that arises from a social or cultural condition to meet a certain object, that criticism might be more valuable than Criticism B, which employs a methodology undetermined by the social or cultural conditions which produced that object. I'm not sure that I disagree with that basis. But I'm concerned that we allow "correctness" of method as a determining factor to become a definitive, requisite factor in the evaluation of research. Obviously, based on my rant, I've not yet worked out a new valuation system for research. I'm waiting until God calls to tell me to take over the academy to start in on that project.