HunkyDory

Yup, saying something factual meant to elevate the conversation? My bad bro, I should know better

Every MFA I've talked to HATES Creative Writing PhDs. They talk nonstop about how they're worthless and do nothing but attempt to lower the value of current MFAs...and that most people don't take them seriously at all. That's just what I've been told tho. YMMV

Check out Charles Bernstein's "Attack of the Difficult Poems"--in one of the essays early on he talks about Buffalo and the general shift of other PhD programs away from just creating critics to creating scholars who can write critically and creatively, and teach both. I know a large part of getting my PhD is to study things related to my personal poetics that I'm developing, as well as make me more marketable as a writer.

At the recruitment weekend they described it as a primer to writer the Master's thesis, so I think it's more focused towards that. I wish there were some good Lit Theory courses though--that's the one thing I really want to get stronger with.

It's this one: E 384K • Approaches To Disciplnry Inqus 35775 • Wojciehowski, Hannah C Meets W 600pm-900pm PAR 210 hide description This course will allow students to gain a fuller sense for the complexity and variety of research methods available to literary scholars. We will spend the semester thinking about literary and cultural criticism from the inside out—that is, we will be reading and discussing the methodological and argumentative moves that scholars make. Along the way we will ask a number of urgent questions: How do scholars read now—and how did they read then? What is the status of theory in twenty-first century literary studies? How does the fall out from the so-called “culture wars” inform and inflect current practices? What do we talk about when we talk about archival research? What would it mean to “always historicize”? Finally, what are the relations between our roles as writers and professionals? The conversation engendered by such questions will better position students to embark on Master’s Report and dissertation research. The course will also: introduce the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and other collections-based resources; offer a shared, “cohort” experience for all second-year graduate students; help said students further orient themselves to both the department and the profession.

It's Three...but that doesn't include the Lit Survey course that you TA.

It's a bit of a narrative hook, but I don't think this device really has a name--it's pretty standard for the construction of plots when relying on dialogue/first person perspective. To have people explain everything in this sort of format (in this case, epistolary) makes no sense and is unrealistic--it would be exposition that doesn't occur in the world. Same reason in dialogue, people will refer to things that they're both familiar with without explaining them immediately after. It's just good writing, and a basis for narrative structure in general.

I'm not sure about Undegrad classes, but I would assume you just audit them if you like, and take grad classes for credit. My only MUST TAKE is a Benjamin class in the Comp Lit Department.

Aeplo--totally agree about the heat, August is going to be miserable. And I love how uptight and defensive people get on these boards (so easy to troll!)-- forget pretentious douchebags, a lot of people need to take themselves a whole lot LESS seriously. And for the record, the two worst states are Nebraska and North Dakota.

This is honestly the stupidest reason to think about schools. Go for good programs with good funding that fit you--the idiotic stereotypes you have about a state just make you seem like a jackass when you put it like that.

I thought the visit was great--only PhD offer so I'm definitely going.

Just emailed Lee Parsons since I hadn't heard back yet. Said I should have been notified already but I was rejected. I haven't seen any other responses of rejection on the results page, so I don't know what happened that seemed to have dropped the ball on that? My status page online still isn't updated either.

Eh, no reason to be offended. Besides, you got a number of offers already. I was always so so on NYU...they fit great with me, and studying Pound under Richard Sieburth would have been amazing...but for the cost of living in NYC, their funding is SUPER weak.

Applied for the PhD, and just got an email accepting me to the unfunded Masters Program. Wish I was a millionaire.

fredngeorge, which schools are you applying to? Top tier? Mid tier? Wouldn't there have to be some fundamental flaw with you app for across the board rejections 4 years in a row?