HunkyDory

I wanted to chime in on this, as someone who lives really close to Texas and knows A LOT of Texans (little of them from Austin). While Rick Perry and GWB might paint a picture of Texas as being a gun-toting, death penalty-loving, crazy Republican rich state, it's not. You have to remember, Texas is a HUGE state and while a majority of them are described as what I said above, they are spread out over distances.

As people have said, Austin is a hippie-commune "blue-state" in the midst of all the red, but Dallas and the surrounding cities and San Antonio and the surrounding areas are very interesting and culturally rich places. The state is also full of people that are just like you and me (expect Texans are fiercely loyal to Texas). I've known people from both of these areas who are staunchly Democrat. One voted for Hilary in the democratic convention in Texas. It's all about who you know and who you surround yourself with.

It's been said time and time again that if you want to be an academic, you have to realize you can't choose where to live. You really have to leave biases such as the political climate or observed stereotypes of that state at the door.

Of course, Austin is within the state of Texas, so there is that issue.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Two Espressos: Dokkey's post is correct for two reasons. The first being that one should certainly not make decisions solely off factors such as how "elite" the institution appears or via relatively uninformed a prioris based on either a welcome reception or projections concerning a school based on its location (although location should certainly be a factor).

The second point he makes (although without at all being aware of it) is that every discipline is filled with pretentious jerks, in fact some of the most egregiously unselfconscious cretins you'll likely encounter. This is important. It should go to show that the academy (like the individual institution) should not be romanticized, as it is not abstracted from many of the petty, undesirable features of normal jobs (quite the contrary) and is becoming increasingly less secure and more competitive. In applying, you'll be fighting tooth and nail for a slightly-better-than-subsistence financial allowance, in order to be more overwork than you've ever been and write scholarship that only a handful of people will read or care about-- still all the while have to deal with bloated egos such as our model one (qua departmental politics, rivalries, administrators who will do everything in their powers to incinerate your budget/funding, etc).

You have been warned, good luck next year.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Authorial Intent AND theory are both passe.

It's all about Digital Literatures where it doesn't matter what you say because you're laying the groundwork the field. Yeeeeeeeah boooooooi

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?

They sent an email about the recruitment weekend and CC'd 29 people on it. Assumedly those are all people offered admission, but there very well may be an administrative person from UT in there.

The Visitors days themselves are April 5/6. My guess is SXSW made it happen later than other schools.

Bear in mind though--29 offers of admission doesn't mean they necessarily want a class of 29 students. Many schools make more offers than the number of people they want, expecting maybe a third of them to go somewhere else.

Good luck to you though! UT is my only offer so far, and it looks like I'm going to be attending. But I'm not in even the remotely same field as you, so take comfort in that fact?

What's it like to be illiterate and pursuing an English PhD?

Pretentious?



The key part of being pretentious is that there is no merit to back it up--presumably at this level you should have some merit.

So you can be delusional, self-important, elitist, condescending, douchey, sycophantic, and so on. But you shouldn't be PRETENTIOUS.

Regardless though, it's always good to keep a sense of humor about what you do.

I just used this GIF in the Brown topic but I feel like more people would like it:

I just used this GIF in the Brown topic but I feel like more people would like it:

Oh stop overreacting. I don't even care about the "canon", but there is not a single possible framework you can use to justify Eggers and Rowling over Joyce and Pynchon. All a statement like that says (and especially the criticisms of Joyce that show a complete unfamiliarity with his work) is that this person has no business in an English department--they can't think critically, and their intellectual comprehension is nonexistent.

I'm just stating the facts--if you want to get into academia, the holistic holding hands approach is pointless. I like Pound's notes on the Wasteland manuscript--forceful and not putting up with bullshit.

What's it like to be illiterate and pursuing an English PhD?

What's it like to be illiterate and pursuing an English PhD?