menard

I drove 900 miles to my new school last month, and, luckily, I was able to fit all of my books into my small car. Last year, however, I moved out the the country and had to condense my large book collection in order to leave it in storage at my mother's house. I wound up getting rid of about 300 books. I decided to get rid of classics which would be very easy to inexpensively replace if I ever wanted/needed another copy. I also decided to part with books totally unrelated to my proposed studies in 20th century American literature. I didn't forsee needing a copy of any of my medieval, early modern, or pre-Romantic books, so I tossed those out as well.

Thanks for the advice, proflorax! I especially appreciate your note about supplementary materials, because, for some reason, I was only thinking about essays and completely overlooking songs, videos, and non-written texts. Now, I'm starting to get excited about putting together the materials for this class.

Thanks for the tips, claire! I've been feeling a bit lost despite reading my program's writing teachers' manual, so I appreciate the suggestions.

I'm starting my PhD program next month and will be teaching for the first time. I have the freedom to use any texts I want in my two composition classes, however I feel some apprehension about the possibility of choosing materials which suit my reading tastes but may not be useful or appealing to my students. Would anyone minding sharing what criteria you used for selecting texts for your courses? Were there any specific or types of texts which turned out to be problematic for your classes? Lastly, do you have any general advice for teaching a composition class?

I like both the Kubrick and Lynne versions of Lolita. Neither film really captures the sarcastic and absurd/comic personality of Humbert that I enjoy, but the films are interesting revisions of the novel. Salo is an interesting adaptation of 120 Days of Sodom. Sade's text is more gruesome in my imagination, but the somehow the film manages to be nearly as disturbing by setting the events in 20th century.

I haven't heard any news from them either, but I haven't contacted them since finding out I was on the waitlist. I'd really prefer Albany over my alternative, and I'm hoping for this next/last week to bring some good news.

Great, thank you for replying and letting me know.

After reading Timshel's post, I emailed the department, and they let me know that I was waitlisted. However, I didn't receive an attached waitlist letter, and I'm wondering what that might mean. The reply I received said: "Dear Menard, Thanks for your note. At the moment, you sit on a waiting list. We have sent out a first round of admission letters and assistantship offers. As people accept or decline those offers, we make our way through the wait list, trying to fill out a class of incoming students. Your work was highly regarded by our committee in a deep applicant pool of over 140 files. I hope that you'll be patient with us as we work through the process." Is this the same as or similar to anyone's waitlist letter?

I have one official and two implied rejections so far, and I really don't think things are going to turn around for me. I thought I proposed an interesting and unusual topic in my SOP, but, now, I think I may have doomed myself by talking about postmodern pornography.

Long books are my downfall. I repeatedly start them, wander away from them for weeks or months, and then feel I need to start them again to properly experience them. I'm unhappy that I haven't made it through Proust, Juliette, and The Making of Americans.

As someone who seriously wants to be a Kathy Acker scholar, it pains me that she was mentioned, especially in the second reply to this thread, however, I know she's not for everyone. I would recommend not reading Villette.