magog

Hi Platonist. To answer your question, yes, POI = person/professor of interest - in other words, faculty you are interested in working with. My understanding is that it indeed can make a difference whom you mention as a POI. If you say you want to work specifically with Prof. X, but, unbeknownst to you, Prof. X is about to leave the university (or has too many students already, or hates your application, or whatever), then the ad com may decide you're not a good fit for the program. This info is based on conversations with people who have sat on ad coms - but obviously every committee is different, and so is every application, so one never knows. Anyone who gives a definitive answer to a question like this is full of it, imo. As far as whether you should contact POIs before applying, I don't think it matters much one way or the other. I did, and got several offers. On the other hand, I know lots of folks who did and didn't get any offers, or who didn't and got tons. Basically I'm saying I wouldn't worry too much about it.

DePaul's philosophy PhD program is 100% 'continental', with faculty who specialize in most of the names you've listed (Hegel, Kant, Husserl, Plato, Aristotle). Two faculty members work particularly on the intersection of 'religion' and philosophy: Michael Naas (via Derrida) and Frederic Seyler (via Michel Henry). You might also check out the Syracuse Religion dept and Villanova Philosophy, as both are traditionally friendly toward 'continental' philosophy of religion, in part due to Jack Caputo's influence on both (though he is now, of course, retired).

Northwestern's Comp-Lit dept seems to be a hot-bed of such things.

Texas A&M, particularly on the 'continental' side.

These programs (SPEP-style) care primarily about writing samples, SOPs (for purposes of matching you with POIs and making sure you're the 'right kind' of philosopher), and rec letters. I can't emphasize the importance of letters enough - these programs have an in-crowd mentality and get a shit ton of applicants, so letters from the right people will get you a second look. I wouldn't worry too much about anything GRE related, these places generally have contempt for standardized tests.

I think your research interests are a little broad - my suggestion would be to tailor them to each dept you apply to, and also depending on who your POIs are. For instance, you might say "I am interested in studying transcendentalism with Professor X, and Latin American philosophy with Dr. Doom," etc. Other than that, I'd say 10 - 15 apps is a good number, that's about how many most of the successful applicants I know applied to. Also from what I know of those schools they seem to fit your interests well. Oh, also, to get more responses I'd suggest posting this in the philosophy forum.

I 'work' 8-10 hour days during the quarter. This consists of time in class, infinite amounts of reading, TA/grading work, language work, and, or course, writing. I take about one day a week off. I'm sure this varies from program to program, but it's pretty common to be assigned more work than you can possibly complete, particularly reading-wise. Because of this, you can pretty much work as much as you want, and some people I know take literally no days off. In any case, I personally can't imagine having time to work a second job... assuming they're paying you, which I hope they are, school is your job. I'd suggest finding somewhere that's not your home, whether it's the grad dept at school or a coffee shop or whatever, and treating it like your office. Go there in the morning, work, go home. Treat it like a job, because it is one. Just my opinion, and opinions vary. Good luck

There's also Scumbag Continental Philosopher. Both are pretty funny assuming one can laugh at one's self...

Language language language language. French, German, Greek, Latin.

Personally I would not have accepted an offer that did not include a full tuition waiver and some sort of stipend. However, everyone's financial situation is different. It seems unlikely to me, however, that one would be able to be successful in a philosophy PhD program if one is working an additional job for any significant number of hours during coursework. So, if it were me, I would take the funded offer with no regrets. BUT, it's not me. Congrats on the offers, in any case, and rest easy in the knowledge that none of us will get jobs no matter what school we attend.

The moment you accept the offer.

If you're interested in SPEP-style continental philosophy Leiter is useless to you. The "top schools" for such things are totally distinct from mainstream philosophy departments. Those who do philosophically oriented work in comp-lit, english, german/french, and cultural/media studies departments generally work in the SPEP style and on similar problems and thinkers as those schools - but this might not be the case for aesthetics (as correlated with art history/theory/criticism departments). Do you do the kind of "continental" philosophy done at Stony Brook, Penn State, DePaul, Memphis, Villanova, Duquesne (and the 10 or so other schools in the SPEP constellation), or the kind done at UofC, Berkley, Riverside, Rice, etc. (basically the top Leiter-ranked continental schools)? I think any advice has to take this into account, as these are different worlds.

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The last time I looked at petersons the info looked pretty accurate and up to date re the programs I'm familiar with. I've read Lieter on the subject of funding for international students, and I can only assume that he's correct that it's more difficult. However, my program (one of the main 'SPEP' schools) has quite a few funded international students, several Canadian, so it's not impossible. But I'm sure there are people on this board who have much better info on this than me.

Unfortunately, to do SPEP-type stuff there's a pretty limited selection of PhD programs. Depending on your background you might look at English or Comp-Lit programs as well, since they can be friendly to 'continental' phil. What are your interests, specifically? Also, you should definitely apply to the main SPEP schools - one never knows exactly what ad coms are looking for in a given year. One school you might check out is Texas A&M. I know Ted George (Hegel) and Claire Katz (20th century French) are there, and I've heard good things about the program. And, if you haven't already, look into all the programs on SPEPs grad school list: http://www.spep.org/resources/graduate-programs/