NowMoreSerious

There's "bunk science," and then there's bunk science. We aren't trying to get revamp the idea of bloodletting here, we are dealing with a theory that has proven to have, at the very least, symbolic and metaphoric cultural significance, and in the humanities, we deal with these things and study them. Empirical psychological studies? What does that even mean? Sure, it might be interesting, but that doesn't mean that in order to do that we need to somehow implement a plan to eradicate psychoanalysis. I don't like dealing in "different fields" either, even though I know materially, knowledges have been categorized, that doesn't mean we should appeal to them somehow in order to partition sets of ideas. In the humanities, aren't we the last set of people who give a crap about reversing this compartmentalization? Classify? We must resist and problematize classification in my eyes. Look, I understand, the humanities are under attack, for reasons much more vast and complicated than we are even touching upon, but our response, IMHO, should not be to adapt to the habits and conventions of other forms of knowledge, such as the sciences, that are being way better funded and lauded. I don't want to be romantic, but in many ways we are the last bastions, along with philosophy, of free production of ideas at least somewhat outside a corporate, profit driven context. But we are not the "sciences" and we still deal with forms of knowledge that can't quite be "proven" in the same way as the sciences do it. Is our job even to just produce "truth" or is it to also question the idea of truth? If we don't do this who will? When I hear you say clean house, I think of people who precisely want to "streamline" the humanities. Screw that. I am not playing ball with institutions in that way. Certain people want to make literary studies something that is only viable if we can come up with hard data or prove how it produces cognitive effects, or how it specifically does this or that. They want to do away with us, and my answer to that is not to try to adapt to what they want. Instead, we have fight it, and if need be go out fighting.

But does psychoanalysis have any negative qualities, though? You've nicely defended it here but I'm sure there are flaws in psychoanalysis too.

Mayyybe I can see your point with Billy Collins, but the rest are nothing to be embarrassed about. Standard excellent stuff. I heard Billy Collins read "The Lanyard" at the Dodge Poetry Festival some years ago and it was hilarious.

Congrats! Amazing news. I don't even know you and this makes me happy.

As a 19th century Americanist you all inflict great violence on my heart. At least maybe this reflects well on my future job prospects. I actually don't hate any writers or theorists. Harold Bloom bores the hell out of me, though. A lot of my friends flat out hate him. I can't even muster that emotion towards him. I find nothing he says compelling, though I appreciate his writing style.

Hello nice to meet you. I'm also applying to UCLA. Check the "Results Search" button, and then do a search of the school and you'll see what time schools notified last year. That doesn't mean they will absolutely notify on the same date this year, but normally it's pretty close.

Marx is almost too foundational for me. In the sense that if we were to really be honest about a Rushmore, it would be something like Plato, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud for many of us.

I would assume they want MLA, and that if you change your font style or size your essay will stick out like a sore thumb. Though this might not be a bad thing, I'm not sure. I know from being a Teaching Associate that if somebody even changes one slight thing like font size I notice it and become suspicious.

Great video by the way. It's amazing how much some of those people look like Hemingway.

I don't have my earphones right now but I will give it a listen/look later, thanks. Is the title a reference to Ray Carver's "What we talk about when we talk about love"?

It's one of the few adaptations that's true to the book, and yet still somehow managed to suck. Well I'd rather not talk about suicide on here but between rising suicide rates and the cultural fascination with the end of the world, I say we have a cultural conundrum on our hands whose textual representations need further study. Who do you call for that? Ah yes, us. Only we have the superpower to publish an article in an obscure journal, that maybe, hypothetically if anybody read, might save a life. Sorry I'm being flippant. But I agree that suicide is a big topic right now.

Not to sidetrack, but my favorite from DFW is Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. But I saw the movie adaptation and I didn't like it. Did you see it and if so what did you think?

Maybe somebody should make an author Mt. Rushmore. Obviously, in a "scholar or theorist" Mt. Rushmore nobody is going to list their favorite authors who primarily write fiction.

Love this question and it's a tough one for me. Some theorists have been so foundational to my thinking even though I no longer subscribe to most of their theories. Freud, for example. I cannot even imagine getting interested in academics at all if not for reading Freud as a young teenager. Off the top of my head and subject to change: Giles Deleuze Foucault Louis Althusser Fredric Jameson

don't feel bad. Their probably just put all of those STEM apps into a computer algorithm, which then sends interview emails to everybody over a certain number. The whole thing probably takes .147 seconds. In the humanities we do not operate that way......yet.

Luckily for me, money was not much of an issue since I am poor and qualified for many types of fee waivers and put a lot of time into arranging the required paperwork. I also wish I had applied to some American Studies programs, especially the one at USC. Great work they are doing there, it seems, and their grad students are diverse in every sense of the word, which for me is a plus.

I figured I'd make a thread where we talk about schools we wished we had applied to, either because we learned new information or just were on the fence. Mine: CUNY - unaware that their funding improved drastically. UC Riverside: In the interests of time management, I had to exclude a UC and Riverside was the short straw. I presented at a conference there and I got good vibes from both faculty and grad students.

I can bet that if I get into any of the same schools as certain posters (and they accept), I won't go even if they are the only programs that accept me.

Although this is my first time applying, past applicants have told me that the the best thing NOT to do is come to this message board.

I got an A- once. I framed it and put it next to my "outstanding citizenship award" from the 6th grade.

That (100 reasons) blog is mostly repetitive and pretty bad. It definitely normalizes things like "adulthood." "Ooo your friends are buying cars and houses and getting married with kids and you're reading books in graduate school!" Oooo, yeah who gives a ****? It also acts as if hierarchies, low pay, competition, humiliation, idiot bosses, lack of job openings, and lack of appreciation are specific to academic life. I have worked in different sectors, from retail to industry (which was my career for a while), and I prefer academic life to those two jobs.

I've completed 14/16 of my applications and I have no desire to check anything or do anything. My last two are due in mid-january and I don't even want to think about them. Go out for a beer or something. Get hammered, or [something]. If any of you were in Los Angeles I'd take you out for a drink just on principle. Ya'll be uptight. And yeah I have found mistakes on SOPs I've sent out. But I do one last read-over before submitting and that's helped.

I'm applying to one and that's what everybody tells me. I heard the trick is to make sure your dissertation brands you into one of the main disciplines. In other words make yourself legible to literature, history, or philosophy departments, for example. This kind of takes away the point of doing an interdisciplinary doctorate in the first place, but oh well.

congrats! On the chili pepper! I spent over 2000 dollars on new shoes and sportscoats early this year in hopes of getting a chili pepper, but i guess you can't buy your way out of ugly.