antihumanist

I did my M.A. at Georgetown - it's an amazing program with excellent early modernists - I worked with the main drama scholars in the department and they're great. The two new Miltonists they hired are also absolutely amazing. Honestly, I'd highly recommend putting in an app to GU's M.A - it really preps you for Ph.d. work, and if your advisor thinks that a MA might help you, GU is definitely going to really help - I came from a school not at all known for its humanities, and GU definitely upgraded me and made me more competitive.

Look to the lower right of the text in a post. there's a red arrow and a green arrow. Green = good, person gets a better post rating. Bad = down = red = people get warned or something? I don't know what it does actually, just that on reddit it equals internet points.

Ex-GU M.A. student here - some of us have also lived in Arlington/Alexandria. There's a shuttle from Rosslyn, so if you don't mind a 20-30 minute ride via metro/GUTS bus, there's lots of affordable housing in those areas too.

This is why the classical "top 20" programs definitely turns me off. I mean, I'm biased a bit cus i'm going to UCI, but the theoretical environment there felt exciting and cutting edge - the people were talking about things that I found totally interesting AND socially relevant. I mean, granted, I'm also biased because I'm very influenced by Marxist criticism, but I would never want to go a program that was really prestigious but held a bunch of scholars that didn't do political as well as academic work. And this isn't to say that the Ivies don't have scholars that do that, but I sometimes feel like their work (especially the big three) isn't as politically-theoretically exciting as some of the other schools (Michigan, the UC's, etc). This is a bit biased, but still, it's my impression. <edit> obviously, a program with a bunch of theorists will probably be in some form of top 20, and this post is totally infected by my political bias, but still.

I mean, obviously you'll want to apply to quality universities thestage. But to imply there's a firm "top 20" when there's so many different subfields and specializations is an impossible taxonomic task! I mean, what is the "top 20" I'd understand "top 20 early modern" but even then, are these top 20 for historicist/archival early modern or top 20 for theoretical/marxist approaches to early modern! To imply that somehow there's a firm and set "top 20" that guarantees jobs is just silly. I mean, how does one even qualify a general top 20! It's more that I have a big problem with the very idea one can qualify a top 20 institution without a nod to subfield is just silly. Like, sure you might be going to a "top 20" but if none of the scholars do what you do, you're gonna have a bad time. This is to say, there's rankings for every subfield, but those rankings don't *always* reflect the standard "top 20." This isn't to say the top 20 aren't strong in most areas, but you'll probably be better off doing your school search based on your strengths rather than general institution strength.

Really, there's plenty of schools that might not be top 20 overall that are amazing for specific interests. The fact that there is even a list of "top 20 schools" ranked regardless of subfield kind of shocks me - shouldn't all rankings be based on subfield/area of interest over some arbitrary "general" ranking? I mean, there's obviously schools with the resources to do all major fields, but even that doesn't necessarily equate to strength for a particular applicant. For instance, I do very theory heavy approaches to early modern drama, and a school that is considered top 20 for early modern drama still wouldn't be a good fit (or arguably top 20) for me if they didn't have scholars who were interested in my theoretical approaches. <edit> for Two Espressos: Episode 1

Ah. Didn't realize they had forums.

CHE?

My favorite gif. Have an upvote. Also, Tim and Eric are freaking geniuses. Their Go Pro show is awesome.

In addition to all said above, creative writing really won't help you getting into an English Ph.D. Not that it can't be a nice addition to your application, but "creative writing" work isn't what the humanities Ph.D. does. Really, you should seriously look into what a Ph.D. in the humanities entails (the horror of it all) because no offense, but from your post it sounds like you're woefully misinformed what the point of graduate study is... Besides, depending on your areas of interest, the Ivy's might not even be the best fit for you! There's more to academia than the Ivy League.... Anyway, I'm not even sure if this is a troll or not, so I'll just leave it here until OP replies to prove some good faith here.

Just sent ya a PM with some contact info if you have any questions! CONGRATS.

As an English person I couldn't tell you what posthumanism brings to philosophy Bernard J. However, the fact that you have things, animals, and such that are "almost" human is the very thing that posthumanism embraces. It's also about the fact that without language, tools, and things anything recognizably "human" wouldn't exist - so the very idea of human is bound up in posthumanity. The focus on cognitive ecologies and spaces is similarly bound up in the fact that the essential core of "humanity" itself is tenuous at best. If you want to get the crashcourse - Donna Haraway's "Manifesto for Cyborgs," Andy Clark's "Natural Born Cyborgs," and N. Kathrine Hayles's "How We Became Posthuman" are all great starting points. There's also a great essay by Gorgio Agamben called "What is an Apparatus" that takes a very posthuman view of power and subjectivity.

Congrats! It's a great program, are you thinking of going??

I definitely got that vibe too - it's a very driven program. While I'm not poetics (Early Modern English), I definitely felt like the atmosphere at UCI was just so positive - and with morale high, excellent faculty, and a driven cohort, it's gonna be awesome.

Holy crap, did I meet you at the intro weekend?

After being courted by several schools, I'm going to UC Irvine. Glorious southern california sun-factory.

After a wild and crazy ride, I've accepted WUSTL's offer, so I'm off of Irvine's and Vandy's waitlist. Good luck folks, and remember, these things can convert!

Thanks, though my liver does not thank me. I'm playing "Grad School Chicken," or as my friend calls it "Playing for Pinks." Rules (for those who have been playing along/want to play next year/want to catch up and join me): 1. every rejection before acceptances = 1 night of debauchery and drinking to excess. 2. any rejection after an acceptance = no drinks for you, you're already in somewhere you dumbass. 3. waitlists = bonus round. You get to drink no matter if you're in or out. 4. Acceptances = get drunk as shit as well. Even though I got one acceptance fairly early in the cycle, my waitlists were already breaking my liver, and now getting in off them = liver hates me. While you don't have to take these nights of excess immediately after hearing word, it is encouraged.

Oh lord, just got in off the Toronto waitlist. These things do happen people. Though now I have to make a choice, not sure how I feel about this newfound agency.

It's amusing, but it's also really irritating. Why would you embrace the "useless work" shit? Why don't you find a political/rhetorical purpose to your writing? Also, the idea that somehow reading the classics make an English scholar is also pretty reductionist. Jimmies are 30% rustled.

This is a fantastic article. While I already agree with most of his premises (who is doing this for love??? (not that you can't love the material you work in, but still, if you don't have a political/pedagogical/practical purpose, why are you doing this)), the stuff at the end talking about ways to dole out your work to journals, etc - very enlightening.

I have no more upvotes, but you are rocking it my fellow comrade! So I will give you this animated gif. (also, I'm happy to have been quoted :-D)

>There is no getting beyond that. Quibbling with the semantics of what you want to call "human" isn't a profound shift. We're always, in the end, just projecting our consciousness onto other things. That is what phenomenology will tell you. Then where is the seat of consciousness? It's not a theater of the mind - modern cognitive science suggests that it's only through the overall network that humanity/subjectivity/the mind even can exist in any recognizable form. So, what "special neuron/section of the brain" houses you - there isn't one. Additionally, the brain itself isn't the only factor - the embodied nature of the flesh and blood body combined with the tools we use (beginning with language as the first tool for cognitive scaffolding ending with smartphones) produce what we call the human. However, historically, this is not at all what has been perceived as human and thus the "post" in the name. And it's not simply projecting our consciousness onto other things - our consciousness is the things themselves. To an extent posthuman theory might borrow from Plato, Heidegger, etc - but takes these things as natural and in fact positive (so it's an embrace of these things ). So writing is no longer the debased form of speech that ruins your natural memory - it is an essential cognitive offloading that's part of a process we're always in the middle of and have been since we discovered language. And like I've been saying - this is important because since our cognition is literally bound up in the things that we use and spaces we inhabit, this opens the door to designing new tools, spaces, etc that can effect actual change in both our subjective experiences and broader life world. And in this post I'm simply cribbing Andy Clark. Should I crib Agamben for my next post to explain it in another light?

This. Also, it's not about firm and clear breaks between human and posthuman. Rather, it's understanding the ways that mixtures between nature and culture, man and machine, human and nonhuman, produce social conditions. I'm basically cribbing A Manifesto for Cyborgs at this point though, so I'll just wait until fishbucket shows back up.

Did you even see my post? Posthumanism suggests that the more that we work on understanding how things, animals, and environments change us, the more we can effect real change on our own cognition, subjectivity, and life world. That's the furthest thing from "impossible."