mvlchicago

tbqh I think this is a problem we're all going to have: it's hard to believe that no matter how unique or interesting our dissertation topics are, someone hasn't already written something about them in the long century of historiography. I think finding your look-alike dissertation early is good because you can think about how your project diverges from theirs, and then use their research to your advantage! Hopefully a bunch of the recent trends from 2008 to now will help modify what you're thinking a little differently to make the project yours.

Guys we're in Week 11/8 how did this happen

The thing that is really most determinative of where you should apply is missing in your discussion (and this has been discussed elsewhere most recently in the 2016 Applicants thread). Do you have a research question that is precise and interesting for you to engage? Are you aware of conversations around this topic, and do you have a basic sense of what archives//sources you'd need to engage to answer that question? If you have even basic familiarity with all these questions, and can answer them without hesitation, then I don't think you really need to do the MA program from a "being qualified" standpoint. That is to say, if you apply to your top schools over a couple of seasons, you'll likely be admitted if you work on your application's ability to show your answers. The MA of course gives you more time, and a nice way to show on paper that you've got even more experience asking these questions, but you pick up an MA in the PhD circuit because the "what am I doing?!?!?!" crisis is schedule into the PhD program. I think the basic reason why MAs have become more popular over the past 7-8 seasons is simple supply-and-demand, which is to say your rejection could have nothing to do with your GRE scores, your GPA, and your broad range of experiences: you were qualified, but lost out to someone who was older and therefore had more time to do things. Even beyond that, sometimes academic politics will get in the way of your admissions at your perfect programs. Getting rejected the first time around doesn't brand you with some kind of "rejection" mark. AdComs are generally aware that applying for five to seven years of guaranteed funding to read books and write about them is a competitive process, and that any slight thing could shift the application pool from year-to-year.

Fixed that for you.

I very much doubt it. Adcoms are very aware of how much pressure there is for potential graduate school applicants and that doing the masters program (especially if you don't have one in hand) will be a safety for you. Think about it this way: the adcom sees your admission as a $300k+ investment in you by the school. The only thing that would dissuade them from making that investment is an indication that your work will not pan out. That decision is not going to be made based on your saying you would consider the MA program on its own.

^^^^ Reminder that MAs, generally speaking, are unfunded and usually expect some degree of outside funding and/or loans. As such, it can be a serious hindrance for capable students who don't have the capital required to spend a year not working.

Well done!

^^^^ Hey friend, It's never too late to email a professor; generally speaking, an email of this sort does a couple things. 1. It tells the professor to look out for your application. With 300 applicants at any given program, individuals can very easily fall through the cracks. If a professor has your email on file, but then doesn't see your application, she's more likely to email the adcom something like "hey where's this person?" 2. It gives the professor a chance to tell you not to waste time or money if there's 0% chance that you will get a chance to study with her. If you were to email someone like Thomas Holt at UChicago, he would tell you he's retiring quite soon and no longer taking graduate students. If you send an application in without that knowledge, there's always the chance that you are the 100% perfect candidate but your faculty person of interest will be on leave, is moving schools, or otherwise incapable of admitting you. That'll save you lots of "Why did they reject me?" anxiety. Re: The anxiety, I get it honestly I do. I'm still terrified of emailing my former advisors at undergrad to tell them what I'm doing (procrastinating on it for 8 weeks now woo~). That being said, this is a useful life skill; learning how to deal with anxiety in productive manners so it doesn't get in the way of things you need to do. Have you talked to your doctor about finding a therapist? It could do miles for figuring out how to control this sort of thing since no matter what field you go into (grad school or otherwise) anxiety will find its way to you. Good luck!

Unsure if I'd characterize Spivak, the Chakrabarty article we're reading, or Bhabha, as "non-Western." They're non-Western as in, they were born outside of Europe, but Spivak especially emphasizes her training is fundamentally European (ie, Western). Frantz Fanon's on our syllabus though, if only for "On Violence"...

I hold that That Noble Dream is by far the best single-volume book to give to someone who is looking to do history with little sense of what the historical discipline actually entails both in terms of methods of research and the politics of the academy itself. Whether Novick could've done so in less than 675 pages is probably a valid point, but not necessarily a fatal one.

*poof appears* oooof. I'll try to come back to this maybe tomorrow; but a couple brief points. 1. "I'm somewhat interested as it covers some of what I am interested in (Early Modern Europe) while giving me exposure to some early American that I feel like will help on the job market." As someone perpetually worried about the job market, I feel this a lot. But I want to emphasize that the Atlantic World (currently) isn't something into which one dips their foot. Because the Atlantic World as a subfield is still being rigorously challenged on a lot of fronts and few schools take it seriously (Austin, Vanderbilt, NYU, Hopkins, Harvard, Brown?) you often need to be doing twice as much work as someone who's in a traditional field; I'm currently applying for FLAS funding to learn Nahuatl, a language that is simply necessary for me to even access the sort of sources that are needed to tell everyday histories just to see if that's something I want to do. That is to say, I would resist this temptation unless your project is pushing you to ask questions about the broader Atlantic network (I can talk about my experience with this tomorrow, if you're interested!) 2. "UT Austin had recommended that I look into the Atlantic History field offered by the graduate department there." I'm unsure what part of EM Europe you're doing, but from what I know about Austin's current faculty lineup, it's not just "Atlantic History" you'd be doing, but the Hispanic Atlantic (Jorge Canizares-Esguerra and Marion Bodian are on my mind rn.) That is to say, if you're doing EM Spain, great! You likely have the languages and context. But it could be difficult to make the jump from Germany, Eastern Europe, or the UK to the specific strengths of Austin's program (and Jorge C-E really is one of the big names out there.)

Fulbright's usually the default for non-doctoral students; it's difficult without knowing much about your field or interests, but many fellowships will either stipulate they are for doctoral candidates/junior faculty or independent scholars. But most of these fellowships have in mind that you are coming to stay with them for a few months at the very least. I don't know if there are any scholarships that are particularly open to non-graduate students, and you can imagine that's for good reason: most scholarships want to know that you've been vouched as someone who has a project, and is intending to produce *something* from the time you've spent with their money. But more to the question, it's always worth trying fellowships and scholarships since half your job will always be applying for grants and funding. The more practice you get, even if it's 99% rejections, the better. You can always turn down a scholarship/fellowship if it turns out you got it + there's no way you can possibly do it.

Broadly speaking, I'm interested in questions + uses of difference as a coercive state practice within the 16th century Hispanic Atlantic World. More specifically, I'm looking at a range of sources right now dealing with the process of racialization in the context of Jewish-converso identities in the mid-15th century and comparisons of them with Black + Native categorizations in the 16th century.

Kevin Terraciano @ UCLA, Talal Asad @ CUNY, maybe William Cronon + James Sweet @ Wisconsin Madison, Matthew Restall @ Penn State all immediately come to mind for me. I'm definitely missing people but maybe it's a start?

I feel like most programs should be aware and acknowledge that finances for masters right now is a huge mess and therefore more lenient at the masters level than the PhD. I'd suggest writing a note either to the program director expressing your concern directly and the reason why you dropped it, as well as including a sentence in your SoP ensuring them you have funding in place to do the masters and will not turn them down again for that reason.

I think the strength of your languages will be best shown in your writing sample, where you'll be assessing sources in the languages with which you claim competency. I think very few programs will look at the languages on your CV and on that determination say you're qualified. They'll look at the transcript, maybe your letter writers if that's relevant, and take it into consideration. RE: Exams. Most programs will have their own separate language competency exams, after which they will add a lil certificate in your file that says "don't worry he's cool with [language]." if you're fluent/have classes at an equivalent level program you can point to and say "they certified me already" you can always point to that and see if they'll waive the requirement. Most likely, even if you have to re-do the placement tests, it's nothing that hard: worse comes to worst, you lose a couple hours in your morning.

^^ I was about to say you might as well email Alain Bresson. I don't know if I'd pick Chicago if you're only interested in Economic history. If you're looking to branch out though, Jonathan Lyons and Michael Allen are fantastic.

I'm a little confused as to what you mean by "distance learning program." Do you mean a program that does not require you to be in residence? Because regardless of your field or interest that will be a tough sell. More specifically, why are you adding to your repertoire now? Like, if this inability to relocate is only temporary, I would think your best bet is to inform the faculty at your current program and see if they can't keep you in the loop about events and discussions happening. Second, language work––especially for the ANE––is always in vogue. I'm only saying that because I don't think another MA––especially a year-long one––will be super helpful for you at this point. Good luck though~

Another thing to think about: do you see yourself wanting to teach in the States upon completion of the PhD? I know if you're from a name-brand UK school (Cambridge, Oxford, St. Andrews, LSE), you've got a decentish shot at tenure track jobs in the US, but I also know that search committees can be hesitant to take a UK PhD due to the structure of the dissertation (aka fewer seminars and classes.) I'm mentioning this because if you want to leave your options open, it will likely be easier to apply and be admitted to PhD programs in the States from your current profile, rather than continuing your PhD in the UK and trying to make the jump later. Not impossible, but definitely easier the earlier you do it.

Having several major monographs in your SoP that influence you is definitely important. Instead of making a historiographic essay, think about it as incorporating these books into your intellectual narrative: what about Marcus Rediker's work compels you to pursue similar studies? How is Billy Smith's methodology making you think about things you want to do? I think it's totally fine to be explicit on these fronts. What you want to avoid is taking the footnotes of your writing sample and dumping them into your SoP: The SoP should still fundamentally be about you and what you want to do, the monographs are simply framing the picture.

#RollTide I've heard nothing but good things about the department and cohort in AMS at Brown. If you have any specific questions I have a couple good friends from undergrad I can try asking.

Like, to answer your question on the most basic level: yes, of course there are departments who discuss the history of ideas both as a method and as the source of their work. But I don't think that's a particularly useful answer if your next step is to apply for admission. If you put someone like Ada Palmer next to someone like Nicolas Wey-Gomez, they're both intellectual historians. But you'd never apply to both UChicago and CalTech just because they're intellectual historians.

Are you actually interested in the idea of the social contract? Or are you interested in the role Confucianism played in 19th century Cosmpolitan circles? Maybe you want to talk about Spinoza's ethics and their broader influence in Christian conceptions of the individual? These are each separate projects with specific ideas. I completely understand how you want to do your project. However, you have offered no actual details as to what ideas you want to research and therefore makes it impossible to offer you advice. Intellectual history looks different at Chicago, Yale, and Stanford because there are different sets of professors working on different projects. So again, I ask: what are your interests?

The history of ideas could be a subfield; but usually there's some background to what you're doing and how you're doing it, which is what I think Telks is getting at. Your proposal sounds like saying "the history of money" or "the history of materials" or "the history of trade." That is to say, just applying to do "the history of ideas" makes little sense unless you're doing something like Chicago's Committee for Social Thought. Even then, you have ten books that you've presumably picked due to coherent thematics within the book that overlap to tell some form of story. All in all, you appear to have the same problem most people do who ask for help on this forum; you have a broad idea of what you want to do but have offered few specifics about how you intend to do it. I would suggest either going into more detail about what your "history of ideas" looks like before even considering what programs for which you want to apply.

It's okay, it's a well known trope that when one becomes a graduate student it's part of their job not to like anything assigned to them.