chamomile

Hal --
 
You do realize that not everyone studies contemporary art? In my (pre-modern) sub-field it is first and foremost important to have a command of the primary sources and the historiography. This takes decades to achieve. It's not really appropriate for a new grad student fresh out of undergrad or some irrelevant masters program to throw down some Onians or Lacan and try to cobble together an argument. This is not innovative or appropriate for the field, and it will not get you recognized in a positive way. In fields that are founded on careful interpretation of historical details and encyclopedic knowledge of classical languages and iconography you first become a student of tradition. it is only once you have mastered the canon and traditional approaches/methodologies that you are positioned to question them in a way that is meaningful and responsible. I can't imagine you have spent much time in graduate level academia or in sub-fields outside of your own.  

The advice is equivocal at best. Could you tell us which Ivy, which specialization? 5 year package? Stipend per year? How much teaching? Did you negotiate a better deal because you were admitted to a few programs? Please give us insight that we can use. Thank you.

This!  Let's take Alex Nemerov, a scholar who bounces between Yale and Stanford, for an example. He's working within his mentor Jules Prown's approach, but has gone further into Freudian speculation than Prown did while amping up the close reading of objects into a kind of historical art criticism. His work is creative, engaging and thoughtful, but the approch is by no means unique- many of the second and third generation Prown students produce similar work.  And many are highly successful.  Structurally, Nemerov had the advantage of the highly influential Prown, and of debuting his method in a spectacularly public fashion- the catalogue for the highly controversial West as America exhibition at SAAM.  This is not a unique situation, I think we could trace a number of lineages in the same way.
 
It's nice to think that "pushing boundaries" however one defines them will be enough to get you in and then get you a career, but a charismatic/influential mentor is waaaay up on the list too.  Isn't that why everyone applies to the same 15 schools?  When you are deciding on where you will go, choosing an advisor who will steer your career is almost as important as whether they will "foster" (ha ha) your development as a scholar. Look for those who are on editorial boards, fellowship committees, CAA board, etc...  Those relationships will come in handy.  If the professor seems isolated, no matter how brilliant, think twice. I would argue that this can work in the opposite way as well, a professor may want to work with a student who seems personable and even keeled as well as brilliant, inviting them into the program instead of the brilliant but weird kid.  From the prof's point of view the more charismatic applicant may prove more successful navigating school and career (carrying on the professor's legacy).

Outing yourself via a message board (one where you are incredibly pompous) filled with potential future colleagues is so smart. The art community of Chicago is now aware of your antics, crippling insecurity, and not so subtle misogyny. Bad move, William Keith Brown.
 
Really rad website by the way (sarcasm): http://www.williamkeithbrown.com/index.html

This is total garbage and reads like sour grapes about your own undergraduate transcript. It's also presumptuous and offensive, but God knows you didn't hurt my feelings, so I won't belabor that particular point.
 
An undergraduate GPA above a 3.5, particularly within the major, shouldn't be to difficult for any prospective graduate student. While there are obviously exceptions, it's a good baseline, and graduate programs agree - that's why programs recommend or require applicants to meet certain cutoffs. I think that once you cross that threshold, the difference between a 3.7 and a 3.9 is negligible, but to suggest that a higher GPA necessarily means a duller candidate is petty and inaccurate.
 
Reputable graduate programs also require their students to maintain a high average, and while coasting through undergrad Art History coursework on a string of B's before making the jump to A-quality graduate work is not impossible, adcomms tend to place their bets on students who already have a proven track record of academic success. They want innovative, evocative research, but they also want their students to finish.
 
While I agree that "Being an interesting scholar with challenging ideas is much, much harder to fake," I am certain that the top programs have no shortage of candidates with perfect or near-perfect GPAs, and who bring insightful and challenging ideas.
 
A lot of big talk about statistics and a "normalized sampling of students" for a Monday morning, ProspectStu8735 - let's see those stats.

Hi All,
This topic is for those who wish to openly engage in dialogue on research interests, why the PhD in art history (why not cultural studies, continental philosophy, or media studies), and any tangential discussions that break out.
 
To break the ice, I suppose I should go first, briefly.
 
As an artist, art educator, and art writer, I found art history in undergrad as an artist. It was really Dada, Surrealism, The Situationists, Joseph Beuys, and Andy Warhol that had a profound impact on my thinking. Reading, writing, and looking at art have long been important and art history has been a fascinating outlet for going deeper in cultural knowledge.
 
My interests are:
Postmodernity
Altermodernity
 
Visual Studies
Critical Pedagogy and Critical Theory
Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality, Age, Ability, Education, and Language 
Social Justice
Art Education
 
The Educational Turn
Artistic Research
Social Practice

Don't worry Hal, we'll have all the time in the world to talk, read, and write about art and theory in graduate school. But I just think that we gotta chill sometimes.
 
I betcha that if you actually met Foucault back in the day, he wouldn't care to talk about philosophy or what his PhD meant to him; he was too busy sleeping around. Or Derrida, who would actually be more likely to talk about his cat (Derrida cat memes, anyone?) than anything else--after all he wrote a whole book on his cat seeing him naked.
 
But you are right about trying to express our passion, though. I agree, we should be passionate about what we study and write about. Just look at Foucault, who wrote his History of Sexuality series while at Berkeley. In his free time, he's known to be that "mad French leather queen who whips anyone who’ll let him at San Francisco gay bath houses." Maybe we can discuss how Foucault's late turn to ethics as "care of self" might be related to his theory and practice of S&M? (Is that a serious enough conversation topic for you?)
 

Congrats to the UPenn admit!

Oh, do you guys need me to log off so that you can post things about me behind my back? That's cool. I'll log off now. 

I down voted myself too. It was fun, who knew. I must really suck.

Hey Gang, sorry for the Bolded Text in my letter to you. I wrote you that in a Google doc. and then when I copied it into the Reply Box, it just went bold, I could not turn it off (so funny that someone mentioned it), so I sent it as was.
 
The worst part of these comments are people who think my posts are too long (sad to see art historians who don't like reading). Have you ever been on any other Forums? What you write is actually meant for the Chat Section. Who wants to check in on a forum full of back-and-forth anxiety ridden one-liners? That's part of the reason I am leaving this thread. It's called "Fall 2013 Applicants" and people shoot one-liners all day long about getting in and not getting in. No one talks about their passions, why they applied, or what the PhD means for them, I tried and look what happened to me.
 
When you all get accepted to your dream programs you will be reading texts much longer and tougher than what I have written on this thread. Are you up for Benjamin, Foucault, Freud, Lacan, Marx, Kant, and Hegel? You might want to practice reading more than one line of text and posting cute animal photos.
 
For the record and just to kind of brag last minute--do keep an eye out on Amazon for a book in which I contributed called Theorizing Visual Studies: Writing Through the Discipline. I am 1 of 60 international graduate students chosen for the book, it was something I did while I was earning my second masters in education. It was a lot of fun! Maybe if you read it you'll learn my true identity, how wild and crazy would that be!
 
Lastly, if anyone wants to engage an open online dialogic community where we discuss our field, contemporary art, who is reading what, and why we want PhDs in the first place--I might start that thread topic some place if there happens to be interest. It might be fun to discuss these things while we wait for rejections and acceptances. Unlike some here, I'm an artist, art educator, and art historian with or without the PhD. It's what you love and learn, not what school, program, or degree you get.
 
Love you guys!
Hang in there.

hal, there's a wonderful point tucked into all that (bolded!!! thank you!!!) text: this forum is not a seminar.

@this fun forum:
 
Yesterday I was accused of being pompous and condescending on the forum because I posted about my field interests, interacted in an apparently not so smooth fashion, and shared a video of Hal Foster at the Clark (which is really great by the way--I did it because I thought people might like it!). Sorry to offend.

I was accused of and interpreted as a condescending a--hole, which seems strange because you are all my contemporaries, peers, and worldwide colleagues. We are all PhD applicants, why would I be trying to talk down to you or anger you? I thought I was preaching to the choir (solidarity anyone?)--an online group who is just as nerdy about art as I am! It was really strange to see the responses and unpopularity of what I shared. There was a series of childish "down voting" and popularity scoring. I could not help but feel like a child being scolded by a group of parents. If you do not like what someone posts either address them or move on, do not click a button in disapproval (lame and cowardly).

I am truly sorry for disrupting your community, but you folks might wake up and realize how you look to newcomers. You might also consider how you plan to handle the PhD. You will be in seminars with people who tout their experiences--people who have published more than you, taught more than you, curated more shows than you, made more art than you (some historians make art), and will probably say things you disagree with. You will not be able to attack them. You will not be able to down vote their comments and teach them how to interact with you.

I look forward to more down votes and my dwindling popularity. Art and art history are not new systems of knowledge--I've been at this since 1998.

OK, I know the forums have a bit of a learning curve, and I'm sorry for being harsh. I guess we're all a bit on edge while we wait for results.
 
If you read through the earlier pages in this thread you'll notice we actually don't talk a whole lot about the nitty-gritty of our interests. It's really just about our applications. Mostly for anonymity's sake, partly because I think we all have other outlets for that.
 
All of us posting now have submitted our apps (maybe with a couple exceptions?) and we've done our legwork and devoted ourselves to this for quite some time. You can assume we know basic things like what CAA is, the latest work in our field, the fact that Harvard gets more pop cultural references than Northwestern does, etc. The forum is about back and forth, but your posts have come off a bit like lectures. I think that's the one point where you've come off a bit abrasive, maybe without realizing it.
 
Cool?
 
btw, has your mom never seen When Harry Met Sally  (!!?!)

Look, Hal (may I call you Hal?), I think I'll just be blunt here because a. this is the internet and b. we have no chance of being in the same cohort.
 
I want to think the best of people here on GradCafe, because I like this place and I've met some super people here. So I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you don't realize the tone that your posts convey. You keep getting downvotes, though, so maybe you have a clue.
 
Here it is: you're coming across like a condescending asshole and lecturing us like we're two year olds about things we already know. Please refrain.
 
Also, I realize we're in the humanities and not the social sciences, but your mom is a pretty shitty sample size.

@Raisinbrancusi--I knew someone would bring that up! Yes, Northwestern and UofC are brand names, but they are not as famous in popular culture as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. I use my mom as a cultural barometer, a woman who never finished high school has heard of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. However, my mom could not tell you the difference between Northern Illinois University and Northwestern or the difference between Chicago State University and the University of Chicago--that's what I use.
 
I fell in love with art history in undergrad and accessed art historians and art history throughout both masters degrees. Much of my art education practice is informed by contemporary art theory (among so many neighboring fields). As for methodologies, I enjoy writing, arguing, viewing, researching, and teaching visual art. Before my current work, I designed and taught a Modern and Postmodern survey for high school sophomores for two years and a Renaissance to Enlightenment course for juniors. It was in those classes where I was able to take my teaching practice and art history knowledge to new areas. It was seeing my student artists begin accessing art theory for their investigations that really pushed me to consider the PhD more. As a contemporary art writer, art educator, and researcher, art history just feels like the right home for my ideas. I think it's been there all along and at this point in my career, I feel ready. I left teaching for a more service oriented role in the visual arts. Schools have never been my passion the way community has. Much of my early field work was in the community-based art education world--working in communities across Chicago and engaging the public was the center of my masters thesis. 
 
I want to use a PhD to explore The Educational Turn, Social Practice, and Arts Research, I really feel this is where we are right now. So much to think about!
 
To answer an earlier question: I most recently saw the Steve McQueen show at the Art Institute--likely one of the best installations the curatorial staff as ever done. This week I am going to see a small installation of works by Sharon Hayes and the John Cage at MCA. So much good stuff, the art season is really heating up.

@Runaway: Sure Chicago is not for everyone. Seems like you are applying to the big name brand schools in the field anyway.
 
I doubt anyone on Grad Cafe is sharing their deepest passions for art history discourse. Seems like most of the chatter is about impatience, hopes, desires, and dreams of getting in. I doubt you'll get a real feel for what anyone actually wants to study and what they hope to contribute to the field, but if you are asking--here goes: 
 
I am interested in new approaches to art criticism and art writing looking primarily at Hal Foster, Alexander Nemerov, and Matthew Jesse Jackson. I love this quote from Ryan Wong's recent essay on Artificial Hells-"But the agitation around Bishop can also be credited to the dullness of the contemporary art discourse, where boosterism is the only form of dialogue and lack of hype around an artist suffices for criticism. Museums, biennials, art fairs and galleries proliferate constantly and seemingly ad infinitum; the expanded field of the curator is discussed everywhere, but without an accompanying rise of the critic."
 
As far as a dissertation, I am looking at social practice, community art, critical political art, and my current field of art education. I am loosely asking: Can art (or should art even try to) provide a way out of life under authoritative capitalism (and the current art world that depends so heavily upon it)? What is the role of art today? What should the role of art, artists, and the art critic be today? Are art practices and art world trends researchable, if so, how might it look? I am also aligned with Craig Harshaw in that: "I feel disinclined to divide discussions like this from class and race. What I mean by this is that so many power positions in US art schools, museums, galleries are held by people who are power evasive around these issues--color-blind racists, pro-capitalist exploitation (without admitting this) etc. Why would we expect this to be different in a country like the US with such an incredibly reductive electoral political system and such weak working class/racial justice/economic justice social movements?" Art as a social movement must look squarely at this with honest eyes.
 
I feel that contemporary art wants to be an agent of social change (recently Tania Bruguera and Nato Thompson), but it does not yet know how to articulate its point of view. Citing the above from Craig Harshaw I add that it might be helpful to radicalize the institutions of art first, the art world second, and the larger culture third. I feel connected to Ad Reeinhardt and his comments on revolutions in art: “The next revolution will see the emancipation of the university academy of art from its market-place fantasies and its emergence as a center of consciousness and conscience.” 
 
Best,

@SheisStellar: I'm sorry that some of these posts came across as condescending, but remember that all of us were in your position once, too. And, by and large, we began to find direction by doing the grunt work ourselves. You might notice that posts such as the one fullofpink recommends often are followed by comments like "If you're interested in X at Y University, have you considered A at B University, too?" 
 
What books sparked your interest in your subfield? Start there. Look up that person. Look up the people in their footnotes. Look up their reviewers. Academics have family trees; figure out where you want to fit in on yours, and apply to those schools.
 
(Also, you might want to learn how to spell Berkeley before applying there.)

Why don't you track down a few of your favorite articles that were written in the past few years, on a topic that you would like to study. See who wrote them and look up where they teach. No one can do your research for you, because no one knows your interests as well as you do. Also, doing research is a major part of being an art historian.

Easy as that, huh? I think that if I was primarily responsible for taking care of two toddlers, and working as a museum docent, it would be very challenging for me to invest the time necessary to prepare for and take the GRE, let alone the new GRE! Moreover, not everyone has the means to afford "a good prep course;" both Kaplan and Princeton Review charge a small fortune for their respective GRE prep courses. 
 
Danimacg, given your situation, you certainly do not come across as uncommitted, and I think you're making a sensible decision in waiting for when your children are enrolled in primary school before you pursue graduate studies. However, as much as you dislike the GREs (I also loath them), I think it is wise to invest in GRE review books and work through them at your convenience. When you feel comfortable enough with the material, then register for the exam. Even if you do not perform well on it, at least admissions committees will see you're making a concerted and recurrent effort to improve your scores. I wish I could say, "The GRE doesn't matter," but in truth, some programs weigh it more than others. My scores are rather marginal, and I personally believe the Prometric testing centers where I took the GRE offer a rather unfriendly and uncomfortable environment for test-takers. Nonetheless, I am currently studying for the exam again, and I do hope to do better the next time I take it. 
 
In regards to accredited schools that do not require the GRE for acceptance into an Art History MA program, CUNY Queens sounds like it may be a good fit for you. UMass-Amherst also has a terminal MA program in Art History, and the program is one of the few that I am familiar with that is publicly funded. Yet, I am almost positive U-Mass Amherst requires the GRE for admission: http://www.umass.edu/arthist/ . University of British Columbia and University of Toronto are both excellent universities, and neither require the GRE for admission since they are both Canadian schools, so perhaps you should investigate those two institutions even though they're a bit further away from you. 
 
I just want to point out that losemygrip is well intentioned, but sometimes has a tendency to sound curt and harsh. When he/she wrote, "If you're not committed enough to do even that..." I think he/she was using "you're" generally, and probably didn't mean to address just you, Danimacg. 

I'm with losemygrip on this one, and shame on you kunstgesichtedude (my vote for most pretentious/twee username on the art history forum btw, not to mention that it's "kunstgeschichte" with two "h"s) for being so patronizing to losemygrip.  Taking the GRE is one of the first, but by no means most significant, challenges a prospective art historian will face during graduate school and a career in academia or museums. If taking tests is such an obstacle now, how is sitting for comps and orals going to be? Any online research, including on these forums, would make it clear that the programs promising the best chances of career placement require the GRE. To ask whether there are any which don't suggests that getting into a top whatever program may not be that important to the OP, perhaps indicating a lack of seriousness or at least of the work it takes to become a PhD in art history. As a working art historian, losemygrip is on the other side of those challenges and I respect her advice. 
 
Along with willingness to take the GRE, I hope the OP might ask herself whether she and her family are willing to relocate for grad school, she can spend significant time away from her family on research trips/fellowships, and then relocate again (perhaps many times) during a career as an art historian?  If the answers to these questions are "no", I would advise that she get a MA from whatever school in her area grants them and then pursue teaching at the community college level or seek work as a curatorial assistant/curator at a regional museum.

I also have to agree with losemygrip and anonymousbequest.

OP, I am not sure how you got the impression that art history students are not good test takers. If the GRE is an obstacle for you (or any other applicants) I honestly don't see grad school as a good option. The GRE is the easiest test I have taken since my sophomore year of undergrad and nothing compared to grad work. Especially for a student who wants to get a phd in the humanities, the verbal section should be a walk in the park. You will not enjoy reading essays on visual semiotics, translations of Riegel, or taking quals if you find the GRE insurmountable.

If an aplicant has a disablity that makes taking the standard GRE impossible, there are always ways to get accommodations.