nokingofengland

I feel like every time I have the chance to read for pleasure, I get so excited by the number of possibilities that I begin about 20 books and finish none. Ugh. (This, by the way, is why I tossed aside my Kindle after trying it for a week. It's way too easy to switch between books; I never got anything done!)
 
I second Crime and Punishment, and add The Brothers Karamazov. And keeping with the Russian theme, I highly recommend Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Murakami is fun, too, if you haven't tried him. I recommend The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Finally, Death of the Heart by Bowen.
 
For non-fiction, I recommend Freedom Just Around the Corner, by Walter A. McDougall, as well as A Lexicon of Terror by Marguerite Feitlowitz, who is a beautiful person and an even more beautiful writer. Also, Nick Flynn's memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is magnificent.
 
Speaking of Nick Flynn, can we add some poetry to the mix? Any of Flynn's work. Carl Phillips's From the Devotions is wonderful, too.

Hi Marilyn,
 
This forum is for people who are studying literature or planning to at the graduate level, so homework help isn't our focus. If you are looking for help with literature homework, I suggest talking to your professor. Your campus might also have a writing lab that employs literature students who can help you with this task. Good luck!

Thanks, Phil Sparrow! I had UNC and Northwestern on my list last year, too. So at least I wasn't totally off! I'll definitely look into Columbia and Rutgers.
 
UNC would be great for another reason: Any other basketball fans here?

Thanks, Phil Sparrow! I had UNC and Northwestern on my list last year, too. So at least I wasn't totally off! I'll definitely look into Columbia and Rutgers.
 
UNC would be great for another reason: Any other basketball fans here?

I just wanted to say that after seeing this thread, I have spent the last day or so asking myself "Am I okay?" in the style of the I <3 Huckabees mantra "How am I not myself?" So far the response I keep coming up with is "I am okay" which is pretty good I guess.

Fit simply means how well your interests and intellectual profile match up with the department to which you're applying, or more precisely with the scholars working in the field(s) you want to study in. So, let's say you describe yourself in your SoP as wanting to work in Victorian, with a particular interest in fiction and the digital humanities, you might not be a great "fit" for a department where the Victorianists work primarily on gender or poetry or philosophical questions, etc. Ditto if you're a Modernist who wants to work on literature and film applying to a department where the relevant people concentrate on colonialism and race, and so on down the line. Like everything else, there is no hard and fast rule here. We all know that interests change and that applicants have more than one side. The same holds for faculty, whose expertise and teaching/supervisory interests can range well beyond their publications. Often we look precisely for curiosity and breadth in applicants. Nevertheless, you have to describe yourself as having intellectual interests. "Fit" simply means how well those interests will be served, and it is an important factor in decisions especially near the end.

Hello all,

I'm a professor in a "top twenty" English department. I've served on the graduate admissions committee off and on for more than a decade. Let me quickly answer some of your questions:

GRE scores matter a great deal for initial cut offs. We get something like 300+ applications every year. A third of those or so are tossed immediately, based on a combination of low GREs, low grades, and a quick read of the materials. GRE scores continue to matter further on down the line, but become less important. I have seen low GRE scores kill a candidacy even at the late stages (when the writing wasn't enough to compensate). However, I have never seen high GRE scores by themselves admit anyone.
WS and SoP matter most of all. SoP should be a concise, clear, and jargon free explanation of why want to go to graduate school in English. Above all else, it should be intellectual. You should make it clear that you aware of and interested in the state of play in contemporary scholarship. Common errors are the "I love literature" essay. We all know you do, but that is beside the point. Or the "I want to write a dissertation on topic x" statement. We all know that you won't write that dissertation. Try for a simple, intelligent, and above all well-written explanation of what kinds of topics and questions in literary study you find compelling and want to pursue. And yes do explain what about graduate program x (what faculty, for example) interests you.
WS should simply be the best piece of writing you have. That is not very helpful I'm sure! But there really is no other way of putting it. Your professors will be able to tell you what among your work reads the best. Take the time to improve, polish, and get to the right length your best paper or thesis chapter or what have you. Everything else being equal, it's better if the sample is from the period you declare as your field of interest. That is, everything else being equal, if you're applying to work in the nineteenth century, you shouldn't send an essay on Chaucer.
Letters of recommendation matter less than you might think, given rampant puffery, but they still matter some. Your professors should be able to make a good case for you. So make it clear to them that you know why you're applying to graduate school.

Finally yes, it's true that admissions are competitive. There is no magic bullet to get you in. Admissions committees look for curiosity and intelligence and a clear potential to produce good work in literary studies. All we have to go on is what you send us, so make sure that material is in tip-top shape.

Happy to answer any additional questions you folks might have and best of luck.

Yeah, I keep forgetting about sending GRE scores. Some schools have super expensive app fees, too. I think Stanford's is $125. I don't know that it's worth the money for a school that accepts only 2-3%.... but then, you know... it's Stanford, and if you did happen to get in, you'd never remember that week you were broke because of the application fee. Or you'd look back on it fondly...

Ugh. And the security at banks now is cray-cray, so robbing one is almost as hard as getting into school.