Specializations Left by the Wayside

[WildeThing]

Small topic to distract us for a day:

When I started the last year of my BA I had to select an advisor for my BA thesis. I decided to select someone whose expertise was American fiction because I felt like I hadn't done enough of it. My other alternative was to do something about Samuel Beckett, but I was worried that I had done so much work on him that I would be too specialized. Since then I have not done a single piece of work on Beckett but have continued with my BA thesis topic over two MAs and have now proposed it for my PhD (it has changed, of course). When I was applying for programs several places had Beckett experts and I wanted to say 'Hey! I'm a huge Beckett fan! I've done X work on him', but since it was completely unrelated to my current topic, and I haven't really worked on it in years, I didn't. Similarly, there are a bunch of other topics that I wanted to work on but have put on hold and hadn't worked enough on to declare as a stated interest for the PhD.

Another example: when I met with my advisor I came in with two ideas: the one I wound up pursuing and something on Chuck Palahniuk. Since then the first one has become my main research but I have done some work on Palahniuk and because it's fairly self-contained I've managed to present those pieces at conferences more often than my main research. Looking over my CV I realize that like 80% if not more are about Palahniuk and material outside of anything I mentioned in my proposal, simply because it didn't fit, as those are ancillary topics for me.

So, what things were going to be 'your field' which aren't anymore? Or things you're interested in but couldn't fit into your proposal?

 

[khigh]

14 minutes ago, WildeThing said:

Small topic to distract us for a day:

When I started the last year of my BA I had to select an advisor for my BA thesis. I decided to select someone whose expertise was American fiction because I felt like I hadn't done enough of it. My other alternative was to do something about Samuel Beckett, but I was worried that I had done so much work on him that I would be too specialized. Since then I have not done a single piece of work on Beckett but have continued with my BA thesis topic over two MAs and have now proposed it for my PhD (it has changed, of course). When I was applying for programs several places had Beckett experts and I wanted to say 'Hey! I'm a huge Beckett fan! I've done X work on him', but since it was completely unrelated to my current topic, and I haven't really worked on it in years, I didn't. Similarly, there are a bunch of other topics that I wanted to work on but have put on hold and hadn't worked enough on to declare as a stated interest for the PhD.

Another example: when I met with my advisor I came in with two ideas: the one I wound up pursuing and something on Chuck Palahniuk. Since then the first one has become my main research but I have done some work on Palahniuk and because it's fairly self-contained I've managed to present those pieces at conferences more often than my main research. Looking over my CV I realize that like 80% if not more are about Palahniuk and material outside of anything I mentioned in my proposal, simply because it didn't fit, as those are ancillary topics for me.

So, what things were going to be 'your field' which aren't anymore? Or things you're interested in but couldn't fit into your proposal?

 

I'm outside your field, but I think a lot of people in humanities have this same issue.  We are taught early on to not get too far into one topic so we don't limit ourselves before we are required to limit our interests.  I do early modern Dutch history.  I have always done early modern Dutch history and will always do early modern Dutch history. 90% of my work has been in contracts and constitutions, not because I am necessarily the most interested in them, but because they were good practice to learn translation (contracts and constitutions have repetitive language). 

I want to do travel journals, but I think I may be stuck with contracts and constitutions.  My DREAM topic would be baseball history, but that is so far out of my realm that it will only ever be relegated to a fun hobby.

[FreakyFoucault]

This is an awesome topic, @WildeThing, and one I had to think about quite a bit while drafting my SOP.

The bulk of my undergrad work, and the subject of my most significant (relative term, of course) research paper, is in the Victorian era; however, during my senior year, I took classes almost exclusively in American literature and consequently fell in love with post-war and postmodern fiction. 

So, when I was trying to select a primary-interest subfield for my SOP, I was at a crossroads in choosing between Victorian and American. I ultimately picked the former, since it makes the most sense given my experience and also because I do adore the literature of the Victorian era. But I still made sure to mention that I'd love to somehow combine my Victorian work with contemporary American fiction.

In fact, part of the reason I applied to Harvard is that they ask you to submit two writing samples, so I sent them my primary Victorian essay, and also one that I wrote on Naked Lunch. I'm hoping it gets the attention of Andrew Warren, who does work on both 19th-century British lit and also David Foster Wallace and his ilk. 

(Although, btw, I was not yesterday's Harvard acceptance. Sad face  -- although happy face for that successful applicant  )

Edited January 20, 2018 by FreakyFoucault
Edited for not originally being a good sport to my competition.

[mk-8]

Cool idea! 

I originally intended to go to law school before switching to English. When I realized I wanted to go the grad school route, I originally intended to study Southern American literature with an emphasis on Faulkner. My junior year, though, I took a writing center theory course and decided whoa hey this is actually the route I want to go. So, my junior/senior year of undergrad were devoted to writing center stuff and I decided to pursue rhet/comp. My MA SOP was devoted to writing center theory, and the first semester was my MA was geared towards writing center work. 

My MA program deals a lot more in digital rhetorics, and I took on to it fast. My work now is in digital rhetorics & literacies, WAC/WID, video games (with lots of dabbling in pop culture). I still do a little work with writing centers and have some writing center presentations on my CV, but it's not my main motivating force anymore.

[mads47]

What a fun thread! In undergrad, I was a History and English double major, and I have always felt that my heart is split in two with my love for both disciplines. Certainly, there is a lot of room for overlap, but in English I am most enamored with American Modernist Literature, while I spent several years studying 17th and 18th Century European and Middle Eastern history, with a particular interest in the major artists and art movements during those centuries. While I doubt these interests will have much influence my future academic career, I have been spending this year tutoring high school students in History and it has been quite fun to share my side passions with these students. 

[Crow T. Robot]

In undergrad, I was a linguistics major for a hot second until I took a morphology class... I was not prepared for that level of 'mathiness.'

Once I settled on English, I ended up doing a lot of 19th-century American, and then even more specifically a lot on the late-19th-century realist novel, which I ended up writing my thesis on. At first this was mainly because one of my absolute favorite professors taught in those fields, but I ended up with a longstanding love for Howells (underrated), Wharton, James (if you want to call him American), and co. And not to mention, outside the novel, Dickinson.

Then, honestly, in grad school I encountered Žižek and nothing has ever been the same since.

[bumbleblu]

Fandom studies has always been my secret love. During my M.A. program, I spent my "free time" (or: the time when I should have been working on my thesis) writing papers about queer representation in fanfiction and presenting at conferences. I sometimes wish I had just done my thesis on that instead, but I'm okay with it being a hobby. 

[Warelin]

2 hours ago, bumbleblu said:

Fandom studies has always been my secret love. During my M.A. program, I spent my "free time" (or: the time when I should have been working on my thesis) writing papers about queer representation in fanfiction and presenting at conferences. I sometimes wish I had just done my thesis on that instead, but I'm okay with it being a hobby. 

Out of curiosity: Did you ever look into UT Austin's RTF Program?I recall hearing (once upon a time) that they were big on that.

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

This is a great thread! 

(1) My undergraduate adviser was/is really into literary trauma studies and helped me shape my undergrad honors thesis around trauma in Joyce and Faulkner. Original, I know.

When I got to my MA, I learned (with much chagrin) that the field was viewed as both old news and, at points, problematic (which it totally is) and I panicked. I attempted to totally abandon that part of my work and distance myself from the field entirely (cue the GOT *shame shame shame* bell.) At the same time, I took a course in contemporary Caribbean literature and fell in love with novels and authors I had never encountered as an undergrad. As the MA marched onward, I brought Faulkner back into this mix of texts and ended up a 20th/21st Americanist with a keen interest in contemporary transnational Caribbean-American novels.

However *she leans in closely* I never gave up on literary trauma studies. Instead, I went underground and avoided the topic unless I was speaking to close friends or to the few professors who I knew were open to field. One was a Caribbean scholar and one was a professor who taught a course on David Foster Wallace and (wait for it) Joyce. So, I hope to keep the field as a secret love during doctoral work because it is, at times, interesting/useful and (as demonstrated by my undergrad adviser's recent book) not as unfashionable as some might think.

(2) I went to Ohio State's Project Narrative Summer Institute and we did some very basic work on graphic novels. I am so hopeful (pending an PhD acceptance) that I can get back to that work and develop a project on Gaiman - I have no polished or even drafted project in mind but (with the time and resources) would love to add that as a side-gig.

Edited January 21, 2018 by a_sort_of_fractious_angel

[FreakyFoucault]

8 minutes ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

I have no polished or even drafted project in mind

This is my Weltanschauung in a nutshell... 

[bumbleblu]

11 hours ago, Warelin said:

Out of curiosity: Did you ever look into UT Austin's RTF Program?I recall hearing (once upon a time) that they were big on that.

Ah! Yes, I looked into it a couple years ago, but spaced it this application cycle. If I'm unsuccessful this go-around, maybe I'll take it as a sign. 

[WildeThing]

8 hours ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

This is a great thread! 

(1) My undergraduate adviser was/is really into literary trauma studies and helped me shape my undergrad honors thesis around trauma in Joyce and Faulkner. Original, I know.

When I got to my MA, I learned (with much chagrin) that the field was viewed as both old news and, at points, problematic (which it totally is) and I panicked. I attempted to totally abandon that part of my work and distance myself from the field entirely (cue the GOT *shame shame shame* bell.) At the same time, I took a course in contemporary Caribbean literature and fell in love with novels and authors I had never encountered as an undergrad. As the MA marched onward, I brought Faulkner back into this mix of texts and ended up a 20th/21st Americanist with a keen interest in contemporary transnational Caribbean-American novels.

However *she leans in closely* I never gave up on literary trauma studies. Instead, I went underground and avoided the topic unless I was speaking to close friends or to the few professors who I knew were open to field. One was a Caribbean scholar and one was a professor who taught a course on David Foster Wallace and (wait for it) Joyce. So, I hope to keep the field as a secret love during doctoral work because it is, at times, interesting/useful and (as demonstrated by my undergrad adviser's recent book) not as unfashionable as some might think.

(2) I went to Ohio State's Project Narrative Summer Institute and we did some very basic work on graphic novels. I am so hopeful (pending an PhD acceptance) that I can get back to that work and develop a project on Gaiman - I have no polished or even drafted project in mind but (with the time and resources) would love to add that as a side-gig.

While the height of trauma studies is certainly in the past there is still a lot of interesting work being done on it. Just last year (academic year) I went to a big trauma conference and most Unis have at least one person still working on it to some degree. In fact, when I was writing my SOP one of my advisors told me I needed to highlight my work on trauma MORE.

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

2 hours ago, WildeThing said:

While the height of trauma studies is certainly in the past there is still a lot of interesting work being done on it. Just last year (academic year) I went to a big trauma conference and most Unis have at least one person still working on it to some degree. In fact, when I was writing my SOP one of my advisors told me I needed to highlight my work on trauma MORE.

Oh, excellent! I'd been seeing conferences and articles continue to come out and I was thinking "hey ...." 

Anything especially exciting at the conference?

[WildeThing]

2 hours ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

Oh, excellent! I'd been seeing conferences and articles continue to come out and I was thinking "hey ...." 

Anything especially exciting at the conference?

It was great, I've only participated in major conferences beyond that in the US like the regional MLAs and this was much nicer, though certainly not close-knit.There were plenary talks by Cathy Caruth (Cornell), Dori Laub (Yale), Robert Jay Lifton (Columbia) and several others. I was surprised that so many of the 'big guns' came and were participants. Looking at your list of schools, there was Gavriel Reisner who spoke about Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and he was very nice and I enjoyed his talk. I particularly enjoyed a panel with Laura Vickroy and Jean Wyatt since I've cited them both in the past and Wyatt was very warm and open and came up to me after the session to talk. It was quite diverse, as people came from all backgrounds: literary, creative writing, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, education, journalism, etc. I was told that the organizers thought it was successful enough that they might try it again, but it might take them a few years. The conference website is no longer active but here are links to the speakers and sessions in case you want to have a look at what sort of things were being discussed:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161015013207/http://www.listeningtotrauma.org:80/conference/schedule/

https://web.archive.org/web/20161026213748/http://www.listeningtotrauma.org:80/conference/conference-breakout-sessions/

I've seen some trauma conferences pop up on UPenn lately, I think one in Long Beach, so it's just definitely still an active field and one that I think is very enjoyable.

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

9 hours ago, WildeThing said:

It was great, I've only participated in major conferences beyond that in the US like the regional MLAs and this was much nicer, though certainly not close-knit.There were plenary talks by Cathy Caruth (Cornell), Dori Laub (Yale), Robert Jay Lifton (Columbia) and several others. I was surprised that so many of the 'big guns' came and were participants. Looking at your list of schools, there was Gavriel Reisner who spoke about Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and he was very nice and I enjoyed his talk. I particularly enjoyed a panel with Laura Vickroy and Jean Wyatt since I've cited them both in the past and Wyatt was very warm and open and came up to me after the session to talk. It was quite diverse, as people came from all backgrounds: literary, creative writing, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, education, journalism, etc. I was told that the organizers thought it was successful enough that they might try it again, but it might take them a few years. The conference website is no longer active but here are links to the speakers and sessions in case you want to have a look at what sort of things were being discussed:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161015013207/http://www.listeningtotrauma.org:80/conference/schedule/

https://web.archive.org/web/20161026213748/http://www.listeningtotrauma.org:80/conference/conference-breakout-sessions/

I've seen some trauma conferences pop up on UPenn lately, I think one in Long Beach, so it's just definitely still an active field and one that I think is very enjoyable.

Thank you so much! This is fantastic -  I really appreciate it. The breakout sessions in the second link look so friggin' cool. 

 

[WildeThing]

12 hours ago, a_sort_of_fractious_angel said:

Thank you so much! This is fantastic -  I really appreciate it. The breakout sessions in the second link look so friggin' cool. 

 

Glad to see there’s another traumathusiast in here! PM if you ever wanna talk shop. And let me know where you land!

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

1 hour ago, WildeThing said:

Glad to see there’s another traumathusiast in here! PM if you ever wanna talk shop. And let me know where you land!

And I definitely will shoot you a message! And absolutely - please do the same! 

[nichts]

On January 20, 2018 at 2:49 PM, Crow T. Robot said:

Then, honestly, in grad school I encountered Žižek and nothing has ever been the same since.

Shout-out to our good comrade Slavoj!

[renea]

When I was in undergrad, I was under the impression that you did have to do "one thing" and I very much made my SOP into a singular subject area: indigenous rhetorics. I wanted to study indigenous rhetorics (especially as they related to environmental philosophy). I applied only to programs that fit with that interest and very luckily ended up in a program that has (alongside indigenous studies work) a lot of faculty doing various projects. I was given the advice to look at what I spent the most time talking about and doing in my spare time and turn it into a project- and here I am doing a thesis now over the rhetorical affect of online food icons. From there I've completely branched out and have like a billion research interests which rotated based on which school I was applying to. Overall, I want to specialize in digital and cultural rhetorics. However, my work pertaining to food and social media means I also end up writing a lot of about visual rhetorics, multimodal composition, and literacy. I'd also like to do some sort of technical writing project about food labels and food laws, but alas there is not enough room on my *plate* right now. 

[a_sort_of_fractious_angel]

1 hour ago, jpbends said:

This is such a great idea for a thread!

I'm working on my undergrad honors thesis right now, writing about theorizations of memory in anglophone postcolonial Southeast Asian/American literature. I'm focusing on the ways that memory and alternative narratives, which contest the historiography of the Cold War, serve as identity-determinative modes of discourse--particularly in The Sympathizer by Viet Nguyen and State of War by Ninotchka Rosca. I became really interested in the diasporic work of Southeast Asian/American authors after doing an independent study last year with a professor whose work in dystopic speculative fiction by women of color really inspired me to think about the kinds of subversive narratives that often arise in works by writers of color, and this was reinforced when last summer I participated in a research program in which I wrote about the significance of naming (and the censorship of such) in contemporary Filipina/o American literature. It was a huge divergence from my original work, which was with early 20th century British modernism.

My first and second years of undergrad, I was really into James Joyce. I'd taken a colloquium that focused specifically on him and his work, and I fell in love with Portrait and Ulysses. Having been an Anglophile when I was younger, I always thought that I would be studying British literature (and, as I entered university, Irish literature in particular), and the beginning of my real research-based academic work was there. My first conference paper was written for the American Conference for Irish Studies as part of a panel on close readings of Ulysses, in which each of the panelists centered their work on things that seemed insignificant but really gave us hints as to "how to read" the novel. One panelist wrote about soap; another wrote about water; I wrote about facial hair as it relates to masculinity and hyper-manliness in Ireland at the time.

My secret interests--if those exist--are largely in the realms of fantasy. I haven't done any extensive research on fantasy novels in an academic setting, but so much of my casual reading and extracurricular interests lie in the parallels of fantasy with world history and the concept of world-building. That's something I wish I'd spent a little more time on in undergrad, but I'm glad I'm on the track I'm on now.

For me, postcolonialism--and what follows in anti-imperial and decolonial methodologies--is as much a literary project as it is a personal and political project. Ultimately, I want to work using postcolonial and diasporic literatures of Southeast Asia as ways of reading into identity formation and determination in these communities, and particularly in the ways the concepts and stories in these literatures manifest within immigrant and second-generation Asian American neighborhoods.

Hey! Your thesis sounds SO COOL! As does your current work on identity formation! 

I did my BA thesis on memory and trauma in Faulkner and Joyce (would 11/10 love to hear your thoughts on soap because that is a fantastic and hilarious approach) and brought that into MA work on diasporic Caribbean/Caribbean-American narratives of identity & memory. 

Re: dystopic spec-fic - Nalo Hopkinson is a Caribbean author who has a book, Midnight Robber, that is a dystopic spec-fic/sci-fi take on Caribbean history. It's outside of your field but it's a super fun read and - if you have a moment - may be something cool to check out for fun (?) I, too, nerd out about fantasy and world-building - feel free to PM, lol, if you want to swap favorite texts/approaches (there is some narrative theory stuff on world-building that you probably already about but, if not, it's cool!)

 

Edited February 1, 2018 by a_sort_of_fractious_angel

[CulturalCriminal]

I'm currently working/proposing research on how American TV and comics reflect the way in which  space and place works in tandem with intersectioning vertices of oppression in shaping criminality. 

About a year ago, I was presenting conference papers on the resurgence of folk horror in American film and comics. You cold say my research interests have changed a bit ?.