How did you find your research interests?

[Indecisive Poet]

During undergrad? Afterward? Through a class? How does one do enough reading of contemporary scholarship to determine what they're interested in has not already been claimed? How does one narrow down from broad strokes to something SoP-worthy, and how narrow does the SoP need be? How did you choose your period?

I'm talking basics here, folks. I consider my undergrad education to have been largely time wasted and I really did not know academia was for me or embark on most of my study until just after graduation. I'm completing my MA this coming year and I know myself well enough to know I'm well-equipped to succeed in the PhD realm but I can't help but have major imposter syndrome virtually all of the time and feel panicked about not knowing my research interests. I know the VERY broad and abstract, intellectual/philosophical questions that have led me to literary studies and I know the periods and general fields I'm interested in but I am not sure how to get more focused other than by reading a lot more literature and a lot more criticism. It feels like no matter how much I read, though, there will always be something I'm missing that will make my SoP sound silly and uninformed.

Would love some perspective, ideas, and anecdotes.

Edited June 14, 2018 by indecisivepoet

[jadeisokay]

i'm a year out from finishing undergrad so i'm starting the app process and just took the gre, but i'm asking the same questions of myself. everything i'm really interested in feels both too broad and too niche and weird and just when i find a link or something that seems to tie it all together, i feel as if i find a thread that undoes it. i think it's a good thing perhaps that you feel something is missing-- at worst, you just didn't know research has been done in the "missing" area, at best you've discovered some link that needs more work done on it, and overall it means you're inquisitive enough to know there's perhaps more to the subject than what you're reading? (forgive me if this is horribly worded- i've had a few beers.) 

 

(i also totally feel the same way as your post, entirely)

Edited June 14, 2018 by jadeisokay

[Kilos]

I always feel compelled to address people's impostor syndrome fears before anything else: Everybody feels this way. If they claim they don't they're lying. Academia is an enormous, nebulous, vague, intimidating, initially uncertain place, and it's absolutely normal to feel this way. I'm getting ready start a Ph.D. program this fall after sinking 10 years into two divergent careers and another half-dozen into two undergraduate programs. I'm now in my early thirties and I've felt like an impostor in every career position I've held and every program I've attended. In some cases the feelings tapered off after a while, in others they hung around and plagued me--and I've ultimately excelled in all venues. I feel like impostor syndrome is a healthy, productive (albeit completely terrifying) mental tempering tool. It keeps you humble, it drives you to keep up and keep relevant, it reinforces the notion that you should never stop learning and growing as an academic or as a part of society. If you can harness these feelings of inadequacy to motivate yourself and not let it tear you down, it can only make you stronger and more prepared. My advice is to simply be the intelligent, inquisitive person who was awesome enough to make it this far, and let the rest fall into place.

As to your question about research interests--I'll keep it as short and sweet as I can:

Work on what fires you up. Do what you love. Pursue your passion. Grab a shovel, dig yourself a nice little niche (with room for a bookshelf), and let the field settle in around you. There's certainly something to be said for bolstering or fleshing out existing research within the academic boundaries of a field/subfield that has already been well-defined--and if that's where your interests lie, that can be a win/win situation. If you don't fall directly into one of those molds, that's great too; find a vein that piques your intellectual curiosity and follow it until something unique catches your attention off to one side or another. If you don't fall anywhere near any mold, refer to my advice about the shovel. Choose your field based on your strengths and interests, but choose the trajectory of your research within that field based on your passions. Following your passion will lead to a happier life, as well as a stronger, more inspired body of work. This advice won't work for everybody, and I'm positive that some people disagree with the stance (because they have before)--but what is the point of dedicating our lives to the pursuit of knowledge and empowered education if we're not absolutely enthralled with what we're diving into?

This advice might also be a bit dangerous to take when initially applying to graduate programs, because you really have to watch your audience and make sure you're not flying off on a lark. In that case I'd recommend taking a more tempered approach and only revealing the depth of your lunacy after you've been accepted.

Personally, I've always known that my passions are splattered across a broad spectrum of science disciplines, as well as linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, ethnography, climatology, and a number of other fields. I've also always known that my skills, strengths, and general interests are deeply rooted in English and composition. So, because I always felt like an academic outsider that never really belonged any one place in particular, I just grabbed a shovel and dug myself a niche in the Rhet/Comp wing of a great English department, and I now plan to spend a huge chunk of my life trying to deep-dive into rhetoric of science for the good of humanity (or so I tell myself). Without getting into too much detail, my primary research goals involve the intersection between climate change, ecocriticism, rhetoric, public policy, and writing across the disciplines. When I arrived at this conclusion and wrote my SoP and writing samples, I often felt like this was an uninhabited space in the void of academia--which was both gratifying and petrifying--but I've since encountered a solid handful of others whose research interests and published works align very closely with mine, and I could tell they also used shovels to get where they were. I also have about ninety thousand other interests that will inevitably try to swallow me whole, but I've been told that a huge part of graduate school is learning how to pare down your scope to focus in on a sensible, defensible topic, and I look forward to that. 

TLDR version: Stop trying to cram yourself into a sardine can with five million other people. If you like that sardine can, that's wonderful--but why try to block-format your intellect to fit a mold? Find your niche and stand your ground. Figure out how to shape your interests to fit the field you intend to enter. Find a program or department that aligns itself with the way you see the field. Figure out what truly excites you academically and chase it. You'll either succeed splendidly or you'll crash, burn, fail, be miserable, and give up on life. What do you have to lose?

[jrockford27]

13 hours ago, indecisivepoet said:

reading a lot more literature and a lot more criticism.

You've answered your own question!  I bet you never knew you were this smart all along!

In all seriousness though, I came to grad school (BA - > PhD) with a broad idea of what I wanted to do. I discovered my dissertation topic over the course of writing several seminar papers.  Use your seminar papers to explore topics that are of interest to you. Try not to duplicate seminar paper topics.  Try to incorporate plenty of secondary sources into your seminar papers so that you use them as a tool to become more widely read. While my dissertation is wildly different from what I proposed in my SoP, I can definitely trace the trajectory between the two through various conference and seminar papers.

You will always be discovering new things, because the literature on literature is voluminous.  Every month or so I have what I perceive as a minor catastrophe where I see a citation to some book that I'm sure in that moment contains the argument of my dissertation, and feel that my life is over.  Then I read that literature, and figure out how it relates to my own, and incorporate it. Your dissertation is not going to be, and is not expected to be, a revelation that turns your field or subfield upside down. All academic fields, humanities and otherwise, proceed by minor nudges and trial and error. 

Edited June 14, 2018 by jrockford27

[bpilgrim89]

Agree with Kilos, especially about the "uninhabitated space in the void of academia." As you dig deeper and deeper into the fields that you enjoy, you'll inevitably start to see gaps where you wish there were more scholarship, but there isn't. That's where you as a burgeoning doctoral student come in: your job is to fill those gaps. If I tried to study every single thing that I find interesting, I would go insane because I'm interested in just about everything! Instead, I focus on what hasn't been said or what is still underdeveloped. For your SoP and WS, you're trying to name that gap and how you would attempt to fill it. Have two areas not been in dialogue with another? Has an area neglected certain authors or approaches to their texts? As jrockford27 noted, your dissertation is not going to completely upend a field or subfield, but you need to find a way to contribute to it.

And don't forget – if you're planning to go into academia, you have a whole lifetime for your research interests to shift and modify. Just because you're focusing on one research interest now doesn't mean you can't explore adjacent ones later. For the purposes of getting into graduate school, you choose one niche where you feel like something is missing from the discourse and that you wouldn't mind exploring for at least five or six years.

Edited June 14, 2018 by bpilgrim89

[Indecisive Poet]

Awesome advice, everyone. Especially your words on imposter syndrome, @Kilos. It plagues me in most everything I do but it feels like academia and writing are not the places for it if I'm to complete any kind of productive work. I will keep your perspective in mind.

It feels like I don't even have enough of a handle on my research interests at this point to determine where any gaps are or what the conversation is (if any) surrounding my areas -- maybe because my interests have less to do with particular niches, texts, authors, critical approaches and more to do with thinking about how literature plays a role in what interests me about the human world? But I think the problem is also that there are a few different areas I'm interested in and could potentially write on this year and I just need to narrow it all down. I'm sure a few conversations with some faculty members will prove useful here, and perhaps as you suggest, @bpilgrim89, my first step may be to see which of these areas has been least explored.

It also doesn't help that I'm hopelessly torn between the non-consecutive movements of Romanticism and Modernism (though my MA is in 18th & 19th British, so I'm almost positive Modernism will have to be a peripheral interest for later in my career). I am sure that working on seminar papers and a dissertation all year and being surrounded by faculty will help me with this and I won't feel nearly as lost when I start outlining a SoP this time next year.

1 hour ago, jrockford27 said:

While my dissertation is wildly different from what I proposed in my SoP, I can definitely trace the trajectory between the two through various conference and seminar papers.

@jrockford27 -- so did you do exactly this -- propose a dissertation topic -- in your SoP? I'm wondering what that looks like. I've read a couple of SoPs by PhD students at my undergrad (a top 15 program, if we're going to lend that any credence); one came from an MA and had an impressive array of publications/conferences but took up a lot of the SoP laying out his general field and a little bit of space talking about his basic interest in that field, and most of the SoP explaining and bragging about past papers, publications, etc. The other came from her BA and got no more specific than "I'm interested in how we decide what is 'literary' in [insert period here] literature." I suppose a greater level of specificity will be expected of me post-MA.

 

Edited June 14, 2018 by indecisivepoet

[jrockford27]

I didn't propose a dissertation in my SoP, no. I did propose, I suppose, a slate of interests.  "My interests lie in [x] influenced by [x] and [x] theories." My thought on the statement of purpose is that it's less important to articulate a coherent research plan than it is to show that you have definable and well developed interests that can develop into a coherent research plan.  Indeed, my amorphous early interests set me on a trajectory that eventually led - however mystically - to my dissertation topic. 

What I think that means is that you definitely want to avoid proposing a dissertation (after all, some prospectuses are 20 pages long!), but want to demonstrate that you've used your pre-PhD time to become conversant in a field of interest. In mine, I explained that I was interested in issues surrounding popular culture, ideology, nationalism, and masculinity in the Cold War era (which was also the subject of my writing sample). I made sure to mention a few theorists who were essential to my work. What I think this showed, at least to the 5 out of 13 programs that either accepted or waitlisted me, was that I had developed enough as a scholar to begin a program. It sounds like you've already done this to some extent and are in better shape than you think you are.

Therefore: I don't think there is any expectation at the application stage that you know what you'll end up researching.

I imagine that the expectations applying out of MA might be different, but I can't imagine they're that different. 

[Indecisive Poet]

@jrockford27 This is so helpful, thank you! I imagine I'm selling myself a bit short as always, if anything mostly because I do have a year of intensive studying and dissertation-writing ahead of me that should prep me to write an SoP much more developed than what I would be able to write right now. I suppose adcoms are looking for general fit, promise, and instincts for research rather than a developed proposal that's going to make waves in the discipline.

"a few theorists who were essential to my work" -- do you mean contemporary theorists? While I have a good grip on what I need to read in terms of primary literature and 20th-century "founders" of scholarship in my area (for example, people like M.H. Abrams in Romanticism), I'm at a loss (at this stage) when it comes to figuring out what the CURRENT conversation is in my areas of interest, who "matters," and what kind of contemporary papers I should be reading.

Edited June 14, 2018 by indecisivepoet

[dazedandbemused]

As a fellow old ABD (I think @jrockford27 and I started around the same time?) I want to second all of this advice, but I also want to reassure you that you really don't need to be an expert in your potential field when you apply. That's what the whole experience is for! That said, your need to interrogate and expand your own knowledge base is something that will absolutely serve you well through the process. I don't think it's possible to be truly engaged in the process without constantly looking for ways to refine your goals and writing, and I think a good SOP shows that more than anything. You don't need to know exactly where you're headed or what you will write about, but you do need to show that you can visualize a way to enter scholarly debate in a rigorous and well-read manner--like you said, instincts for research.

When it comes to being aware of the current conversation in your field, I usually start by looking at bibliographies from the books that really inspire me. If there are one or more monographs that you consider faves, and it takes numerous paths of inquiry around your area, bibliography sleuthing is the way to go. Use the hard work of others to make your life easier!

I cannot stress enough how much that feeling of ignorance will only increase as you realize that there is literally more to read in your subfield than you could ever possibly touch. I'm graduating May 2019, and I still feel that way. I have friends who graduated and got jobs and still feel like they don't really know what they're doing. Most defenses I've attended focus more on the questions generated with very few real answers to show, because the dissertating process primarily exists to teach you how to construct and interrogate your questions more clearly. You mostly have to force yourself to tunnel in on the things that really matter to you and let that guide your research/progress, rather than hoping for a moment when you finally feel that you've got a hang on it. I'm pretty sure that moment is when they finally promote you to full professor lol.

TL;DR you're already asking the right questions, try not to get bogged down in the existential horror  

[jrockford27]

Yes @dazedandbemused, I believe we began the same year.  As I transition to my 6th year, it's very odd to find myself increasingly in the position of "village elder" in my program, and, perhaps, here as well!  I'm happy to have arrived there not catastrophically jaded by the experience, and still able to encourage others who are embarking on this troublesome yet somehow alluring path!

[dazedandbemused]

On 6/15/2018 at 12:33 PM, jrockford27 said:

Yes @dazedandbemused, I believe we began the same year.  As I transition to my 6th year, it's very odd to find myself increasingly in the position of "village elder" in my program, and, perhaps, here as well!  I'm happy to have arrived there not catastrophically jaded by the experience, and still able to encourage others who are embarking on this troublesome yet somehow alluring path!

That really is quite lucky. I'm relatively certain I could create a band called Catastrophically Jaded from the ashes of my cohort!?

[ArcaMajora]

Hello there! I'm a long-time lurker (looks like I created this account shortly after I finished Sophomore year of undergrad, so I apologize for the incredibly random name) but am only just now posting on grad cafe. I figured that I'd wait until I finished my entire undergraduate career to begin posting. I've read every post here and there's not much I can add as every post has been far more lucid than I'll ever write (I'll be honest and say that some of these posts have been immensely calming down my own anxiety over the SoP and defining my research interests), so I can only offer solidarity. I've only just recently graduated from undergrad and am currently preparing my application materials for the upcoming fall cycle. I've already squared off letters and I'm beginning initial inroads in studying for both the GRE General and Literature tests. I'm also beginning to make a handy-dandy sheet to remind myself of the various program deadlines that I want to apply to. I've decided to take a gap year just to save myself from the chaos of applying during the senior year and to give myself some breathing room from having been in school for a long time.

How I found what I wanted to specialize in is basically 90% luck and 10% realizing I performed better in this field after a bit of internal hesitance. I initially went into my undergrad program with a very vague interest in F. Scott Fitzgerald and early 20th century American literature. That got upended very, very quickly by the end of my Freshman year. Now, the field I intend to go into and put in my applications is 20th and 21st century American poetry (starting from the Modernist movement and up to the present moment) with a theoretical subspecialty in Queer Theory. I'll be quite honest with you, trying to even describe what I'm specifically interested in feels terrifying, as I feel like I would just be parroting the senior thesis I wrote and would look very unaware of current scholarly debate. In terms of finding my research interests, I got very lucky in finding just the right professor and right class during my freshman year of undergrad. I discovered very early on that I had a much easier time constructing essays critically analyzing poetry than prose. I noticed this even as I progressed through my undergraduate studies. I felt far more at home in any poetry class versus classes filled with novels, and it didn't quite matter what literary period of poetry it was. (I felt more comfortable studying Romantic Poetry versus the American Novel etc.), but I felt most at home with my American Poetry classes. I was lucky enough that my passions, both in terms of primary text and critical theoretical work, fit very snugly with my interests in 20th century American poetry and onwards. I decided to softly declare it as my specialty right around the time I became a Junior, and it being an actual specialty was ingrained in me when I wrapped up my honors thesis and realized how many holes I could feasibly fill in with the projects I was working (not just my honors thesis, but also a 15-page seminar paper that was more focused on the 20th century part of my interests). My interest in queer theory is kind of even more of an accident. I don't even remember how I was interested in it, I've just always had an extant interest in that critical theory that intensified as my undergrad advisor gave me possible poets to research for my thesis. The poet I settled on allowed for a very clear in-road for a queer theoretical intervention, and reading texts in queer theory is just as enjoyable as monographs on poetry (either movements or specific poets). Monographs that combine both are even more enjoyable.

I've had far too many moments, and going through one right now, where I feel ill-prepared to even apply because of how broad-ranging my interests are and can be, even if I've temporally marked the period that I want to research. There's a lot of possibilities I'm considering... One part of me wants to create a constellation of a queer American poetic archive from Whitman  to now, there's a part of me that wants to do a critical biography on someone I've studied, one wants to explore the notion of queer lyricism, another wants to continue my undergrad work and see how the conception of queer poetic/post-confession stacks up in literary discourse, another part of me is interested in exploring the island of Key West in poetics as queer and colonized space, another wants to continue reading Jose Munoz, and etc. etc. I have a lot of possible projects crafted out of lunacy and strange over-thinking. At its worst, I feel absolutely clueless and have no idea how I was even able to finish my undergrad degree. I'm still trying to find a way to articulate this all into a reasonable package for a SoP, and I've been very lucky to have supportive undergrad mentors who were able to help gently guide me through research.

This is just my anecdote so far from a recent undergrad turned grad. No doubt in a year or two, this will be massively different. Hope this provides some sort of help, but I'm only just starting the formal process of thinking about graduate school and PhD programs in English beyond just an abstract 'I will apply.'

Edited June 25, 2018 by Ranmaag

[havemybloodchild]

I'd love to see this thread become active again.

My last years in undergrad were wonderful for me.  I came back to school in my late 20s, and I think I enjoyed the experience a lot more, and got more out of it, than if I hadn't taken years off school to work.  The English department at SOU was small and very collaborative, and I got the chance to take a James Baldwin class, a Chicanx lit class,and an ethnic lit class that all really got me interested in intersectionality in writing.  I also took an intro to teaching methods class, and some research I did on enjambment in that class (it was my topic for my lesson plan/presentation) had me stumble over the work of poet Jim Ferris, which got me hooked on Disability poetics.  My professors and their interests really impacted me and supported me in developing my research interests.  Everything I do is through a feminist lens, which I brought to school with me, but that, too, was totally supported and grown by my department.  

[j.alicea]

@kendalldinniene I mostly just wanted to respond to recommend that you check out “Esto No Es Berlin” (This is Not Berlin), whenever it is released for streaming (I have yet to find it, since it just premiered at Sundance this weekend). I’ve been excited for a while, and I think it falls into quite a few of your scholarly interests. Here’s the trailer:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KJdfFkq7Cp0

and as For how I came to my areas of focus... idk, it took a lot of different experiencies: thinking in “broken” English and Spanish; reading a ton of modernist lit, with some ambivalence; listening to a lot of spoken word, slam and rap; teaching math; getting into island studies; reading postmodernist (Spanish) Caribbean philosophy; reading a lot of Western philosophy and perhaps being a little too suspicious; reading Anzaldúa, and then reading Mignolo. All those things and others happened and now I’m trying the PhD thing.

Edited January 27, 2019 by j.alicea

[sad_diamond]

I think one really useful way to start to get a grasp on the current conversations around an area of interest is to find a couple journals that publish work in that area and then read all the abstracts in each new issue, along with an entire essay here and there. It's also a great way to find programs to apply to if you're in that stage--find interesting essays written by people early in their careers (i.e. assistant professors) and then figure out where they got their Ph.Ds. If a bunch of people publishing the kind of work you want to publish all went to the same program, it's probably a good program for you (and is probably good at helping students get published). Also this website https://journalreviews.princeton.edu/ , with in-depth reviews of most of the major journals in the humanities, is incredibly helpful.