2019 Applicants

[disidentifications]

19 hours ago, Bopie5 said:

imho, definitely! I love psychoanalytic crit, especially for poetry, but I think Freud (and tbh, Lacan as well) are especially off the mark in terms of their theories of femininity! But so much psychoanalytic theory rests on Freud/Lacan/Lacan’s use of Freud that I appreciate their work even though I find parts of it sexist and/or troubling. Personally, I think Freud is still a compelling writer even though I’m not a fan of the centrality he gives to the threat or discovery of “castration.” My roommate’s a psychology major and she definitely thinks Freud’s theories are a big pile of bullshit, but was fascinated to learn how important he is for the foundation of psychoanalytic crit!

that's definitely my complaint with freud and lacan as well, though i'm rather conflicted about how to treat charges of sexism against the both of them, seeing as their theories are very much of their time (especially freud's) — not to mention that there's a particular sense of empathy with women's marginal position that underlies their work. but of course, i do appreciate the later feminist readings and refutations of both theorists, and would happily read kristeva, cixous, and irigaray over freud or lacan any day. (also, it's so strange to think that we, as literature students, probably read and engage with freud's texts much more than psychology students do, given that he's been pretty much reduced to a footnote in many a psychology textbook. i guess the pains he took to insist upon the scientific nature of his methods didn't quite pay off after all... ?)

14 hours ago, Bopie5 said:

So who else just now got the email from humanitiesadmissions at Chicago and briefly panicked!? I read and reread the application receipt email making sure it wasn't saying anything bad haha! Looks like we'll be hearing mid-Feb.

that email was the first thing i read today upon getting out of bed, and it certainly is more effective than coffee at jolting me awake. 

(on a side note, i can't believe they're trying to sell us their MAPH program already??) 

 

[placeinspace]

55 minutes ago, flungoutofspace said:

 

(on a side note, i can't believe they're trying to sell us their MAPH program already??) 

 

I thought the same thing. Also, for those of us who already have MAs, it's just kind of silly.

[Bopie5]

4 hours ago, flungoutofspace said:

but of course, i do appreciate the later feminist readings and refutations of both theorists, and would happily read kristeva, cixous, and irigaray over freud or lacan any day. (also, it's so strange to think that we, as literature students, probably read and engage with freud's texts much more than psychology students do

You are speaking my language rn! Love Kristeva, Cixous, and Irigaray! My writing sample was largely drawn from Kristeva’s “Stabat Mater.” Totally agree—my psychology major friends are always shocked about how much I use Freud. Have you read Toril Moi’s essay “From Femininity to Finitude: Freud, Lacan, and Feminism, Again”? She deploys Joyce McDougall and Stanley Cavell to argue for taking Freud and Lacan’s understandings of castration and penis (or phallus) envy and reformulating the discourse to talk about “finitude” instead. Super interesting as a modern attempt to really engage with the impacts of Freud and Lacan!

And also agree with the annoyance at selling the MAPH already. But knowing that everyone got the email makes me feel relieved.

[mandelbulb]

2 hours ago, Bopie5 said:

You are speaking my language rn! Love Kristeva, Cixous, and Irigaray! My writing sample was largely drawn from Kristeva’s “Stabat Mater.” Totally agree—my psychology major friends are always shocked about how much I use Freud. Have you read Toril Moi’s essay “From Femininity to Finitude: Freud, Lacan, and Feminism, Again”? She deploys Joyce McDougall and Stanley Cavell to argue for taking Freud and Lacan’s understandings of castration and penis (or phallus) envy and reformulating the discourse to talk about “finitude” instead. Super interesting as a modern attempt to really engage with the impacts of Freud and Lacan!

usually when i have to use psychoanalysis, i tend to rely more on lacan and i always always pair him with kristeva/cixous/irigaray. i rely more heavily on them to do the heavy lifting. i hate that it's almost required to name drop the old white dude before working with the the progressive female scholars. in the future, i'm hoping i can just skip that part lol

i've skimmed through Moi's essay in the past (when i needed to use lacan in my thesis), but i think it deserves a thorough reread now!

[Musmatatus]

I've received a couple of emails from random programs (i.e. not even English) with late deadlines urging me to apply... I feel a bit like Groucho Marx. I don't want to be a part of any cohort that wants me as a member! 

[savay]

2 hours ago, mandelbulb said:

usually when i have to use psychoanalysis, i tend to rely more on lacan and i always always pair him with kristeva/cixous/irigaray. i rely more heavily on them to do the heavy lifting. i hate that it's almost required to name drop the old white dude before working with the the progressive female scholars. in the future, i'm hoping i can just skip that part lol

i've skimmed through Moi's essay in the past (when i needed to use lacan in my thesis), but i think it deserves a thorough reread now!

Tim Dean's book on the intersection of Lacan and queer theory, Beyond Sexuality, really allowed me to work through my knee-jerk disgust with Lacan, imprinted from stumbling through Feminine Sexuality as an undergrad. Still not my fave, but I appreciate his work in a new way - I really recommend it!

[dilby]

One recent engagement with Freud that I was really impressed with was Eugenie Brinkema's The Forms of the Affects (which is a wonderful and exciting book for lots of reasons). Her strategy with that book is to examine a handful of key texts that define various affects (grief, disgust, anxiety, joy) to gain insight on their "form"; i.e. "What is this affect shaped like? If I were to make a cinema text out of this feeling, what would it look like?"

(This might sound a little out there. The whole book is an effort to flesh out this methodology.)

Anyway, she uses Freud and Kierkegaard to suggest that the form of anxiety is "an uninterrupted horizontal line" and uses the image of the horizon in an indie shark-horror film to illustrate that point. It's totally wild and unlike anything I've read before. And it also demonstrates an approach to Freud that uses his writing as essentially a very interesting and problematic and critically useful set of primary texts rather than a uniformly productive body of theory. Sort of like what Eve Sedgwick does with Silvan Tomkins in "Shame and the Cybernetic Fold" (which is equally life-changing if you haven't read it before).

[pdh12]

(i have nothing beneficial to add but am vicariously loving this convo)

[Bopie5]

4 hours ago, mandelbulb said:

 i hate that it's almost required to name drop the old white dude before working with the the progressive female scholars. in the future, i'm hoping i can just skip that part lo

THIS! This is a big big mood. I’m hoping that as the discipline progresses we can acknowledge the contributions of old white guys without having to always name drop or analyze them whenever we talk about the work that draws from them. 

1 hour ago, savay said:

Tim Dean's book on the intersection of Lacan and queer theory, Beyond Sexuality, really allowed me to work through my knee-jerk disgust with Lacan

 

1 hour ago, dilby said:

One recent engagement with Freud that I was really impressed with was Eugenie Brinkema's The Forms of the Affects 

Both of these sound totally fascinating. Adding to my summer reading list!!

[savay]

3 hours ago, dilby said:

"What is this affect shaped like? If I were to make a cinema text out of this feeling, what would it look like?"

This is a really fascinating approach! And I imagine quite productive for affective work as it's visual and dynamic. Written texts and affect have always proven tricky to me, as words can certainly express/mobilize affect but obviously can present static definition and crystallization of emotions (an image of Deleuze and Guattari's non-representational sensation painting haunts me lol) - I've mostly used affect theory for work on music. But the idea of a shape !

I really enjoyed the beginning of Sedgwick's article on Tomkins, and found the axioms to be a really helpful way of assessing the field. But on the whole, Cvetkovich's and Muñoz's public feelings approach has felt more accessible to me - though they are by no means mutually exclusive. It's been a while since I read the Sedgwick though, I'd love to know what you found life-changing!

I also remember reading Jennifer Nash's article on Black Feminism and Love-Politics in an affect seminar and felt similarly like why had I not known about this before?! Her book on African American visual culture and pornography, Black Body in Ecstasy, is also amazing!

(I am loving that this convo is not only about stress and panic - though that is SO real - but talking about good books/good theory is a v. pleasant distraction to break up the inevitable panic)

Edited January 5, 2019 by savay

[CaffeineCardigan]

I'm finally done submitting applications and resigned to the waiting. I had a moment of sheer panic when Rutgers emailed me two days ago to say my SOP wasn't submitted. I don't know how, but apparently I just submitted that app without any attempt at uploading my SOP. Thankfully they let me submit it, but damn. 

[doctopus]

GRE second attempt. I hope this one the vocab won't destroy me ?

[WildeThing]

Anyone want to try and draw some conclusions from this? I tried but it’s a lot to work with, I might try again tomorrow. 

[Bopie5]

2 hours ago, WildeThing said:

Anyone want to try and draw some conclusions from this? I tried but it’s a lot to work with, I might try again tomorrow. 

I spent some time working with it, and basically the conclusion I drew is that bad GREs/GPAs hurt you, but good GREs/GPAs are no guarantee of acceptance. Seems like more helpful in terms of analyzing decision dates than how test scores affect things.

Wonder if we could make a google doc spreadsheet and pin it (like the funding one) that lists decision dates for different English programs over the last five years or so? Or would that be more trouble than it's worth...

[pdh12]

^ i nearly started drafted a post for this last night then stopped myself , thinking i’d gone off the deep end. 

...but if we were to channel our energy for this beautifully arbitrary task, it seems Emory and Penn State have historically notified around Jan 11 for interviews...

[WildeThing]

I have Emory down around the 17th for interview notifications. Chicago a week later. More or less. Just so we can stress out when the days roll by.

 

[Ciboney]

2 minutes ago, WildeThing said:

I have Emory down around the 17th for interview notifications. Chicago a week later. More or less. Just so we can stress out when the days roll by.

 

We have in common Emory, Maryland, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. They have interviews in literature in English?! It is not standard for literature in Spanish programs, but I have found that some might do it, like Maryland-College Park. 

[WildeThing]

1 hour ago, Ciboney said:

We have in common Emory, Maryland, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. They have interviews in literature in English?! It is not standard for literature in Spanish programs, but I have found that some might do it, like Maryland-College Park. 

Emory does interviews for English apparently, yes. No idea about Spanish, though I know two people who applied to Emory Spanish so I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

[Ciboney]

18 minutes ago, WildeThing said:

Emory does interviews for English apparently, yes. No idea about Spanish, though I know two people who applied to Emory Spanish so I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

?

Let them know that I opened a forum for Spanish/Hispanic Studies as well. ?

[havemybloodchild]

Has anyone done the optional video interview for SMU?  I'm planning on doing it tomorrow and wondering what I'm in for.

[WildeThing]

OK, so, I took down some figures from the link above and compiled it. I'll post my data below, but first, some disclaimers:

- DO NOT use this information or rely on it for anything other than a way to pass the time while you obsess over results. Why? Because this is not reliable at all. Some reasons why it's not reliable:

• Gradcafe is not a representative community
• The data on Gradcafe might reflect more about website usage rather than actual results
• Any changes year to year could also be down to program changes, programs vary their selection practices and cohort sizes
• The data actually found on Gradcafe is not necessarily accurate (there are trolls, people submitting more than once, people submitting in the wrong category or date, etc.)
• Even if everything was accounted for, we don't know any funding information
• The data does not correlate with actual figures we have from schools
• Probably more reasons, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

So, with that out of the way, here's what I've done:

1. I have two tables, one for all schools and for one my 18 (so the second is mostly helpful for me, but many of you are applying to the same programs, so it's slightly helpful to you).
2. I selected English Lit and English (unspecified) PhDs ONLY. No rhetoric, no MAs. All applicants were selected, and then I looked at the data for each fall cycle.
3. I made a note of the applicant totals for rejections, acceptances and waitlists and tallied them all.
4. I then calculated two totals: one with the waitlist and one without, because there is no way to know if a waitlist result stayed that way (and would thus be a rejection) or if was later reposted as a rejection/acceptance (which would mean the waitlist should be discarded). Thus, the 'real' total is probably somewhere between the two.
5. I then calculated the acceptance rate based on the two totals.
6. I did not use any GPA or GRE stuff because it would just complicate things, and we don't know if they're good indicators anyway

So, is this useful? Probably not. As stated above, the data is unreliable. Even if the data was reliable, we do not have enough market information to make any conclusions. Even if the data was reliable, we cannot know how many actual people are involved (so we have no real numbers). So the acceptance rates are probably useless (though I think it's amusing how they're several times higher than the norm). With that in mind, what CAN we discover through this? I think we can get some estimate of how many spots there are on offer at these schools. Leaving aside the fact that not all acceptances on the board are actual acceptances, so assuming that they're mostly correct: every correct acceptance on the board is one actual spot offered during that year. While one person might have collected several acceptances, one would assume that this person only goes to one school and that the other schools would offer the spot to the next person. The issue is that some acceptances might actually be the same spot (person A gets two offers, selects offer 1, offer 2 is then given to person B, who accepts). There is simply no way of knowing with the data that we have, so all we have is a very rough estimate. Perhaps this issue could be addressed somewhat by only looking at the first batches of responses, rather than any offers given in March or April. That would mean going school by school, something I did not do this time because it would take too long for what is ultimately a useless activity.

Anyway, the data from the last 3 years indicates that there is kind of a trend in totals, so perhaps we can expect similar numbers this year. So, here's what I got, now please overanalyze so we have things to discuss:

 

Edited January 6, 2019 by WildeThing

[WildeThing]

I don't want to keep editing my post. So sorry for double-posting. But, what do you guys think about at least around 55 spots for the 18 schools in my list? Or, around 320 in total? I think those are all probably on the low side, actually. For my schools, that's about 3 students per program.

Now I just have to wonder if I'm in the top 60 of applicants to my schools (yeah yeah, different specializations blah blah blah)...

[pdh12]

How’s everyone feeling about the dread/hope of interviews?! So many of the schools do it, but then others don’t. I interviewed with CUNY Grad Center when i first applied and their first question was (paraphrase): “aside from everything you said in your SOP, what would you research?” totally threw me off.

 

edit: @WildeThing EPIC compilation!! I’m also wondering how many of us are hybrid eng/comp lit applicants—tempted to do this for comp lit —i also appreciate your musings on approximating one’s position Globally, rather than just for one school (since no one person can accept more than one spot)—which devolves into a game of musical waitlist

Edited January 6, 2019 by pdh12

[havemybloodchild]

1 hour ago, pdh12 said:

How’s everyone feeling about the dread/hope of interviews?! So many of the schools do it, but then others don’t. I interviewed with CUNY Grad Center when i first applied and their first question was (paraphrase): “aside from everything you said in your SOP, what would you research?” totally threw me off.

 

 

I think Chicago is the only school I applied to that does interviews and frankly there is no chance one will be extended to me, so I'm just not worrying about them.

Except when I allow myself to hope and then am filled with panic that I might face a question like the one CUNY posited, haha.  Isn't this process grand?

[Bopie5]

1 hour ago, pdh12 said:

How’s everyone feeling about the dread/hope of interviews?! So many of the schools do it, but then others don’t.

I'm stressed af. I haven't done an academic interview since I was interviewing for a scholarship for undergrad. Obviously I hope I get one, and I've read so many of the GradCafe threads about interviews, but I still don't feel like I have a sense of what a visit would actually tangibly look/feel like.