2019 Applicants

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25 minutes ago, Sav said:

It was an image of an envelope in the upper corner of the application. Of course, I could also just be losing it. 

Hmmm I'm not sure. I logged in now and don't see it, so if it was there, it's gone on mine too!

[mandelbulb]

i had this incredibly stupid dream right before i woke up that i'd received an email from harvard asking me for an additional (recommendation) letter detailing how i would represent the department/school both internally and externally. in those half-lucid moments right after i woke up, i debated who'd write that letter the best.

...there of course was no such email sent, and that seems like a rather absurd request to make at this point post-deadline lol what a bizarre stress dream. it wasn't even particularly stressful, but it also did nothing to make me feel any better about this whole process.

that said, if any of you were asked to provide such a letter, do you know in your mind who you'd ask?

[Bopie5]

@mandelbulb I ALSO had a stress dream about grad school last night! I dreamed that I was trapped in an escape room and the only way I could get out was by getting an acceptance letter. I went into another sub-room of the escape room to try to get a letter of rec, and when I came back to the main room everyone was gone and I was still trapped ?

[Musmatatus]

I have been spared the stress dreams, luckily! I have no idea who I'd ask, @mandelbulb

I feel like I'm jinxing myself just looking at the campus visits thread that is pinned though! 

[mandelbulb]

53 minutes ago, Bopie5 said:

@mandelbulb I ALSO had a stress dream about grad school last night! I dreamed that I was trapped in an escape room and the only way I could get out was by getting an acceptance letter. I went into another sub-room of the escape room to try to get a letter of rec, and when I came back to the main room everyone was gone and I was still trapped ?

what an appropriate metaphor lol

[sad_diamond]

I'm usually a very sound sleeper but in the past week my sleep has been horrible...due to a variety of factors I think but definitely decision anticipation is a big part. The other night I was having auditory hallucinations that kept me up ಠ_ಠ

[havemybloodchild]

I keep dreaming of acceptances, then waking up like DAMNIT

[disidentifications]

Have finally submitted the last of my applications, so now I'm back here, playing the waiting game for real now. (It's so great to see that so much has happened on this thread whilst I was busy hammering out my research proposals for Oxford and Cambridge!) 

On 1/5/2019 at 12:55 AM, 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!

Yes!! I remember encountering that in my class on psychoanalysis quite a while ago, and really being taken by the way she reworks Lacan to, as you say, posit a notion of "finitude" more relevant to, and consistent with discourse today.

Also, your writing sample (and your current research) sounds fascinating. I'd love to read it, if you don't mind! My second writing sample for Harvard, because they require two, is a reading of Frankenstein through Kristeva as well. It's nothing groundbreaking, since everyone and their mothers (ha.) have been analysing Frankenstein alongside Powers of Horror for ages. But I try to draw on Shelley's biography, and the correspondences between that and the narratives of Frankenstein and his monster, to read the somewhat autobiographical — I use the term very loosely here — novel as the author's "abject progeny". Again, it's not a particularly novel idea, but I'm counting on my primary writing sample, which is closer to my research interest anyway, for that. 

On 1/5/2019 at 6:11 AM, 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, imprinted from stumbling through Feminine Sexuality as an undergrad.

On 1/5/2019 at 7:03 AM, dilby said:

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)

I really need to get these in at my university's library, especially the former. Anything that helps me read Lacan with more openness and generosity is always welcome. 

 

[disidentifications]

On 1/9/2019 at 1:23 AM, Bopie5 said:

What's everyone researching right now? What thesis/paper/article are you currently writing? 

I should be researching Woolf for my honours thesis, but instead, I'm rereading Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation (one of my favourite new books of 2018) for a class I'll be taking in the coming semester. I love when contemporary fiction's brought into the classroom, because it hardly feels like work for me then. 

On 1/9/2019 at 3:30 AM, sugilite said:

I've been trying to read up on visual culture since that's a developing interest.

Oh, have you found anything particularly interesting? It's one of my interests that I've had to brush aside (for now), because everything else demands so much of my time. Hopefully I'll get to return to it someday though. 

3 hours ago, kendalldinniene said:

I keep dreaming of acceptances, then waking up like DAMNIT

*strokes non-existent beard* wish... fulfilment... hahaha... 
But I'm on the same boat here. I do have the occasional dream about acceptances, except something always goes wrong to keep me from accepting the offers. I don't know what this means!! (My other dreams are terribly strange — I've recently had one in which I somehow envisioned the March sisters of Little Women plotting to escape murder charges à la Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Also, the entire debacle took place at my secondary school. Curiouser and curiouser...) 

[Musmatatus]

@flungoutofspace Ooh, one thing that I find great when I'm short on time is listening to the podcast series by Marshall Poe. They're all called "New Books in [field]." The idea behind them is that someone might not read the actual scholarly work a professor just spent years completing, so the books and ideas are in a podcast format. I listen to some that I find interesting from the little blurbs, and then sometimes I'll also check out the book after. 

Unrelated to the podcast, but I checked out a book called Picturing Identity recently. It's a recent release on contemporary US autobiographies and how they have increasingly used different media than text alone Lots of good stuff out there, and not enough time! 

[lyonel_]

29 minutes ago, flungoutofspace said:

Oh, have you found anything particularly interesting? It's one of my interests that I've had to brush aside (for now), because everything else demands so much of my time. Hopefully I'll get to return to it someday though. 

 

5 minutes ago, sugilite said:

Unrelated to the podcast, but I checked out a book called Picturing Identity recently. It's a recent release on contemporary US autobiographies and how they have increasingly used different media than text alone Lots of good stuff out there, and not enough time! 

For visual culture, I cannot suggest Radical Sensations by Shelley Streeby enough. Less of a contemporary analysis of visual culture as it is a late-19th and early 20th century look at sensational media depicting state sanctioned violence against indigenous and racialized citizens. Her overarching argument is that that these medias were disseminated throughout the world, and then they became transnational catalysts for social movements in the U.S., Mexico, and other countries. 

[disidentifications]

@sugilite @lyonel_ ohh thank you so much for these recommendations! I can’t wait to check them out!! 

33 minutes ago, sugilite said:

Unrelated to the podcast, but I checked out a book called Picturing Identity recently. It's a recent release on contemporary US autobiographies and how they have increasingly used different media than text alone  

Also, this seems especially up my alley, seeing as much of my work is concerned with life-writing, not to mention that something that has really piqued my interest lately — but which I haven’t had the chance to explore further — is how author photos, which aren’t necessarily deliberate means of self-creation in visual images (as opposed to what I believe Hertha Wong examines in Picturing Identity?), help perpetuate particular myths of the author and influence the ways that readers encounter their texts. 

On that note, I think David J Alworth at Harvard works quite extensively within that intersection between texts and visual culture, if that’s something you’re particularly interested in..? I believe that his forthcoming work (Art Novels and The Look of the Book) speak quite well to my above questions, so I’m really looking forward to reading both books. 

[placeinspace]

This thread has made me feel VERY disconnected from academia haha. Perils of working a corporate job for several years- I've only had exposure to my own research interests in quite a while. It's pretty refreshing to read this whole discussion and learn some new stuff!

[Matthew3957]

So hard to keep up with all this amazing goodness. I am also very happy I have not had stress dreams yet, but I will say every time an email I do wonder... despite being WAY too early to get decisions. And I did spend an hour or so two days ago trying to figure out when people start getting acceptances. Apparently early February for some! 

This thread also managed to rekindle my love of reading literature outside of HAVING to read it again. I feel like I have to remind myself to read novels/stories for fun every few weeks.

[jadeisokay]

had a stress dream about acceptances and my friend crashing on my floor said i was talking out loud in my sleep about it. totally not embarrassing.

[punctilious]

8 hours ago, flungoutofspace said:

On that note, I think David J Alworth at Harvard works quite extensively within that intersection between texts and visual culture, if that’s something you’re particularly interested in..? I believe that his forthcoming work (Art Novels and The Look of the Book) speak quite well to my above questions, so I’m really looking forward to reading both books. 

I am excited about The Look of the Book because it is sort of the intersection between my husband's and my interests since I'm a graphic designer! And David Alworth was his main POI when he applied to Harvard.

[dilby]

1 hour ago, Matthew3957 said:

I do wonder... despite being WAY too early to get decisions

I swear I'm not trying to stir the pot, but according to the 2018 Acceptances thread the first person to receive a notification last year was a SUNY-Buffalo admit exactly one year ago today. So.....it begins I suppose  

[pdh12]

not to mention...interview notifications?!?

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2 minutes ago, pdh12 said:

not to mention...interview notifications?!?

Yep! Can't wait for 3 weeks from now when I haven't gotten a Chicago invite and therefore know I've been rejected. It's honestly going to be a relief from all this stress and waiting haha.

[disidentifications]

44 minutes ago, punctilious said:

I am excited about The Look of the Book because it is sort of the intersection between my husband's and my interests since I'm a graphic designer! And David Alworth was his main POI when he applied to Harvard.

Oh yes, I presume your husband has already started at Harvard? Has he had the chance to speak more and work with David Alworth yet? I'm quite interested in his work (though, again, because I've had to put visual culture to the side for a while, it doesn't fit into my primary area of interest, and as a result, I didn't name him as a POI in my application), so it'll be nice to hear from those acquainted with him more about what he's currently working on. 

15 minutes ago, dilby said:

according to the 2018 Acceptances thread the first person to receive a notification last year was a SUNY-Buffalo admit exactly one year ago today. So.....it begins I suppose

Oh dear... I've had barely 24 hours of rest since I submitted my last application, and now the stress returns. To be honest, I am quite tempted to not check my email till late-February, when almost all my decisions will presumably be in, so I can deal with them all at once. But alas, I need my email to keep up with school stuff. The agony!! ?

[disidentifications]

5 minutes ago, pdh12 said:

not to mention...interview notifications?!?

2 minutes ago, placeinspace said:

Yep! Can't wait for 3 weeks from now when I haven't gotten a Chicago invite and therefore know I've been rejected. It's honestly going to be a relief from all this stress and waiting haha.

The worst situation's when the departments aren't consistent in their interview requirements from year to year (I'm looking at you, Duke), so you can't even predict if you've been rejected. 

[lyonel_]

absolutely delighted I start coursework again next week, because I need the distraction this next month and a half (I assume?)

[punctilious]

34 minutes ago, flungoutofspace said:

Oh yes, I presume your husband has already started at Harvard? Has he had the chance to speak more and work with David Alworth yet? I'm quite interested in his work (though, again, because I've had to put visual culture to the side for a while, it doesn't fit into my primary area of interest, and as a result, I didn't name him as a POI in my application), so it'll be nice to hear from those acquainted with him more about what he's currently working on. 

Yes! He took American Modernism with Alworth this semester and is hoping to be a TA for that course in the future, and he'll (hopefully) be taking Media Theory with him this coming semester. I was really jealous when he attended some event earlier in the semester where Alworth lectured about book covers. I find that super fascinating.

P.S. Husband actually applied to Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Oxford (plus TCD) masters degrees his first round! He ended up deciding against attending because of the lack of funding, but cool to see you're applying to a lot of those too.

[Bopie5]

11 hours ago, flungoutofspace said:

Yes!! I remember encountering that in my class on psychoanalysis quite a while ago, and really being taken by the way she reworks Lacan to, as you say, posit a notion of "finitude" more relevant to, and consistent with discourse today.

Also, your writing sample (and your current research) sounds fascinating. I'd love to read it, if you don't mind! My second writing sample for Harvard, because they require two, is a reading of Frankenstein through Kristeva as well. It's nothing groundbreaking, since everyone and their mothers (ha.) have been analysing Frankenstein alongside Powers of Horror for ages. But I try to draw on Shelley's biography, and the correspondences between that and the narratives of Frankenstein and his monster, to read the somewhat autobiographical — I use the term very loosely here — novel as the author's "abject progeny". Again, it's not a particularly novel idea, but I'm counting on my primary writing sample, which is closer to my research interest anyway, for that. 

Yes, I'd love to swap research! Two years ago I wrote an analysis of Frankenstein that plays on dynamics of motherhood and birth-giving in the text, but I wasn't familiar with Kristeva at that point, and I'm really intrigued by your extrapolation to the autobiographical! PM me and let's swap work!

[breemartini]

Hello everyone! I graduated in December 2017 with a BA in English. I am currently an AmeriCorps Tutor in Newark, NJ with MMUF, the Leadership Alliance, Sigma Tau Delta, and a variety of professional experiences under my belt. I was also a Semi-Finalist for a Fulbright Taught Masters. This is my first time applying to PhD programs, and it was definitely more intense than I expected - I learned a lot about my organizational skills in the process, and I am happy/proud to have finished everything with a bit of time to spare.

A very brief description of my research aspirations: I hope to center my studies around magical realism and magical feminism in Latin American and Afro-Latinx diasporic fiction, poetry, and performance. I intend to evaluate how textual elements of magical feminism are physically manifested in performances, and how performative spaces foster the creation of writer-activist communities that are continuously in conversation with the original works. 

Regardless of results, everyone should feel accomplished for making it to this point. I hope that the new year motivates us all to stay productive with personal/professional projects in the interim - I know I am devoting some time this month to ground myself by re-establishing some long-term goals that will not be affected by upcoming acceptances and/or rejections. Sending love and best-wishes ?