Is attending a lower-ranked program worth it?

[Pierre de Olivi]

10 hours ago, psstein said:

For example, US Diplomatic History or Naval History are very dead fields. The same is true with most traditional approaches to intellectual history.

This generally accords with what I've observed anecdotally. Would you mind elaborating what you mean by "traditional approaches to intellectual history" and what kinds of approaches may be more active? (I realize this is a bit of a meaningless question, since the job market is so bad all around, but I thought I'd ask)

[Bumblebea]

3 hours ago, Indecisive Poet said:

@Bumblebea @Warelin Thanks both for the advice. I would never dream of choosing to study an area I'm not interested in to play the market, but I'm already torn between periods at the moment so if there were a huge pull in either direction, that could possibly have swayed my decision. It very much sounds like that's not the case, though.

FWIW, the only jobs I ever see advertised on the Romanticist listserv are ecocriticism jobs – but I'm also not actively looking anywhere else.

Oh, I definitely didn't think you were trying to game the system. I was just trying to point out how the market demands (if one can even call them "demands" anymore) change when the wind blows. I mean, ten years ago if you said you wanted to specialize in American/British 20th-21st c., everyone would kinda go quiet as this funereal mood swept through the room, and then someone would venture ... "You DO realize how bad the market is for that, right?"

[psstein]

1 hour ago, Pierre de Olivi said:

This generally accords with what I've observed anecdotally. Would you mind elaborating what you mean by "traditional approaches to intellectual history" and what kinds of approaches may be more active? (I realize this is a bit of a meaningless question, since the job market is so bad all around, but I thought I'd ask)

Certainly, what I mean is that the Cambridge School of Intellectual History, probably one of the most dominant ones since the 60s, is in full retreat. Many scholars (wrongly IMO, but still) view Cambridge-style Intellectual History as predominantly Eurocentric. What do I think is more active? That's not an easy question to answer. I'd say that there's a stronger lean towards transnational approaches to intellectual history (see the journal Global Intellectual History), as well as an interest in applying Cambridge methods to non-European contexts. J.G.A. Pocock, who's still alive, has written recently about translating the Cambridge School to other contexts.

[Warelin]

6 hours ago, Indecisive Poet said:

 Thanks both for the advice. I would never dream of choosing to study an area I'm not interested in to play the market, but I'm already torn between periods at the moment so if there were a huge pull in either direction, that could possibly have swayed my decision. It very much sounds like that's not the case, though.

Are there any journals or individuals in either that you enjoy more? Are there potential gaps that you think you could help fill?

[Indecisive Poet]

On 11/23/2019 at 10:21 AM, Warelin said:

Are there any journals or individuals in either that you enjoy more? Are there potential gaps that you think you could help fill?

This is something I want to look into seriously before and when (if) I start a PhD program. A big reason that I think my current field is a mistake is that I know current (and past) scholarship fairly well now and there really isn't anything that anyone is doing that I'm seriously interested in – and I don't think I have much to say about the period either that hasn't already been said. I've felt like most of my projects weren't very good for this reason and that I haven't been passionate about them. I enjoy the period's poetry (what I work on) but that doesn't seem to me enough, especially because I enjoy most other periods' poetry just as much. But I can't say that another period is right for me yet because I don't know any other fields well. Once I finish up with applications, I'd really like to start sifting through criticism to see what people are doing elsewhere, especially C20/21, which is the poetry I enjoy most.

If anyone has tips on navigating C20/21 poetry scholarship, do send them my way! I enjoy looking through SEL's year in review articles for other periods but I haven't found anything equivalent for C20/21.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Indecisive Poet