Any other early Americanists out there?

[natsteel]

I know this may be a longshot, but, as I am preparing to apply this fall, I was wondering if there are any other forumites planning on applying for early American history and where.

[student35]

While I am an early Americanist, I don't plan on applying for a few years. I just got my BA and I'm in the museum/non-profit field. Hopefully will pay off my loans before taking the grad school plunge.

[egg-bean-crumpet]

I know this may be a longshot, but, as I am preparing to apply this fall, I was wondering if there are any other forumites planning on applying for early American history and where.

I'm a 19th Century/Progressive era Americanist, so not quite your field, but judging from the schools in your sig. there's quite a bit of overlap between our target schools lists.

[Riotbeard]

BTW, UVA has been having huge funding issues for a few years now... I e-mailed them two years ago and the two antebellum americanist were about to retire, and they could not afford to replace the Southern historian who had retired earlier. Not to say there isn't a decent chance but I know a couple on this forum got accepted without funding and I met somebody at another school visit who was in the same boat. Cheers.

I know this may be a longshot, but, as I am preparing to apply this fall, I was wondering if there are any other forumites planning on applying for early American history and where.

[natsteel]

BTW, UVA has been having huge funding issues for a few years now... I e-mailed them two years ago and the two antebellum americanist were about to retire, and they could not afford to replace the Southern historian who had retired earlier. Not to say there isn't a decent chance but I know a couple on this forum got accepted without funding and I met somebody at another school visit who was in the same boat. Cheers.

Yeah, I've realized that, Riotbeard. Their funding situation has effectively made me rule UVA out as a possibility. I read on their website that their funding is around 12k/yr. Meanwhile, William and Mary's stipend is 18k/yr. As of right now, I am looking at: Yale, UPenn, Temple, BU, Rutgers, N'western, and a few others.

Edited August 25, 2010 by natsteel

[Dylan]

Yeah, I've realized that, Riotbeard. Their funding situation has effectively made me rule UVA out as a possibility. I read on their website that their funding is around 12k/yr. Meanwhile, William and Mary's stipend is 18k/yr. As of right now, I am looking at: Yale, UPenn, Temple, BU, Rutgers, N'western, and a few others.

I'm almost finished with my first semester at Temple. While I'm primarily interested in 20th-cent. US cultural history, I've really enjoyed my coursework on the early republic this semester.

David Waldstreicher (taking his American Political Cultures readings seminar) is quite the mind--impassioned, historiographically-attuned, etc. Highly recommended.

[Emerson]

I'm another early Americanist, focusing on religious, cultural, and intellectual trends within the Atlantic world. I am currently at Cambridge, but I'm applying to five US schools: Harvard, W&M, Virginia, UPenn, and BU.

Though I guess we are in competition against each other, I still wish ya'll the best of luck!

[natsteel]

I'm another early Americanist, focusing on religious, cultural, and intellectual trends within the Atlantic world. I am currently at Cambridge, but I'm applying to five US schools: Harvard, W&M, Virginia, UPenn, and BU.

Though I guess we are in competition against each other, I still wish ya'll the best of luck!

We are most certainly in competition against each other, though I don't really deal much with religion on its own terms. I expect to focus on colonial political culture and intellectual history. I know the trend in the field has been to focus on the early republic, but my interests lie in the pre-revolutionary period, say 1720-1776, and I am focused primarily on colonial New York City, but also other urban areas.

What aspects or areas are you most interested in, Emerson? Also, have you been in contact with many of the professors. McConville told me he can only take 1 student per year because of funding issues and W&M's PhD admissions, as I'm sure you saw, will also be limited this year. Who would you expect to work with if you were accepted to Harvard? I wish you the very best of luck...

Edited November 16, 2010 by natsteel

[natsteel]

We are most certainly in competition against each other Though, I don't really deal much with religion, at least not on its own terms. I expect to focus on colonial political culture and intellectual history. I know the trend in the field has been to focus on the early republic, but my interests lie in the pre-revolutionary period, say 1720-1776, and I am focused primarily on colonial New York City, but also other urban areas.

What aspects or areas are you most interested in, Emerson? Also, have you been in contact with many of the professors. McConville told me he can only take 1 student per year because of funding issues and W&M's PhD admissions, as I'm sure you have seen, will also be limited this year. Who would you expect to work with if you were accepted to Harvard? I wish you the very best of luck...

Sorry for the double post. Either way, I'm not surprised we're applying to the same schools as the number of top departments in early American history have dwindled in recent years and the field itself is in a significant period of transition.

Edited November 17, 2010 by natsteel

[Emerson]

We are most certainly in competition against each other, though I don't really deal much with religion on its own terms. I expect to focus on colonial political culture and intellectual history. I know the trend in the field has been to focus on the early republic, but my interests lie in the pre-revolutionary period, say 1720-1776, and I am focused primarily on colonial New York City, but also other urban areas.

What aspects or areas are you most interested in, Emerson? Also, have you been in contact with many of the professors. McConville told me he can only take 1 student per year because of funding issues and W&M's PhD admissions, as I'm sure you saw, will also be limited this year. Who would you expect to work with if you were accepted to Harvard? I wish you the very best of luck...

It's always fun to meet someone with somewhat similar interests! I may PM you so we can better get to know each other's work--early American intellectual history is an intimate scholarly community, so I'm sure we'll continue running into each other!

I focus on the tensions of nationalism and cosmopolitanism during the early republic period--how did American thinkers position their imagined community in relation to the broader atlantic world? I've done a previous master's degree (in historical theology) at the University of Edinburgh, and my thesis examined American responses to Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, arguing that the nation's exceptionalism stemmed from both the declining support of the French Revolution and the perceived de-Christianization process in continental Europe. My current thesis at Cambridge (in political thought and intellectual history) looks at the reception of German idealist philosophy in antebellum philosophy and engages the limits of exceptionalism during the nineteenth century. I plan on broadening the topic for my PhD work, looking at how Americans constructed the foreign "other" from, say, 1776-1845. Still a work in progress, though.

Your topic sounds fascinating, and I think the fact that you resist the trend of focusing on the early republic will only help your application stand out.

I fortunately met with all my potential advisors on a research trip to the East Coast this past summer: James Kloppenberg and David Armitage at Harvard (and I'd also love to work with Joyce Chaplin and Jill Lepore, as well as Religion's Leigh Eric Schmidt and English's Lawrence Buell; Chris Grasso and Chandos Brown at W&M (Grasso would be my ideal mentor there); Peter Onuf at Virginia; Michael Zuckerman and Steve Hahn at UPenn (Zuckerman, though technically retired, said he would be willing to work with me); and Charles Capper at BU.

[dark knight]

UVa just fixed their funding issues for graduate students. Check out the department web page. They also hired some great new profs!

[Emerson]

UVa just fixed their funding issues for graduate students. Check out the department web page. They also hired some great new profs!

Thanks for the heads-up! That is quite the funding package they offer!

[natsteel]

Thanks for the heads-up! That is quite the funding package they offer!

Great heads-up, dark knight. It's really quite an incredible turnaround considering their funding package was almost half that. 25k for 6 years!?!? In Virginia!?!? I'd have to say that is the best funding package I've yet seen. I applied to UVA but was not considering it a top choice, but I think that has now changed.

[Phyl]

I am! After I finish my MLS I'm going to start looking at programs in earnest. I've been doing a bunch of reading in hopes to develop some more focus, but I keep finding more things I'm interested in, I'm also interested in comparative revolutions.

Thinking about this is helping me keep my sanity during my less than interesting library science courses.