Syracuse English Dept

[curiousgeorge]

Hi all,

I was accepted to the English Ph.D program at Syracuse, but my work will not be in literature at all-- they have a fairly significant group of film and visual culture scholars, so it's not even like I got in under false pretenses. I'm wondering if anyone in the lit community has thoughts on these kinds of English departments. Is it pretty common for there to be students taking classes with you whose work essentially has nothing to do with literature, or would this be kind of strange for either me or the other students there? Further, how easily do you think it is to apply for jobs outside of English proper (say, in film and media studies, communication, visual culture, etc)? Even though the work should speak for itself by that point, my Ph.D will still say "English," after all. I would fear that a question like "well, why did you go to an English department, then?" would always nag me, but I'm more than willing to be wrong on that! Finally, any thoughts on the caliber of that department in general? I see that it isn't exactly ranked in the top 10...is this a significant hurdle even if one's dissertation is solid?

[engguy]

Curious--

For what it's worth, I'd say the definition of what an "English" degree means is rapidly shifting, to the point where it's fairly acceptable for you to have done something non-traditional (I say "fairly" because there are still, no doubt, some places where a traditional approach might be demanded when it comes to hiring). In my current program, there is a former student who did most of his work in the Art History dept. -- now Visual Studies -- and, while he got an "English" degree, has been hired as a Vis Studies prof. and currently has TT at a top-20 school. Lots of students here do similar things.

I don't know anything about the Syracuse dept. per se but I'm guessing the possibilities there are similar; you just have to be smart about how you frame / theorize what you're doing, so you're able to write a compelling diss. and describe it all in a job talk somewhere down the road.

[curiousgeorge]

That's very helpful. Thanks!

[Yellow#5]

Curious,

I think at the heart of studying "english" is really just a human beings attempt to tell a story, and a story can be told in many ways. Homer didn't write his stories down, initially, right, and neither did the Beowulf author, but no one would suggest that discussions of those stories don't belong in the english department. My particular interest is focused on written literature, primarily, but I wouldn't mind if there was a pure media based english Phd student in my classes. I would probably find the different perspective quite interesting.

Plus, there's literary theory -- a whole area unto itself and it can apply in very interesting ways to film or other types of new media.