Lost on where to apply

[azerej21]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm broadly interested in how postcolonial societies have been shaped about their colonial pasts (also how they think about they past, so memory etc.). I'd also love to look into how states that colonize have been shaped by their colonial ventures. These interests don't seem to fit neatly into any particular subfield. The articles I've been reading have mostly been comparative in nature. Mostly comparing colonial state x to colonial state y, but these don't really excite me.

 

I'd love to make the december deadlines and am wondering if anyone on here had thoughts about any of this/have any schools they can think of that may be worth looking into. Thanks guys!

[cultsoc]

I can't think of any programs that specialize in that area offhand but I just wanted to say you might be better off checking out each program's website to see if you can find any faculty members with similar interests. I know it can be quite tedious to visit close to 100 websites and go through the names but it's something that can help you narrow down your potential list. Good luck.

[breaks0]

Cult's partly right that within socal sciences you often deal with colonial and postcoloniality more often (at least traditionally) in anthro and history, for example. Perhaps some polisci programs too, let alone various areas of the humanities. That said, it is perhaps possible, for starters, to look at the world systems centric departments, or those that have World Systems people in them. I say that as someone considering schools w/that focus myself, perhaps Binghamton, Hopkins and Santa Barbara for starters? And perhaps Berkeley, the latter is moving that direction in S Asia studies generally (taking some of Columbia's top people, including the new VP and Provost, Nick Dirks) and their India sociology specialist (Raka Ray) is probably open to that. There must be other places, cult's right look through dept websites if you're set on soc as your field.

[lyrehc]

You might also look and see if you can find communication programs that focus on collective memory.

[azerej21]

These responses were super helpful. Thanks everyone!!!

Edited August 27, 2014 by azerej21

[socspice]

Minnesota might be a good fit for you. They've got lots of folks doing work on collective memory. Michigan also does some cross-national comparative.