Is my school list "right"?

[Cpoco]

I study visual arts practices and theories in college. My research interests lie in Lacanian psychoanalysis, anime, critical theory and feminism. This fall I am applying to grad programs. Here is the school list. I greatly appreciate some suggestions from people so I can finalize my decisions. Thanks in advance!

 

Brown U, Modern Culture & Media;

MIT, Comparative Media Studies;

U of California Berkeley, Rhetoric;

U of California Irvine, Visual Studies;

U of Minnesota, Communication Studies;

European Graduate School, Communication;

U of Wisconsin-Madison, Communication Arts;

U of California Santa Cruz, History of Consciousness

 

My GPA: 3.5+

GRE: 161, 163, 3.5

[smg]

The theory and criticism program at the University of Western Ontario might interest you.  

[Cpoco]

The theory and criticism program at the University of Western Ontario might interest you.

Don't take it personally if i am wrong, but by proposing this school, are you implying that there is little chance for me to aim for those in my list?

[poliscar]

Don't apply to the European Grad School; it is a vanity project and will not lead to employment. Otherwise your list seems pretty good, although I am a bit unsure as to whether you'll have much of an opportunity to study anime in some of the listed departments.

[Cpoco]

Don't apply to the European Grad School; it is a vanity project and will not lead to employment. Otherwise your list seems pretty good, although I am a bit unsure as to whether you'll have much of an opportunity to study anime in some of the listed departments.

First, thanks for the reply. Why do you think EGS is a vanity project? Could you be more specific on that? Also, by the way, it is not the body of anime itself that I want to take on, but rather it is the phenomena of it, which sometimes is totally irrelevant to the materiality of this medium.

[smg]

Don't take it personally if i am wrong, but by proposing this school, are you implying that there is little chance for me to aim for those in my list?

 

nope.  but i imagine to get into those programs you're going to need a stellar application that is more than just good numbers.  

 

 i'm proposing UWO because they offer a program in critique and theory.   however, i have heard the ucsc's history of consciousness program is not what it use to be and was told by a recent graduate not to bother applying.  also, ucdavis has critical theory designation for a number of their phd programs and depending on what type of critical theory you're interested in it might be a place worth applying to.  i'm applying there because im interested in wertkritik.  

[marXian]

You should check out the screen cultures PhD program at Northwestern. NU has a program called the Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative in which grad students participate with students from other disciplines in "clusters" which are focused upon specific interdisciplinary fields. The critical theory cluster at NU is incredible. The cluster program also allows interested students to earn a certificate in the fields around which particular clusters are organized including critical theory and gender and sexuality studies. Also connected to the critical theory cluster is NU's Paris Program in Critical Theory, which is an amazing program for advanced PhD students to apply to spend a term in Paris participating in a special seminar and pursuing dissertation research.