Comp Lit/American Studies Stats, Applicant Profiles, SOP/WS Topics + Discussing Chances, Hopes, Fears, etc.

[bgt28]

I suppose I’ll start, considering my prior post in the Comp Lit PhD 2015 forum…

 

STATS

·         School: Cornell University

·         Major: Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

·         Minor: Social Inequality Studies

·         Major GPA: 4.15

·         Cumulative GPA: 3.894, Summa Cum Laude

·         GRE Scores:

o   V: 159 (81^st Percentile)

o   Q: 156 (64^th Percentile)

o   AW: 5 (93^rd Percentile)

 

WS

Considering the institutional archive vis-à-vis affect studies, performance studies, archive studies, queer theory, and psychoanalysis to argue for a more critical approach to “archival” logics, so as to avoid the reification of national narratives in archives that may in fact, reading through Marxian theory, benefit from the elision of marginalized voices by way of a more successful corporatization.

 

 

PS/SOP

·         Introduction: Personal Narrative, mostly discussing the personal impact (positive) of changing my major from Biology to FGSS mid-UG, citing the influence of a particular class on media, space, and the body.

·         Body: Offer three most important courses as an exposure to undergraduate research as well as a genealogy of my developing interests for grad school.

·         Body: Discuss my honors thesis as another opportunity for research, but also as a culmination project for my undergrad intellectual passions, as well as a project to help develop my dissertation project prospectus.

·         Body: Choosing POIs and the importance of fit and research interests shared; all of my POIs I read over undergrad or for my thesis, so I was able to successful link their work with my own research projects/interests to write a (hopefully) convincing plea as to why I fit well in particular programs.

·         Conclusion: Why the school in general? Vastly different responses for each school, but generally focused on the importance of programs’ emphasis on pedagogy and collaborative learning among graduate students across disciplines.

 

Areas of Interest

·         Aesthetics

·         Queer Theory

·         Studying the visual politics of abjection

·         Visual genealogies

·         Narrative

 

 

Mic Drop LOL. XOXO. Keep them coming!

 

[bgt28]

PS: Program Lists/Departments

• Cornell: Comp Lit
• Columbia: English and Comp Lit
• Harvard: Africana
• Yale: Africana/Film and Visual Studies 
• Brown: Modern Culture and Media 
• Stanford: Modern Thought and Literature 
• NYU: English 
• UPenn: English/Literary Theory

[hypervodka]

STATS

•  School: Very Small State University
• Major: English Literature
  I took upwards of 15 literary theory and history courses at my alma mater, which may be a little unusual, not sure.
• Minor: Creative Writing
• Major GPA: 4.0
• Cumulative GPA: 3.83, magna cum laude
• GRE Scores:

V: 166

Q: 157 

AW: 5.5

Subject: 670

 

WS

Conjoins psychoanalytic discourse on the construction of the joke (in terms of joker, joke-object, and joke-subject) to the similar triangular figuration of the performance of passing (passer, dupe, clairvoyant spectator), charting the Heideggerrian communities of building constructed around those able to accurately race the ambiguous body.

 

PS/SOP

• Introduction: My personal experience with a concept known in communication theory as "idioglossia," which I relate to construction of collective language in literature.
• Discusses my interest in performance theory, mentioning several papers presented at regional and national conferences. Depending on the school, also mentioned my target university's experience with performance theory. Relates that interest to my interest in discursive performance, ambiguous bodies (transvestism, costuming, passing). Discusses professional research experience in this arena.
• Details my intended graduate research interests and explains my writing sample. Relates my interests explicitly with POIs and students already in the program. Mentions members of the faculty in the history department, philosophy department, and African-American studies department as applicable.
• Conclusion: areas I'm further interest exploring in my research: mathematical theory, digital textual analysis, and literacy in law and literature

[bgt28]

WERK

[bgt28]

hypervodka, you're an AMAZING candidate, and I'm rooting for you all the way...Heidegger? On point. I love how eclectic and dynamic your areas of interest are! What are your programs/schools of interest? 

[drownsoda]

Ouch, nice work you two! Here goes nothing------

 

Stats

• School: Portland State University 
• Major: English 
• Major GPA: 3.9
• Overall GPA: 3.84
• GRE Scores: 159 V; 143 Q (I don't want to talk about it); 5.0 AW

Statement of Purpose

 

I had to mould each of these to fit within the schools' parameters and wishes, but essentially I started out discussing the fragmented nature of my education experience, and the ways in which it parallels with the fragmentation of postmodernism as a literary movement. Highlighted my interest on narrative evolution in the twentieth and twenty-first century, as well as the mystical and the unexplained, both as fantasy projections and as a point of tension between pre-modernist superstition and the disillusioned postmodern sensibility. Also briefly went into the dividing point in my college career when I had to drop out of school due to a prolonged illness, during which my naivety drowned in a well of incredulity, and I came to realize where my actual literary interests were in the first place (i.e. I entered college as a cretinous English major freshman who was so naive that I didn't even KNOW that contemporary lit. studies existed). Related my long-term goals with my areas of focus, primarily the ways in which we appropriate and grapple with the past in order to write the future.

 

 

Writing Sample

 

I was actually torn about using the sample that I did because I felt like it was my most well-written and perhaps cohesive work to date, yet wasn't sure how well it aligned with my points of interest. Turns out after giving it a fresh reading, it actually fit rather well. It was a term paper I wrote on Toni Morrison and Beloved, and approached the collective shattering/consolidation of identity from a Marxist standpoint, examining the ways in which the novel emphatically displays the transmutation of physical oppressions (i.e. the body) wholly into the political apparatus. I used support from the characters' fragmented emotional experiences to show the ways in which they struggle to make a future for themselves among figurative (and literal) "ghosts in the machine." 

[drownsoda]

I suppose I’ll start, considering my prior post in the Comp Lit PhD 2015 forum…

 

STATS

·         School: Cornell University

·         Major: Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

·         Minor: Social Inequality Studies

·         Major GPA: 4.15

·         Cumulative GPA: 3.894, Summa Cum Laude

·         GRE Scores:

o   V: 159 (81^st Percentile)

o   Q: 156 (64^th Percentile)

o   AW: 5 (93^rd Percentile)

 

Holla on those GRE scores, we got the exact same in verbal and writing! You slaughtered me in quantitative though. I am seriously, totally, helplessly inept in mathematics. I'm pretty sure a middle schooler could tank me on an 8th grade math exam.

[drownsoda]

Also, I am an idiot because I am applying for M.A. programs in American lit./studies, so I guess I crashed the PhD party here. Sorry everyone!

[bgt28]

Holla on those GRE scores, we got the exact same in verbal and writing! You slaughtered me in quantitative though. I am seriously, totally, helplessly inept in mathematics. I'm pretty sure a middle schooler could tank me on an 8th grade math exam.

LOL I totally bought into the whole "GRE = FORMALITY" thing my faculty advisers insisted on, and all of them have supposedly worked in admissions committees in the past...I literally got lucky...I posted this for face value, but I completely see the GREs as a form of fascism and don't even think I'll pay much attention to them if, Goddess willing, I end up on an admissions committee one day...

Also, I am an idiot because I am applying for M.A. programs in American lit./studies, so I guess I crashed the PhD party here. Sorry everyone!

YOU'RE ALWAYS WELCOME (I will only pull the "I STARTED THIS DISCUSSION" card this time lmao)

[queennight]

Writing Sample

 

I was actually torn about using the sample that I did because I felt like it was my most well-written and perhaps cohesive work to date, yet wasn't sure how well it aligned with my points of interest. Turns out after giving it a fresh reading, it actually fit rather well. It was a term paper I wrote on Toni Morrison and Beloved, and approached the collective shattering/consolidation of identity from a Marxist standpoint, examining the ways in which the novel emphatically displays the transmutation of physical oppressions (i.e. the body) wholly into the political apparatus. I used support from the characters' fragmented emotional experiences to show the ways in which they struggle to make a future for themselves among figurative (and literal) "ghosts in the machine." 

 

Wow! I know that you're applying to the American Studies MA, but that sounds like an incredible paper. I never thought to connect Marxism with Morrison, it'd be interesting to see how you did that (especially from a perspective of body politics).

[hypervodka]

hypervodka, you're an AMAZING candidate, and I'm rooting for you all the way...Heidegger? On point. I love how eclectic and dynamic your areas of interest are! What are your programs/schools of interest? 

 

Emory, UCLA, USC, UMD, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, UConn, Boston U.

 

Very different from you, though, because you have POIs at each of your schools that are intrinsically linked to your research interests, which I just don't have. That seriously helps..

[Appppplication]

CompLit applicant here too! 

 

M.A. in related field. Grad GPA: 3.91

2 publications

Some research and merit scholarships.

GRE V 160 Q150 W: 5

 

Langauges: French, Spanish.

 

Areas: Broadly, post-structuralism, philosophy and literature, 20th C. French lit and culture, film studies, continental philosophy

 

Really excited and nervous for results to arrive!

Edited January 10, 2015 by Appppplication

[1Q84]

Emory, UCLA, USC, UMD, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, UConn, Boston U.

 

Very different from you, though, because you have POIs at each of your schools that are intrinsically linked to your research interests, which I just don't have. That seriously helps..

 

Ooooh... it's so rare to see USC applicants around this year. Did you apply for the English program or something else?

[hypervodka]

Ooooh... it's so rare to see USC applicants around this year. Did you apply for the English program or something else?

 

Very strange, too, considering that USC has one of the best stipends I've seen ($30, 000), and a flexible, FUN program. I applied for English literature (Literatures of the US), though one of my letter-writers pressured me to apply for Creative Writing.

[HesseBunuel90]

hypervodka: What century of US Literature are you focusing on?

[hypervodka]

early 20th century, mainly, but anything subaltern and postbellum

[HesseBunuel90]

I'm 20th Century as well but more mid-century/post-war. I'm not sure if we'll be directly competing against each other or not (we applied to five of the same schools).

Edited January 10, 2015 by HesseBunuel90

[hypervodka]

well..........hm..... hmph.........HMPH

 

 

I'm kidding--this town's big enough for the both of us. Right?

 

I never thought about this! I'm not sure how directly we'll be competing, actually. For example, at Emory or Rutgers, Jewish-American literature seems a little more separate from Afro-American literature than the two are at, like, UMD.  That, coupled with the fact that you're looking at this literature through a completely different critical lens... I mean, I think our materials will probably always be laid in front of the same 20th c. committee, but I don't think it'll ever be either/or. I can't imagine anyone thinking of a post-war critic in direct competition with a critic buried in the long nineteenth and the early 20th.

 

Or maybe we're archenemies! We should bring the old GradCafe back. [Personal attack]! [Personal attack]!

[1Q84]

Very strange, too, considering that USC has one of the best stipends I've seen ($30, 000), and a flexible, FUN program. I applied for English literature (Literatures of the US), though one of my letter-writers pressured me to apply for Creative Writing.

 

It may be the notoriously low matriculation rate there. One prof told me two years ago that they only accepted *four* incoming students! Out of how many applicants, I don't know. Maybe for the best that you applied to English, though, as I heard they only took two creative writing applicants that same year. 

 

Here's hoping for the both of us!

[bgt28]

Fruit and nut chocolate is the answer. Cadbury, preferably. 

[bgt28]

Also, every single person here is an AMAZING candidate...I'm loving the vibes and the collective impact this thread is having on my otherwise horrendous evening xx

[quena]

Maybe I'm the first international applicant in this thread?

 

BA from a Chinese university

Major: Spanish/Hispanic (mostly Latin American) Literature

GPA: different system, not sure how to convert it. 85/100.

 

Current attending an MA program in Europe,several universities. (yes it's a very nomadic way of finishing an MA)

Major: a mixture of comp lit,literary theories and cultural studies

GPA: same situation. 15.6/20 on Scottish scale, 9.36/10 on Spanish scale

 

No publications, very few conferences

 

WS: part of my dissertation project. A psychoanalytical/deconstructive reading of Alejandra Pizarnik's works focused on the tension between the subject and the text and the question of the ineffable, relating back to some interesting issues such as how she disowned her first book, the radical change of her poetic language, and her struggle about writing a narrative, etc. 

 

SOP: I basically made a proposal of comparing contemporary Chinese and Latin American poetry in translation. Mostly interested in modernism/postmodernism, contemporary poetry, literary theories, translation studies, new media & performance art.

 

Applied to: Cornell, Berkeley, UPenn, Colorado Boulder.

[quena]

oops forgot to mention GRE scores: V 165 Q 160 AW 4 *lamentable aw score but anyway..

[zanmato4794]

B.A. from a small jesuit not-fun-to-be-gay-at liberal arts university basically unheard of outside of my state. My transcripts are embroidered with two lovely D's my first semester, five withdrawals over the years, and a ninth semester which screams that I hate core requirements (especially when two religious studies courses are required of all students). Considering that I was a complete train-wreck my entire time there (my boyfriend says I live fuck-up to fuck-up), it's kind of a miracle I got a 3.45 GPA and 3.6 in my major.

 

M.A. from a well-known state party school. Got my junk together and earned the only 4.0 in my literature cohort.

 

GRE: V 170, Q 161, AW 5.0

Subject: 640

 

I think awards will help my application. I got department best essay awards my junior and senior years of undergrad, and won best seminar paper and best thesis my second year of my master's program.

 

I have a publication forthcoming, but only one conference presentation--and a minor conference at that. I did some presentations at both universities I attended, but I don't think those really count. Mostly I suck at extrovert things. I almost fainted my first day teaching.

 

My interests: Coetzee, Nabokov, Joyce, Morrison, Beckett, Eugenides, Diaz, Foucault; video games, translation, mental illness, the novel, erotica, monsters, affinities between literature and other media (doctrine of the similar).

 

Personal Statement: blah blah i'm crazy and it helps me write stuff.

 

Caveat to my WS: I am notoriously untrendy in all aspects of my life, so I think you'll notice a lack of trendy-sounding terms or ideas in my description of my WS. Every time I try to do what other people are doing or what's cool, I mess up. I've always been one of those people who should just be left alone to do his thing.

 

This is the abstract for my WS: 

 

This article interrogates the curious dismissal of madness from the critical landscape surrounding J. M. Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country, and makes suggestions concerning how madness works in the novel and why—given certain critical and historical pressures—it has been persistently sidelined. An analysis of the novel in light of Coetzee’s scholarship on Samuel Beckett suggests that Magda’s discourse, like those of many Beckettian narrators, follows patterns of affirmation and auto-negation, constituting a fiction of what Coetzee calls “net zero.” In particular, Magda extends this pattern to the taking on and casting off of identities, perhaps in the style of the hermit crab she puts forward as an image of herself. An intertextual examination of the semantic and rhetorical range of madness as it appears in Coetzee’s other fiction and scholarship reveals that madness, for Coetzee, consistently denotes: on the one hand, a contagious force moving throughout a social body, and on the other hand, the labor of writing under the threat of illegibility—a threat conditioned in large part by the madness of the social body. By infecting the writer who might record its workings in history and thereby inhibiting or distorting that record, madness likewise appears in historical record as “net zero.” Thus, rather than simply being mad, Magda’s relationship with madness is emblematic of the (dis)appearance of madness in and from history.

 

I feel my odds of an acceptance--given that I applied only to four schools and have many odd things about my applications--are slightly less than 50%.

[Katla]

I'm still applying so sharing my SoAP etc still feels too dangerous, but I'm having such research envy from all the amazing outlines being posted here!

 

 

WS: part of my dissertation project. A psychoanalytical/deconstructive reading of Alejandra Pizarnik's works focused on the tension between the subject and the text and the question of the ineffable, relating back to some interesting issues such as how she disowned her first book, the radical change of her poetic language, and her struggle about writing a narrative, etc.

 

I'm a partial Latin Americanist and my MSt supervisor was very much into (Argentinean) poetry, so it's a disgrace how little I've worked with Lat Am poetry, but your WS description makes me want to acquaint myself with Pizarnik so badly!