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

[queennight]

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

 

I love this hahah you're officially my superstar

[Appppplication]

So have you all been tracing the earliest possible acceptance dates for all the programs you are applying to? It seems to me that next week acceptances could start rolling out. 

[InHacSpeVivo]

So have you all been tracing the earliest possible acceptance dates for all the programs you are applying to? It seems to me that next week acceptances could start rolling out. 

 

Yeah, I've been kind of compulsive about it. Only one place I'm applying notifies the last 10 days or so of January. The vast majority are over the course of February. For a few of them at least I'll know that if I don't hear in Feb. I can assume rejection.

[Appppplication]

Anyone applying to any west coast comp lit programs? It seems nearly every California program notifies late January or first week of February (excluding Stanford)? 

[iwontbelyeveit]

Anyone applying to any west coast comp lit programs? It seems nearly every California program notifies late January or first week of February (excluding Stanford)? 

 

I applied to Berkeley Comp Lit and U Oregon (finishing tonight!). I haven't heard anything back from Berkeley yet. 

[snyegurachka]

Ohh it's just about that time of the application cycle that I could use some comradery. 

 

I got my B.A. from a small but fairly respected women's college in Massachusetts with a double major in Studio Art and Russian Language, Literature, and Culture. I transferred a few times before I reached my degree-granting institution and had a number of personal issues, but managed to graduate in 4 years anyway. My 3.4 GPA clearly shows this. I took a lot of literature and theory classes and did better in them than most of the classes I took in either of my majors. 

 

M.A. (expected 2015) in what is essentially interdisciplinary Humanities and Cultural Studies at a well-known Art School. We don't have official GPAs on our transcripts, but mine would be a 3.8–3.9. 

 

Not sure about my exact GRE scores, but I got 90th percentile in Verbal and 4.5 in the writing. 

 

I have one publication in a gender studies journal and another forthcoming in a literary and cultural studies journal. I have presented at two conferences and am in the midst of planning a conference at my own institution. The summer after I graduated from undergrad, I had a three-month research fellowship (for current and recent undergraduates) in the Gender and Judaic Studies field. I have had a number of T.A. and T.A. Instructor positions at my current school as well.

 

Interests: Museums as cultural archives and indexes of present and past experiences. "Weird" museums and the fetishization of the vernacular object. Collecting as an editorial process; the collection as an autobiography for the future. Constructions of the self through language and things. Subject/object dialectic. The livingness of Things. Non-American American identities (articulated through things). Bakhtin.

 

WS: The piece I chose is something of a condensed version of my MA thesis and is the draft of my upcoming publication. I look at the collection and museum in different time-space dimensions (chronotopes) as a means of displaying the multitude of ways that objects and human-object relationships manifest/ed over time. The Kunstkammer of Rudolf II and the City Museum in St. Louis are the primary sites of my exploration of the formation of narrative through the collection and arrangement/display of objects that stand in for an ideal (self or space or time). I weave these analyses in with anecdotal recollections of my own immigrant grandparents' collections of the "old country" in America and my lived experiences as a collector and visitor to collections.

 

Sorry, this isn't a very good summary. My thesis uses incidences to demonstrate the multi-faceted meanings of things and the stories they tell, in a structure that moves somewhat linearly through time but bounces across cultures and subjects. It is more "writerly" than many academic writing samples, which makes me nervous, but it is also who I am and what I do, and I don't want to be in a program that won't at least tolerate my bad academic behavior. I submitted a different part of a thesis chapter to Brown, which required a ten page sample. That section looks at the (emptied) Hermitage during the siege of Leningrad and the literary/physical figure of Peter I.

 

 

Statement of Purpose:

I start off by stating my prerogative—to redact personal, provincial, partial, and peripheral histories that together create a multi-faceted picture of a time/space/experience/culture. I talk more about some specifics of my ideas about collecting/curating as editorial processes. I talk about my unique approaches to text as an artist (or really, someone immersed in artists) and to visuality as someone with a literary studies background. I also describe the influence of Russian culture (my family) and my connection to the language (mostly academic) as avenues through which I approach the material of my writing/research, citing some examples from my thesis. I then outline my proposed dissertation, which will have something to do with finding and relating stories from the confluence of cultures represented by personal, provincial, and often strange museums across the United States. I give a very clear reason as to why I am applying to literature programs and not Art History or American or Cultural Studies. Then of course I have my whole spiel about how great x and y professors are and why z program is the perfect site for me to do my interdisciplinary work.

 

 

I applied to:

Emory, Comparative Literature

Brown, Comparative Literature

University of Chicago, English

UC Berkeley, Rhetoric

Stanford, Modern Thought and Literature

 

 

I was really psyched on all these programs when I applied, but the more I think about it, the more it feels like Stanford and I would fit so well together. Hello, upcoming failure.

[bgt28]

Ohh it's just about that time of the application cycle that I could use some comradery. 

 

I got my B.A. from a small but fairly respected women's college in Massachusetts with a double major in Studio Art and Russian Language, Literature, and Culture. I transferred a few times before I reached my degree-granting institution and had a number of personal issues, but managed to graduate in 4 years anyway. My 3.4 GPA clearly shows this. I took a lot of literature and theory classes and did better in them than most of the classes I took in either of my majors. 

 

M.A. (expected 2015) in what is essentially interdisciplinary Humanities and Cultural Studies at a well-known Art School. We don't have official GPAs on our transcripts, but mine would be a 3.8–3.9. 

 

Not sure about my exact GRE scores, but I got 90th percentile in Verbal and 4.5 in the writing. 

 

I have one publication in a gender studies journal and another forthcoming in a literary and cultural studies journal. I have presented at two conferences and am in the midst of planning a conference at my own institution. The summer after I graduated from undergrad, I had a three-month research fellowship (for current and recent undergraduates) in the Gender and Judaic Studies field. I have had a number of T.A. and T.A. Instructor positions at my current school as well.

 

Interests: Museums as cultural archives and indexes of present and past experiences. "Weird" museums and the fetishization of the vernacular object. Collecting as an editorial process; the collection as an autobiography for the future. Constructions of the self through language and things. Subject/object dialectic. The livingness of Things. Non-American American identities (articulated through things). Bakhtin.

 

WS: The piece I chose is something of a condensed version of my MA thesis and is the draft of my upcoming publication. I look at the collection and museum in different time-space dimensions (chronotopes) as a means of displaying the multitude of ways that objects and human-object relationships manifest/ed over time. The Kunstkammer of Rudolf II and the City Museum in St. Louis are the primary sites of my exploration of the formation of narrative through the collection and arrangement/display of objects that stand in for an ideal (self or space or time). I weave these analyses in with anecdotal recollections of my own immigrant grandparents' collections of the "old country" in America and my lived experiences as a collector and visitor to collections.

 

Sorry, this isn't a very good summary. My thesis uses incidences to demonstrate the multi-faceted meanings of things and the stories they tell, in a structure that moves somewhat linearly through time but bounces across cultures and subjects. It is more "writerly" than many academic writing samples, which makes me nervous, but it is also who I am and what I do, and I don't want to be in a program that won't at least tolerate my bad academic behavior. I submitted a different part of a thesis chapter to Brown, which required a ten page sample. That section looks at the (emptied) Hermitage during the siege of Leningrad and the literary/physical figure of Peter I.

 

 

Statement of Purpose:

I start off by stating my prerogative—to redact personal, provincial, partial, and peripheral histories that together create a multi-faceted picture of a time/space/experience/culture. I talk more about some specifics of my ideas about collecting/curating as editorial processes. I talk about my unique approaches to text as an artist (or really, someone immersed in artists) and to visuality as someone with a literary studies background. I also describe the influence of Russian culture (my family) and my connection to the language (mostly academic) as avenues through which I approach the material of my writing/research, citing some examples from my thesis. I then outline my proposed dissertation, which will have something to do with finding and relating stories from the confluence of cultures represented by personal, provincial, and often strange museums across the United States. I give a very clear reason as to why I am applying to literature programs and not Art History or American or Cultural Studies. Then of course I have my whole spiel about how great x and y professors are and why z program is the perfect site for me to do my interdisciplinary work.

 

 

I applied to:

Emory, Comparative Literature

Brown, Comparative Literature

University of Chicago, English

UC Berkeley, Rhetoric

Stanford, Modern Thought and Literature

 

 

I was really psyched on all these programs when I applied, but the more I think about it, the more it feels like Stanford and I would fit so well together. Hello, upcoming failure.

Can we discuss:

 

a] how you're an amazing candidate with an amazing writing sample (I'm totally obsessed with Archive/Museum Studies)

b]Stanford: Right there with you! 3 admits/4 years isn't a cute ratio. 

c]How do you feel about Stanford, and MTL specifically? Let us commiserate and hope we both get in! xx

[sillyrabbit]

Good to see more MTL hopefuls!

[bgt28]

Good to see more MTL hopefuls!

The Three Musketeers, anyone? lol

[snyegurachka]

Can we discuss:

 

a] how you're an amazing candidate with an amazing writing sample (I'm totally obsessed with Archive/Museum Studies)

b]Stanford: Right there with you! 3 admits/4 years isn't a cute ratio. 

c]How do you feel about Stanford, and MTL specifically? Let us commiserate and hope we both get in! xx

 

a] awwww, I hope so!

b] were there really only 3 admits in the past four years? Or just in the results search here? I kind of figure that 1/6-1/3 of accepted applicants post their results on the results survey. I thought it was something more like 2-4 per year. Now I feel even worse

c] I have a kind of "ick" feeling about the bay area (even though I have never been there). I lived in Portland, OR for a year and thought it was the worst. Now I have west coast phobia. I also lived in NY and know how stressful high rents can be.  Other than these situational aspects...my thesis advisor did his post-doc at Stanford and has only amazing things to say about the school and the MTL program. The interdisciplinarity of MTL—particularly the program's openness to combined art/writerly practice within academia—and its general ethos of theory/cultural studies backed by literary studies' approaches fit perfectly with my project(s) and methodologies. I'm also psyched on taking classes/working with Paula Findlen and Ian Hodder and the general prospect of doing literature-y work while studying closely with people outside of those disciplines.

 

how about yourself?

[Katla]

Anyone applying to any west coast comp lit programs? It seems nearly every California program notifies late January or first week of February (excluding Stanford)? 

I'm applying to four on that side -Berkeley. Stanford, UCLA and U Washington... So count me in on the Stanford hopefuls...

 

 

@snyegurachka, you sound like an amazing candidate!!! I love the sound of your proposal!

[bgt28]

Honestly, Ramón Saldívar. He's AMAZING. I read a paper by him on the transnational imaginary and it's informed all of my senior year papers, my thesis, and the text I'm revising now which I so desperately want to publish in Social Text. And, as you mentioned, the interdisciplinarity of MTL is soooo attractive, and I've gotten really positive feedback from their PM, which is so comforting, since it indicates a warm departmental solidarity/commitment. I'm torn, honestly. My dream is to move to NYC with my best friends, for which being admitted to Columbia is basically my number one choice: also, the fact that Mamadou Diouf is there, which honestly, yes. He's EXACTLY the kind of transnational African thinker I've been missing; also the fact that he'd probably kick my ass into gear on the question of the French language lol. I've been slacking with my European languages lately, and hope that when I'm back in the US I'll take an intensive French/German tutorial to get back into it, since, you know, Comp LI

[bgt28]

Honestly, Ramón Saldívar. He's AMAZING. I read a paper by him on the transnational imaginary and it's informed all of my senior year papers, my thesis, and the text I'm revising now which I so desperately want to publish in Social Text. And, as you mentioned, the interdisciplinarity of MTL is soooo attractive, and I've gotten really positive feedback from their PM, which is so comforting, since it indicates a warm departmental solidarity/commitment. I'm torn, honestly. My dream is to move to NYC with my best friends, for which being admitted to Columbia is basically my number one choice: also, the fact that Mamadou Diouf is there, which honestly, yes. He's EXACTLY the kind of transnational African thinker I've been missing; also the fact that he'd probably kick my ass into gear on the question of the French language lol. I've been slacking with my European languages lately, and hope that when I'm back in the US I'll take an intensive French/German tutorial to get back into it, since, you know, Comp LI

*Comp Lit

[snyegurachka]

Honestly, Ramón Saldívar. He's AMAZING. I read a paper by him on the transnational imaginary and it's informed all of my senior year papers, my thesis, and the text I'm revising now which I so desperately want to publish in Social Text. And, as you mentioned, the interdisciplinarity of MTL is soooo attractive, and I've gotten really positive feedback from their PM, which is so comforting, since it indicates a warm departmental solidarity/commitment. I'm torn, honestly. My dream is to move to NYC with my best friends, for which being admitted to Columbia is basically my number one choice: also, the fact that Mamadou Diouf is there, which honestly, yes. He's EXACTLY the kind of transnational African thinker I've been missing; also the fact that he'd probably kick my ass into gear on the question of the French language lol. I've been slacking with my European languages lately, and hope that when I'm back in the US I'll take an intensive French/German tutorial to get back into it, since, you know, Comp LI

 

I hear that...I'm auditing an advanced/graduate level Russian class this semester, and it's making me feel like it's my first year all over again. 

[bgt28]

Cornell Comp Lit: 

 

"proficiency in two foreign languages"

English

Amharic

and......Working on it. AKA I'm fucked.

[drownsoda]

Cornell Comp Lit: 

 

"proficiency in two foreign languages"

English

Amharic

and......Working on it. AKA I'm fucked.

 

I believe in you! 

 

Only one of my applications for MA English programs demanded foreign language reading/writing proficiency, and it was Fordham's. The kicker was that it had to be proficiency in one of four languages: French, Italian, Spanish, or Latin— so I guess my massive German/Russian extended family plus the four years of German that I studied in high school did jack shit for me there.

 

Thankfully, I'm semi-fluent in Spanish, and studied it for two years during undergrad, so I think I'm covered. I actually just took a Spanish class last semester for the first time in almost three years, and did remarkably well in it, so I guess I've retained it pretty well. I wish I could say I knew Latin, but I was a good little Catholic boy after Vatican II, so mass was always en inglés. 

[Appppplication]

The following CompLit programs all notified by the end of Jan last year: USC, Stanford, Penn State, UWisconsin, SUNY Buffalo, and UNC!

 

It looks like USC's comp lit program started notifying jan 18th last year! That's tomorrow!

 

Holy Crap!

[1Q84]

It looks like USC's comp lit program started notifying jan 18th last year! That's tomorrow!

For my own sanity, I gotta believe USC won't send notifications on the Sunday of a long weekend!

[Appppplication]

Did you appy to complit or English? According to last year's results forum the Complit dept. sent notices out on the Sunday before MLK day!

[bgt28]

I believe in you! 

 

Only one of my applications for MA English programs demanded foreign language reading/writing proficiency, and it was Fordham's. The kicker was that it had to be proficiency in one of four languages: French, Italian, Spanish, or Latin— so I guess my massive German/Russian extended family plus the four years of German that I studied in high school did jack shit for me there.

 

Thankfully, I'm semi-fluent in Spanish, and studied it for two years during undergrad, so I think I'm covered. I actually just took a Spanish class last semester for the first time in almost three years, and did remarkably well in it, so I guess I've retained it pretty well. I wish I could say I knew Latin, but I was a good little Catholic boy after Vatican II, so mass was always en inglés.

Thanks haha <3

[bgt28]

Finally back in the U.S...easier gradcafe access, or gateway to insanity?

[Appppplication]

insanity unless you get an early admit

[SubmarineReflection]

Finally back in the U.S...easier gradcafe access, or gateway to insanity?

I say insanity. I'm going to be back in the U.S. from February 12-22nd, definitely will be checking my NON-CENSORED gmail every few seconds.

[quena]

I say insanity. I'm going to be back in the U.S. from February 12-22nd, definitely will be checking my NON-CENSORED gmail every few seconds.

Back from PRC?

[SubmarineReflection]

Back from PRC?

hell to the yes