Some questions for you guys

[Thorongil]

Hey thanks for the reassurance guys. I still have a year to decide things, but your advice and comments have been much appreciated and quite helpful. 

 

I might throw out a slightly different question for you now, though. What is the average or recommended number of PhD programs people here apply to? As I mentioned, I applied to 15 MA programs, which was obscenely and painfully expensive, but that was mostly due to the fact that I had almost no idea how good of an applicant I was or if I would be accepted anywhere. To my surprise, I was accepted into half of the 15, and half of that number in turn offered me funding. To me, 15 seems too much for PhD programs, but I'd love your thoughts. I was thinking I might apply to 10 at the most, maybe 7-8 English programs and 1-2 religious studies programs. 

Edited July 26, 2015 by Thorongil

[echo449]

One professor of mine recc'd maxing out a credit card to do it--I uh ignored that advice and applied to 11 places. I got into a bunch, but I met plenty of smart people on my visits who had applied to the same range as myself and gotten in at the one place. Really, it's how many you feel comfortable applying to, and what you're willing to spend. 10 seems to be the norm, tho.

[Dr. Old Bill]

I had planned on applying to 14, but since I got through most of my applications quite early (some of them were completed in August, and most by October), I wound up adding three along the way that had some late appeal.

 

In my next cycle, I'll probably reduce that number to about 12 or so.

[toasterazzi]

I applied to 6 schools for the PhD. I initially wanted to apply to 10, but my funds would not allow me to do so. I got a couple waivers CIC, which helped quite a bit.

 

I ended up getting into 2 schools outright, waitlisted at 1, rejected from 1, and in perpetual limbo at the last school.

Edited July 27, 2015 by toasterazzi

[cloudofunknowing]

To chime in re: medieval mysticism and/or scholars who study it in conjunction with philosophy and/or critical theory (often involving, in some way, or indebted to major philosophical currents by way of Kant, Hegel, etc): you might enjoy Holsinger's (teaches at UVA, in English) The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory. Holsinger traces the importance of the Middle Ages in the theoretical work of thinkers who typify post/modernity like Bataille, Lacan, Derrida, Panofsky, Bourdieu, and Barthes.

As for scholars who work on medieval spirituality, I'd recommend Amy Hollywood (teaches at Harvard), who's written extensively on Marguerite Porete, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Meister Eckhart, and others. Her work is often informed by philosophical and theoretical work.

As for medievalists housed in English departments who deal with spirituality and mysticism (a contested term, as Nicholas Watson has argued) - & by no means is this comprehensive - Karma Lochrie at Indiana has worked on Margery Kempe extensively, as has Carolyn Dinshaw at NYU. Nicholas Watson at Harvard has worked on Julian if Norwich extensively and, more broadly, vernacular theology; Denise Baker at UNC-Greensboro has written a very important book on her Revelations.

A more general observation re: your proposed project(s) based on conversations I've had with fellow PhD students and professors during my first year in my program: while a major author (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Melville, etc) and/or major "theorist" (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Derrida, etc) can certainly provide the scaffolding for a book-length project, single-author dissertations have gone way "out of fashion," as it were - at least in the usual senses of the term. The philosophical currents you describe coursing through multiple works of fiction, and/or its tributaries, certainly sounds promising. In a statement of purpose, it might work to your advantage to situate Schopenhauer's in a larger constellation of voices? Good luck!

[Thorongil]

@ cloud

 

Thanks for the post. By "larger constellation of voices," could you maybe be a little more specific about what you mean?

 

I really like medieval spirituality/mysticism but I'm not confident I can ensure being prepared enough in terms of languages to feel safe, as it were, in choosing the medieval period on my SOP. 

 

Here's a question for anyone. What if I argued for one literary theory over and against another or several others? I take literary theory to be, in the most basic sense, determining how to interpret literature, an inherently philosophical enterprise in my opinion, but one that seems to go on primarily in English departments. Could that be a dissertation topic? For example, what if I compared, say, Kant's Critique of Judgment with Schopenhauer's theory in the World as Will and Presentation? Is that "Englishy" enough? 

Edited July 27, 2015 by Thorongil

[cloudofunknowing]

I can certainly try! By that, I was referring to the trend I referred to moving away from a dissertation grounded in, for example, an analysis of one writer's body of work. This is arguable, of course - and I don't mean to mount one in favor of this view, necessarily - where an admissions committee might (that is, might) more read more skeptically a statement of purpose proposing a dissertation devoted to one of the big literary lights: Shakespeare, Milton, Melville, Dickens, etc. By this, I don't mean that I think the last word has been written on any of them (hardly), but the burden will be on you to make a convincing case - in very few words - for how you would read them differently from the scores who already have. As it was put to me by a mentor: proposing a single author dissertation is dangerous in light of the job market where, since an academic career is presumably your ultimate professional goal, your dissertation is one of the very important things that factor in the pursuit of such a position. Intellectual sexiness and verve are, to be sure, a part of that also. And even though an admcomm is doubtlessly aware applicant interests do and will shift while one is in a program, I would imagine (and here I am only imagining, as I have never participated in such a committee) adcomms also look and screen for breadth as much as depth.

So by constellation, I meant Schopenhauer as perhaps one point connected to other points (backward, forward, or contemporaneous) that might collectively index what it is in Melville and Conrad you find so interesting, for example. Is it something shifting in the public atmosphere that you think their work taps into? Are they literary (which is hardly to say merely "aesthetic") examples of something sociocultural that you believe to be important (which isn't to say there's anything mere or simple about the aesthetic either)? Does it have anything to do with "modernity" - whatever "that" "means"?

Re: your other question: since Kant and Schopenhauer are German philosophers, a project seeking to bring them into close conversation would potentially be more viable in a Comp Lit program than most (not necessarily all) English programs. Many, to be sure, are open to a lot of theory, but a question you'd likely need to articulate well, were you to propose such to an English program, would be how those two relate to something(s) within English's admittedly wide disciplinary field(s). Cheers!

[__________________________]

"Literature and Philosophy" is definitely a "thing" in literary studies (probably more so than in academic philosophy) and definitely a hugely rich topic for 19th century English literature that I think you could definitely bill yourself as focusing on.  You may want to think about what specific philosophical issues you are interested in exploring in literature.  Examples: animal studies / (post)humanism, feminism / gender / sexuality, historicism / philosophy of history, mat etc.  In addition to Schopenhauer, other German dudes like Kant, Marx, Hegel, and Nietzsche are probably pretty friggin important for you to know quite well.

 

For applying for English programs, languages certainly help, particularly ones you need for your central interests (as an example, I'm a medievalist, so my WS displayed a working knowledge of medieval Latin and Middle English), but yes, your program should allow you the time and resources to acquire languages too, so not having languages shouldn't necessarily prevent you from applying altogether.  My program, as an example, requires reading knowledge of at least one foreign language by the end of the second year.  Requirements will vary from person to person and program to program.

 

Wyatt brought up a good point about separating (to a certain extent) your academic and personal tastes.  Writing a fresh WS and figuring out a methodology for that is a good way to start feeling out what you like doing (as opposed to just reading) and what you still need to learn to do your "project" (which is what the program is for).  And of course, your interests will change, so having secondary interests is probably a good thing and will help you in your search -- "I know I need to learn German and Brazilian Portuguese to better understand so-and-so writers and I also would like there to be some people doing cool stuff on Milton and some people doing cool stuff on Stirner.  It would also be nice to be able to take a class or two on queer science fiction and the Harlem Renaissance.  What schools have some, many, most, or all of those things?"

 

 

 

Here's a question for anyone. What if I argued for one literary theory over and against another or several others? I take literary theory to be, in the most basic sense, determining how to interpret literature, an inherently philosophical enterprise in my opinion, but one that seems to go on primarily in English departments. Could that be a dissertation topic? For example, what if I compared, say, Kant's Critique of Judgment with Schopenhauer's theory in the World as Will and Presentation? Is that "Englishy" enough? 

 

To agree with cloud, no, writing a comparative piece on two German philosophers is not very "englishy."  Also, broadly defending one sort of literary theory over others requires a depth of knowledge of various kinds of literary theory that I sincerely doubt you have and cannot be acquired in a few months or a year (I sincerely don't mean that to be an insult, that's legit just the kind of thing you write after you've written a few books and have tenure somewhere).  Keep the arguments to specific texts for now.  That being said, yes, literary scholars have all sorts of debates over hermeneutics (as do philosophers and religious scholars) and yes, that can be something you focus on (in addition to some sort of theoretical and historical grounding).