Slavic 2016 and Beyond

[KingNikolai1]

Hello everyone! I was wondering if there are any aspiring Slavicists around for this upcoming round of applications. I am looking to apply to Slavic programs with an emphasis in Russian literature. Nearly all my research in undergrad deals with Orthodox imagery and symbolism in Russian literature, especially Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy. My secondary interests include Old Church Slavonic and medieval Russian history. Though I am literature oriented, Orthodoxy and Old Slavonic are so intertwined that it is always helpful to learn OCS especially when dealing with old Russian Orthodox texts. Within my primary interests, I generally draw connections between iconography and art as well as Byzantine and Russian theology which have seeped into many Russian works. I haven't quite decided, but if I have to choose another modern Slavic language then I will probably go with either Ukrainian or Bulgarian. I will be taking the GRE next week, and fall semester starts in a week and a half. If anyone has recommendations or advice please let me know. As of this moment I plan on applying to Yale, Columbia, and U of Kansas in addition to Oxford, Cambridge, and U of Nottingham.

[Řezníček]

Dobrý den! Dobrý deň! Dobry dźyń! Dzień dobry! Dzéń dobri! Dobar dan! Dober dan! Dobry dźeń! Dobry źeń! Добар дан! Добар ден! Добър ден! Добры дзень! Добрый динь! Добреі дині! Добрий день! Добрый день! Добръ дьнь!!!!

I'm not applying this year but for the season of fall 2017. Nonetheless, I have viewed the forum on a daily basis and I really think we should make the Slavic page as well as the language subforum active! It has been quite silent for two months unfortunately...

Personally, as a Junior Undergrad, I still have a full year of time before submitting the application to prepare all the material and to demonstrate my interests and I have determined the area of research and some schools I want to apply to. Nevertheless, I just feel a little bit panic since I have no idea how the graduate admission looks like and how hard it is to get in. I understand that it may differ from people to people but it seems like, based on the public data, some Slavic graduate schools have unexpectedly low enrollment rate (which is based on the admission rate and the yield rate that I have no idea). Is it true that, as there is always a language requirement (2-4 years in one or two foreign languages depends) for admission, it would be less likely to apply cross-disciplinarily and less qualified applicants in the pool for competition compared to other fields (such as English, Film, History or Art History)?  In addition, it also seems that many Slavic departments are reducing or even shutting down their graduate programs due to lack of funding and faculty retirement, is that the a general trend for future?

Thank you very much! Let's keep the thread going!

Edited December 5, 2015 by Řezníček

[sarajop]

KingNikolai1 : if you're at all interested, at Harvard we're building quite a little community of grad students interested in Orthodoxy. I'd definitely apply here if you want to follow those interests. I don't know about the Kansas program, but Oxford really depends on who you get given as an adviser. We also have Michael Flier here, who deals in semiotics and orthodoxy, and seems right up your alley.

Reznicek: You certainly, certainly need a lot of Russian if you're interested in Slavic - unless you're a language genius/a native speaker 2 years of Russian isn't going to cut it in a competitive program. (There are a few programs that might take someone with Polish or Czech but not Russian, but it is going to be very challenging to find a job after that.) As to other languages: many programs are lax about the French/German requirement, but some sort of demonstrated competency in a language other than Russian or English would help. I wouldn't be terribly concerned about the job prospects in that if you're in it for the money, any humanities Ph.D. is a bad plan.

[Řezníček]

Thank you for your reply! Just to clarify, I'm not applying cross-disciplinarily myself and of course I'm in a Slavic program now and I need to master Russian to graduate.  Nonetheless, I'm a strong advocator for non-Russian Slavic Literature, Language and Culture (partially because people largely don't take them seriously enough) and I won't consider Russian for my primary or secondary Slavic language/literature for research but more like a tool language. As you can read, Both of my questions are dealing with the competitiveness of graduate school admission and the stress-relief for the panicking application process. I'm neither concerned nor even care about the job prospects at all!

Edited December 11, 2015 by Řezníček

[ExponentialDecay]

 

 I'm neither concerned nor even care about the job prospects at all!

So, just out of interest, wherever you're from, they just hand out paid academic appointments to anybody who asks?

In regards to the competitiveness of Slavic programs... The reason the acceptance rates are a little higher is that it's a self-selecting pool, given the difficult language requirement and the fact that it's less mainstream than English Lit. The existence of a hard prerequisite cuts the number of unqualified people who want to apply, but the number of "serious" applicants is commensurate with any other program. There are a lot of applicants with native or near-native Russian and English both, but obviously the more important factor is your research. A lot of the greats are retired or close to it, and many of the competent people are at teaching colleges. Your intuition that Russian is an impacted language in academia today is correct, and given the, ahem, difficult political situation at the moment, that could go either way. You have to be particularly careful with picking a department for your studies, because, aside from the phenomenon of the department that suffered severe cuts following the collapse of the Union, there is also the phenomenon of the department taken over by 80s-90s Russian emigres whose work may or may not have anything to do with contemporary reality. I'd say the main two that do things are Berkeley and Stanford (assuming you're not a US citizen, I would not apply to UW-M, and not just for funding reasons). Harvard isn't a top Russian department (which is not to say it's not a good department for some specialities), but obviously if you're planning to work abroad, the brand name will do more for you than its perceived quality amongst American academics.

[Řezníček]

Thank you ExponentialDecay! This is extremely helpful and exactly what I want to know. Yeah, I've heard of the 1980-90s Russian emigrants taking academic position thing. It seems like at present the old are in their 70s and the most promising ones are stuck on the level of lecturers. I'm not thinking about Stanford, as it is too Russian-centric, neither Yale and Princeton. Berkeley might be a good option.

If Slavic does not work out well at the end, alternatives may include East European anthropology or history, but I'm more toward a humanity/literature-oriented program, so maybe something like yiddish studies or comp lit. Yet, I assume comp lit program is way harder to get in than area/language-specific literature program as people from all language background are applying at the same time. Is that right?

For the job prospect, I was saying that I was not concerned about or mentioning it in my previous post, and I'm not one of those business/market-oriented people. Plus it is something to worry about a decade later, I just do what I like to pursue at this point of time and regard it as a pure enjoyment of knowledge and humanity. Being a professor is ideal though, the worse scenario would be absolute joblessness in Academia and I can work as something else and become an independent scholar, writer, translator or language tutor to accommodate my interest and make some contributions, or perhaps taking advantage of my education I can move to Europe to find interesting things to do. Idk yet.

[ExponentialDecay]

I think you have to stop thinking about competitiveness in terms of language background, because it's a red herring. The English students have an urban legend that comp lit is easier to get into than English because they screen you harder for languages (they do) whereas English programs only go by your "real" achievements. You can make up all sorts of stuff like that. The fact is, any reputable program will be difficult to get into, especially now. The more niche programs that get fewer applicants just take net fewer students. There is no program out there that will be begging to admit you except for the University of Phoenix. The complications of Comp Lit have more to do with the job search, but you're not interested in that.

the worse scenario would be absolute joblessness in Academia

It's also the likeliest scenario.

Anyway, Yiddish Studies isn't really a thing - it will be a field within Jewish Studies. You choose depending on what you would like to teach (keeping in mind that, most likely, if you go Slavic, you will be teaching Russian, and if you go Jewish, you will be teaching Hebrew and Philip Roth). What is your research, out of interest?

[KingNikolai1]

On 12/10/2015 at 3:44 PM, sarajop said:

KingNikolai1 : if you're at all interested, at Harvard we're building quite a little community of grad students interested in Orthodoxy. I'd definitely apply here if you want to follow those interests. I don't know about the Kansas program, but Oxford really depends on who you get given as an adviser. We also have Michael Flier here, who deals in semiotics and orthodoxy, and seems right up your alley.
 

I didn't expect to receive any responses! Anyways, I am done with graduate school applications. My interests have slightly changed, but I applied to Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Toronto, UCLA, UPenn, and Columbia. Each of those schools is an excellent fit, and I honestly don't know if I want to suffer through writing one more application. Flier is excellent, but I have moved away from linguistics towards twentieth century literature and critical theory.

Edited December 12, 2015 by KingNikolai1

[heliogabalus]

So what are the top Russian and Slavic programs these days?

[KingNikolai1]

18 minutes ago, heliogabalus said:

So what are the top Russian and Slavic programs these days?

I was never able to find a good list of rankings. Given I wanted to study Orthodoxy, I was only able to find about twelve programs with specialists. I chose not to apply to Berkeley, Princeton, and Nottingham. Now I am on the fence about Harvard because I could complete the application once my finals are finished this upcoming week. Toronto and UCLA are my two less competitive options. 

 

Anyone else know what the top programs are?

Edited December 12, 2015 by KingNikolai1

[Řezníček]

Personally, I'm most interested in modern Czech/Slovak theatre and literature, especially in early Czechoslovakia and the Interwar period, but generally I'm open to anything on literature, linguistics, culture, theatre, TV/film and ethnography in the West Slavic area. I'm fine even with Jan Hus or Mikołaj Rej. I have a keen interest in Slavic ethnic minorities (Sorbs, Rusyns, Kashubians...) and East European Yiddish culture as well. Soviet literature or anything related to Communism could also draw my attention, but absolutely no Peter the Great or Derzhavin or post-Soviet stuff. Therefore, I will only apply to the few graduate schools out there that have real slavic departments and acknowledge these relatively minor (but not unimportant) slavic literature and culturally diverse ethnic groups.... they should not die out in the North American Academia....

Edited December 12, 2015 by Řezníček

[KingNikolai1]

1 minute ago, Řezníček said:

Personally, I'm most interested in modern Czech/Slovak theatre and literature, especially in the early Czechoslovak and the Interwar period, but generally I'm open to anything on literature, linguistics, culture, theatre, TV/film and ethnography in the West Slavic area. I'm fine even with Jan Hus or Mikołaj Rej. I have a keen interest in Slavic ethnic minorities (Sorbs, Rusyns, Kashubians...) and East European Yiddish culture as well. Soviet literature or anything related to Communism could also draw my attention, but absolutely no Peter the Great or Derzhavin or post-Soviet stuff. Therefore, I will only apply to the few graduate schools out there that have real slavic departments and acknowledge these relatively minor (but not unimportant) slavic literature and culturally diverse ethnic groups.... 

From my experience over the past year and a half, most decent Slavic programs have a specialist in the West Slavic realm. You have a whole year to refine your interests, but I will repeat sarajop's comment that language requirements are taken seriously. Applying to a Russian program with less than 3 years of Russian language is most likely a death knell, but there are a few programs that will consider applicants for South Slav and West Slav emphases if they have at least 2 years of the applicable language. I personally have four years of Russian language, although the third year was completed through an intensive summer language program in Russia. My only concern about applying to Harvard is my lack of French and German. My year of Ancient Greek in college does not count for much, and it was the only language I studied besides Russian. 

[heliogabalus]

Řezníček, I'm trying to think of any departments with faculty doing work 1920's and 30's Czechoslovak lit--Bristol or Glasgow maybe? Harvard has 2 really good people but they focus on 70s and 80s' underground stuff, I believe. Maybe Michigan, Paloff looks like he works with it tangentially and Toman has worked on that time period. I think the only place to do Slovak is Pitt, right? Medieval Czech stuff is really only handled in the US by a guy in the English dept. at UIC and a historian at Oregon, but I think she just works with Latin.

It sounds like you have some time to figure out what you want to specialize in, but you will probably want to before you apply. Also, you should take into account the job situation--whether it's a concern to you now or not. It will be in 7 years. There just aren't enough academic jobs in Czech lit--that is my real interest too--to have a decent chance of getting one (since a fair amount of the US Czech scholars are lecturers instead of professors, you may very well be competing with your teachers for academic jobs), so you might want to think about whether you really want to do a PhD or something like an area studies MA which will be faster and prepare you better for non-academic jobs. At the very least, if you apply to PhD programs and say that you have no real concerns about what you will do with your degree, the ad comms may pass over your application. (The first week of a grad program for Czech, my advisor pulled me aside to put together a game plan for transferring to a completely non-Slavic field where there might be a job.)

[Řezníček]

@KingNikolai1Yes I understand that. Language is the premise. I have no problem with Czech I think, and my Polish is getting there. I'm also working on some other small Slavic languages. I will have at least 3 year Russian classes by graduation and I'm comfortable with the reading knowledge, but not really communication-wise and I don't think I will do well in a grad lit class if it is fully conducted in Russian and plus traveling to Russia has not fitted into my schedule yet. French and German reading knowledge is ok.

@heliogabalus That's really helpful. I did some research on department/POI and I agree with you absolutely. I know my main research focus is on early 20th Century till the end of the WWII, but since the field is small and short-needed, to have a grand study/teaching interest is not bad I think. I will definitely plan to work on academics and aim for tenure-track professorship. Even though that might not happen and the job market is too gloomy, it wouldn't stop me, and I wouldn't quit scholarship because of that. I think I'm one of the idealists who totally separate doing academics (for knowledge and life) with getting hired by university (for money and living) (you know, job is market --- market is business --- business is bad), correct me if I'm wrong. If there are a lot of full-time writers, why couldn't many just become independent scholars rather than compete for the few academic jobs there? 

 

Edited December 12, 2015 by Řezníček

[heliogabalus]

There are full-time writers, but there aren't many outside the Czech Republic--and really only a few here--that are full-time writers writing on Czech Literature.

[ExponentialDecay]

11 hours ago, Řezníček said:

(you know, job is market --- market is business --- business is bad)

 

I have never understood the prevalence of this attitude amongst people who are supposed to have a professional knowledge of Marx. The market is a natural phenomenon. It has all the moral relevance of gravity or the fact that you need food to survive.

Anyway, you got it the wrong way round: 99% of full-time writers can't support themselves on their royalty checks, so they go into academia hoping to find a day gig.

[heliogabalus]

Nikolai, if you're working on Byzantine-Russian topics and OCS, your year of Classical Greek will be seen in a positive light, I imagine. OCS reads, unsurprisingly, a lot like Koine Greek.

[KingNikolai1]

6 hours ago, heliogabalus said:

Nikolai, if you're working on Byzantine-Russian topics and OCS, your year of Classical Greek will be seen in a positive light, I imagine. OCS reads, unsurprisingly, a lot like Koine Greek.

That was my original thought. I planned on going to grad school for Byzantine History, but the fact that I did not know Latin, Greek, French, or German barred those possibilities. Classical Greek is a wonderful language, but I didn't continue with it this year because we were never able to finish the book. An administrator mistakenly scheduled the four credit hour class for three hours both semesters, so the teacher was constantly cramming because we only met three times a week instead of four. Suffice to say, the situation was not ideal. Either way Classical Greek taught me quite a bit about the intricacies of grammar, and OCS is more comprehensible even without formal training.

[babjie]

On December 12, 2015 at 3:08 PM, heliogabalus said:

So what are the top Russian and Slavic programs these days?

For what's it worth, I have heard that the best Slavic doctoral programs are the ones at Colombia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Madison-Wisconsin, Ohio State and Berkley, which is more focused on theory than the others. Those are what a professor told me when I asked him about tier-one schools. I applied to several of these (in addition to Brown); already very anxious to hear back ... 

[KingNikolai1]

20 hours ago, babjie said:

For what's it worth, I have heard that the best Slavic doctoral programs are the ones at Colombia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Madison-Wisconsin, Ohio State and Berkley, which is more focused on theory than the others. Those are what a professor told me when I asked him about tier-one schools. I applied to several of these (in addition to Brown); already very anxious to hear back ... 

I was considering Berkeley, but its application involved separating your personal history from your statement of purpose. In the end I decided against applying in order to save money, and I did not want to spend several days revamping my statement of purpose.

[ExponentialDecay]

Is Harvard really a top Slavic program though? Do they have anyone who's done any relevant work in the past 20 years?

[heliogabalus]

For Czech they have Bolton and Tuckerova (I don't know if the position is long-term, though), so Harvard is probably the best place for Czech underground lit.

[lindsaykm13]

Здравствуйте!  my focus is less on literature and more on Russian language/area studies but it's always fun to find people with similar interests! I've applied to Madison-Wisconsin, Indiana, and Arizona. It's only been a few weeks but the waiting game is killing me already...

[sarajop]

On 1/12/2016 at 1:46 PM, ExponentialDecay said:

Is Harvard really a top Slavic program though? Do they have anyone who's done any relevant work in the past 20 years?

Seconding opinions about Bolton, as well as Grabowicz (big name in Ukrainian). On the purely Russian side, both Stephanie Sandler and *especially* Daria Khitrova are doing fascinating work.

[Dreams]

On 1/18/2016 at 7:35 PM, lindsaykm13 said:

Здравствуйте!  my focus is less on literature and more on Russian language/area studies but it's always fun to find people with similar interests! I've applied to Madison-Wisconsin, Indiana, and Arizona. It's only been a few weeks but the waiting game is killing me already...

Good luck, they all look like good programs.  I have also always been interested more in culture and area studies than lit or linguistics.  With practically no options at the PHD level (and former programs with those options closing down), I decided to put it off.