Tips on Finding Faculty at Programs I'm Applying to?

[solomonski]

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for your helpful comments on the last post I made, about looking into programs generally. As I've gotten a bit more in depth into the process, however, I'm noticing something that is stressing me out. Namely, I'm having a hard time finding faculty members who seem to be interested in the same things I'm interested in. (For reference, mostly I'm into 20th-century British and American literature, modernism, huge into theory, especially Marxist/power-oriented political theory; also into film and pop culture, occult literature (don't know anyone doing anything with this). I dig doing comparative work in English/Japanese but I'm not ready fluency-wise for a Comp Lit program.)

For instance, I'll read about a program, the program seems great. Then I go to the faculty page and look for people interested in "theory," only to find that their CV only seems to list, say, articles on feminist theory rather than Marxist or new historicist or whatever. (Disclaimer: Please note I'm by no means disparaging feminist theory; I think it's fantastic and necessary, I just don't think I can personally contribute much to it.)

Another example: When I say something like, "I'm interested in '20th-century British and American literature'," what I mean by that is that I'm interested in Joyce, Eliot, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Mina Loy, those folks. When I see a professor list "20th-century British and American literature" as an interest and then check out their CV, they seem to be primarily interested in Henry James, with no mention anywhere of the above guys.

This is um, freaking me out pretty badly. The only people I can find who seem to have REAL overlap with what I'm into are like, various emereti who aren't even teaching anymore. Am I overthinking this? To what extent do I need to have "overlap" with a professor in order to identify them as a potential candidate to work with? Is it enough that someone just says "modernism"? Am I asking for too much to think I'm going to run across a professor doing *exactly* what I'm interested in and nothing else besides? 

I'm seriously starting to think maybe I should try to become a priest or something, that I was born either 30 or 400 years too late. Help?

[Eigen]

To me, this would mean that you're looking at finding programs backwards. 

Rather than finding an interesting program and then looking at faculty, I highly recommend finding faculty in your area who you'd be interested in working with, and then looking at what program they're a part of. 

[solomonski]

Sorry to double-post, but maybe one helpful thing I just now imposed on myself was to check out the faculty pages for professors with whom I have a good relationship at my current undergraduate institution. I realized that apart from a mention of "British and American modernism" from one of them, we seem to have little in common, and despite that we get along famously. One with whom I seem to have no overlap at all is supervising my senior research thesis. So maybe this is a sign that there is hope? It's just worrisome because I'm confused about the extent to which I need to be explicitly aligned with a given professor when the time comes to submit applications to programs.

[Eigen]

I think you're overestimating how well a faculty members website shows the extent of their interest, or where they can help you. 

Even in the sciences, where that type of fit can matter much, much more (we all have to work on projects of some interest to our advisors), there's more complementarity than exact fit of interests. I wouldn't have wanted to pick a PI who was doing exactly what I dreamed about doing- if so, then I'm pushing myself into a niche that they already fill in that field, and moving on would require me going in a different direction. Instead, you pick people who are in a related area, but who can teach you things that overlap with your ideal future work. They are there to help you grow and guide, not always to be the ultimate expert in what you want to do.

[allplaideverything]

Finding Marxist faculty shouldn't really be a problem, and any 20th Century lit scholar is going to be familiar with the authors you noted, even if that's not who they primarily write on. You shouldn't worry about finding faculty members whose interests overlap completely with yours--rather, try to find programs that support Marxist / critical theory criticism, and make sure they have a Modernist or two on faculty. I feel like that list will probably include about half of the top 50 PhD programs in English. Your committee, for example, (assuming your interests don't shift radically, which they probably will), might include someone working on Modernism who primarily writes about Woolf (but will still know Joyce et al), a Marxist who does film studies, and a 20th Century Americanist who does critical race studies, or something like that. You need not find a person who uses Marxian critique to write about Hemingway and Fitzgerald in order for you to do that. Try not to get too down! If you pay attention to the general atmosphere and attitudes of the programs, you'll find some good fits!

I'm not much of a 20th Century person, but take a look at the UC schools, Duke, CUNY.

[ExponentialDecay]

Where does one even read about the program? Is that the "welcome" page of a department website that says like, "we are the English department and we give our students critical thinking skills" or whatever? I mean, is there anything to a program (academically) except the faculty that make it up?

Edited October 21, 2015 by ExponentialDecay

[Dr. Old Bill]

Yes, you really have to go through program by program and faculty list by faculty list to find professors with interests that seem to overlap with your own. That, or go back to some key articles / essays etc. you have read, and find out where those authors are teaching. There are surely other ways of finding appropriate programs, but I suspect that the standard practice of finding faculty members with similar interests, then researching a bit of their work, is the most comprehensive and productive approach.

[ProfLorax]

I just want to add that your interests may completely change while in a program, so it's equally important to find faculty who engage with methodologies that appeal to you. For example, my advisor is a feminist rhetorical historiography scholar, and my dissertation is on disability activist rhetoric. But our partnership works because my work employs a feminist methodology, and I'm interested in feminist archival and recovery methods. 

[pro Augustis]

I'm coming from a different field (ancient history), and who knows if I'll get in anywhere, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Still, I think that you may be looking at fit in too rigid a fashion. I'm interested in the ideology of Roman Emperors. Every once in a while, I see a scholar doing exactly that. Splendid! I know that I am applying there. There are not, however, all that many scholars doing exactly that, and there are even fewer when just looking at highly ranked programs. But fit doesn't need to be exact, and you can get a sort of composite fit with multiple scholars. At some schools, there is one historian doing the Roman Empire and another doing the ideology of Hellenistic kings. Neither is a perfect match, but taking them together I can study both the period and the questions/methodologies that I am interested in, and such a department is, I think, a good fit. I'm sure that if you look through the faculty at the schools you are interested in you will come across programs that cover a good amount of what you are interested in, even if that coverage is spread out over a few people. 

[rising_star]

Though this thread is about literature, it might be helpful anyway. As others have said, I wouldn't worry about 100% overlap between your interests and theirs. You're looking for folks who will find your research ideas interesting and be able to offer strong critical insight to help you improve them.