Literary Theory?

[kaiphi]

I finally settled on a concentration lol unfortunately, my uni doesn't offer more than an introductory course to theory.

Any lit theory applicants in this board? What'd you do to prep? I'm going to focus my senior thesis on a structuralist reading of a certain text.

[poliscar]

I feel like there should be some sort of warning on every English department website, that says "you can't specialize in Theory." 

You need some sort of historical & geographical specialization; that's how you professionalize. When you prepare for your qualifying exams, they will be rooted in a specific area, even if you choose subfields in Feminist Theory or Marxism, etc. All programs, regardless of theoretical intensity or involvement, will have students ground their work in a concrete area/archive.

"Theory" is not a concentration—it's a massive body of work, with an incredible range of approaches. Saying you want to specialize in it is akin to saying you want to specialize in Literature. Moreover, it won't get you a job; departments very rarely conduct job searches for "theorists." That doesn't mean they don't hire or employ them, but that the scholars in question were almost always hired as Romanticists, or Modernists, or 20th Century Americanists (etc). 

My advice would be to find an area you want to work in, write your thesis on something relevant to it, and then apply with the intent of focusing on said area. You might end up with something like "American Modernism, Psychoanalysis, Marxism, and Affect" as a rough outline of your interests. However, I can't stress enough that Theory is not, not, not, not enough. 

[echo449]

Everything poliscar said is correct. I just want to offer some (admittedly unsolicited) advice on your thesis: you will not be showing your awareness of critical debates in literary studies or contemporary theory if you do a structuralist reading of a text unless you demonstrate why structuralism should not have been superseded by other approaches, and what it has to offer today in our "post-critical" climate. This doesn't need to be a major part of your thesis, but structuralism is not considered current & it doesn't really reflect current approaches to theory. This is not to say "if you write on this, you will not get in," but it is to say that, if you go ahead with this approach, you need to do extra work to justify its application.  

Edited August 6, 2016 by echo449

[ExponentialDecay]

I did a structuralist reading of a text once in sophomore year.

[kaiphi]

What a coincidence—so did I!

[kaiphi]

2 minutes ago, ExponentialDecay said:

I did a structuralist reading of a text once in sophomore year.

What a coincidence—so did I!

[kaiphi]

But anyway, thanks @poliscar and @echo449 for the info.

I guess I should talk to one of my advisors considering my research projects are all in different topics.

This summer I just finished a criticism of an American modernist text, my thesis is on a medieval text, and this fall my independent study is just an intensive on structuralism and semiotics that'll end up in a paper on something—we're still figuring that out in the next couple of weeks.

I also don't intend on applying for a couple years, so I guess I have some time to figure it out.

[echo449]

That's normal for undergrad! It's useful to try out different ways of thinking, for sure. And, also, you can always write something and then re-purpose it--in other words, you can write this paper on structuralism, then, when you are applying, do some extra tinkering to insert yourself into dialogue w/ current people. My tone in the original post was a little too dismissive--you should totally pursue this line of inquiry if it's the road you want to go down. If you have the time to do so, it might be interesting to take a look at the first part of Cusset's French Theory, which really usefully lays out the historical reception of structuralism in the United States.

[poliscar]

To chime in—there are scholars working right now whose work could be seen as having structuralist aspects. People like Caroline Levine, Alex Woloch, Sandra Macpherson, even Franco Moretti, all seem to have their own moments of structuralism. I've also noticed what seems to be a renewed interest in Propp and Greimas, which I find intriguing. 

In this vein, echo449 is completely right about the necessity of engaging with contemporary work. Even though there's a lot of divergent work falling under the umbrella term of New Formalism, you might find some of it to resonate with your interests in structuralism. Likewise, if your thesis is on Medieval lit, Julie Orlemanski at UChicago is doing really stellar stuff that you might want to look at. Specifically, her article "Scales of Reading" in Exemplaria is really wonderful, and covers a lot of ground in terms of glossing different approaches. 

[kaiphi]

11 hours ago, poliscar said:

To chime in—there are scholars working right now whose work could be seen as having structuralist aspects. People like Caroline Levine, Alex Woloch, Sandra Macpherson, even Franco Moretti, all seem to have their own moments of structuralism. I've also noticed what seems to be a renewed interest in Propp and Greimas, which I find intriguing. 

In this vein, echo449 is completely right about the necessity of engaging with contemporary work. Even though there's a lot of divergent work falling under the umbrella term of New Formalism, you might find some of it to resonate with your interests in structuralism. Likewise, if your thesis is on Medieval lit, Julie Orlemanski at UChicago is doing really stellar stuff that you might want to look at. Specifically, her article "Scales of Reading" in Exemplaria is really wonderful, and covers a lot of ground in terms of glossing different approaches. 

Thank y'all so much!

This is all still very new to me since I'm just now meeting with my advisors.

How do you all find these documents or figure out where to go from an original idea? Right now I have a general idea of where to go for my thesis, but no idea how to focus in on it and where to find information relating to it.

[sarabethke]

3 hours ago, kaiphi said:

How do you all find these documents or figure out where to go from an original idea? Right now I have a general idea of where to go for my thesis, but no idea how to focus in on it and where to find information relating to it.

I don't know how relevant this is to your whole question, but especially considering your concern about where to start and how to find resources, even if your current department doesn't offer many courses on theory your professors likely use it. This is something I did not have a clue about in undergrad. But talk to them about theory, and they can show you a way in.

Edited August 8, 2016 by sarabethke

[echo449]

On 8/8/2016 at 0:43 PM, kaiphi said:

Right now I have a general idea of where to go for my thesis, but no idea how to focus in on it and where to find information relating to it.

The easiest way is to find a contemporary book, such as Levine's recent Forms, and to look at what she's citing. Even one book w/ a decent bibliography will probably open up more doors than you could possibly chase down--and that's okay! The dirty secret of a thesis (whether it's a diss, a Master's Thesis, or an honors thesis in undergrad) is that it's not finished when you've done all the work you possibly can and have read everything, it's finished when your time in the program is up.