Application Woes - Specifying Research Aims

[Xavilamo]

Hello,

I will be applying this Fall to non-Ivy League universities. The universities I have chosen all rank within the top 20 though and I am not sure if I am being too ambitious. I am interested in Literary Theory, particularly 20th century French theory (post-structuralism primarily) but I have not yet settled on a proper research topic. My writing sample is on Shakespeare's As You Like It (I am performing a slightly Derridan reading of the play) and I quite enjoy Renaissance Drama as well, but I am not sure if American universities would be willing to offer a PhD in Early Modern Studies to a South Asian student (there would be only so many places and they would prefer a PoCo candidate from South Asia). How specific do I have to be with my research aims in my SoP? Do I need to cite potential sources and stuff? Do I need to provide a proper framework for my research? Do I need to specify potential advisers or faculty members who have worked along similar lines?

 

Please help!

[jungThug]

In your SOP you need to show how your research interests are still relevant to the current conversations on Shakespeare. Look at the recent issues of prominent journals on Shakespeare and Early Modern Studies. Are they still citing Derrida and other post structuralists? If so, then how are they using these theories?  What kind of critical intervention do you want to make in this line of scholarly inquiry? Are you citing the work on Shakespeare and Early Modern Studies that has been published in the past 2-3 years? In your writing sample and in your SOP you need to show that you are aware of the current state of the conversations on these issues,  and you also need to show how you might contribute to this conversation. 

I don't mean to sound rude,  but in many circles Derrida and post structuralism are considered passe. People have been there and done that. You need to show a deep engagement with what is happening now. Not what was hot in 80s and 90s. 

Which books on Shakespeare and EM Studies have won awards recently? Cite those books,  be critical with those books. As you build your list of places to apply, identify scholars at those schools and cite their recent books, use their ideas and arguments in a meaningful way. 

[Dr. Old Bill]

6 hours ago, Xavilamo said:

Hello,

I will be applying this Fall to non-Ivy League universities. The universities I have chosen all rank within the top 20 though and I am not sure if I am being too ambitious. I am interested in Literary Theory, particularly 20th century French theory (post-structuralism primarily) but I have not yet settled on a proper research topic. My writing sample is on Shakespeare's As You Like It (I am performing a slightly Derridan reading of the play) and I quite enjoy Renaissance Drama as well, but I am not sure if American universities would be willing to offer a PhD in Early Modern Studies to a South Asian student (there would be only so many places and they would prefer a PoCo candidate from South Asia). How specific do I have to be with my research aims in my SoP? Do I need to cite potential sources and stuff? Do I need to provide a proper framework for my research? Do I need to specify potential advisers or faculty members who have worked along similar lines?

There's lots to unpack here, and @jungThug addressed a few points, so I'll just cover a few others.

First of all, at the risk of sounding ever-so-slightly naive, I'm pretty sure that you do NOT need to worry about being a South Asian student working in early modern studies. Even though the perception is that early modern / Renaissance folks are a bunch of old, white guys, that's often not the case. Ania Loomba at Penn is an excellent example. She is a veritable luminary in early modern studies, with multiple books, and as her name indicates, is of South Asian descent. Even beyond examples, however, I'm not going to claim that NO racial discrimination exists, but in my experience over the past few years, not that kind of discrimination, at least.

@jungThug touched on an important point, and I'll summarize even further: don't do symptomatic readings for the sake of doing symptomatic readings. You have to build off of 20th century French theory. In scholarship over the past fifteen years or so, you will often see authors name-drop one of the key theorists in their articles, just as a way to both situate their writing, and to acknowledge a broad field of earlier theoretical analysis. Hell, even I -- a theory-shy early modernist -- use the term "Bakhtinian" in my writing sample...and it's relevant.

As for your research aims in your SOP...that is very important. Vital, in fact. I do worry a bit that if you haven't had a lot of that sussed out by this point -- late August in an application cycle that ends in just over three months -- it might be tough to do an effective job of demonstrating your knowledge of and long term interests in your field. While actual citations are not necessarily required, familiarity with the academic landscape in and around your interests is. In your SOP, you are basically proposing where you belong (or want to belong) in the academic conversation. Remember that the people reading your SOP are all scholars...most of them in your proposed field of study. THEY certainly know the academic landscape, and they'll often see right through any apparent ignorance on the part of the applicant. I've been working in this field for a few years, and have a year of graduate study under my belt, yet I still worry a bit about any gaps in my knowledge about recent scholarship, despite engaging with it regularly.

Hopefully these points give you something to think about.

[AP]

I echo what @jungThug and @Wyatt's Terps have mentioned. That said, a girl in my cohort got admitted with a better fellowship than me and ABSOLUTELY no reserach question. Seriously. She know that her chronology spanned 3000 years (yes, thousands) and it was going to be European. So, go for it! Follow these very good pieces of advice! Good luck!

[rising_star]

9 hours ago, Xavilamo said:

I quite enjoy Renaissance Drama as well, but I am not sure if American universities would be willing to offer a PhD in Early Modern Studies to a South Asian student (there would be only so many places and they would prefer a PoCo candidate from South Asia). How specific do I have to be with my research aims in my SoP? Do I need to cite potential sources and stuff? Do I need to provide a proper framework for my research? Do I need to specify potential advisers or faculty members who have worked along similar lines?

Why do you think universities would prefer a PoCo candidate from South Asia? Have any professors at universities you're considering apply to actually told you this? If not, then I wouldn't worry about it. And, perhaps more importantly for thinking long-term about your career, if you want to do Early Modern Studies then you have the opportunity to bring diversity to a department without having to study minority literature or postcolonialism, unless you want to that is.

Yes, you should be as specific as you can in your SOP. You don't need to cite things but you should give the readers a sense of the kind of research you're going to do, the theorists you'll draw on, the types of texts you're interested in (poetry, drama, fiction, etc.), and the skills you have which have prepared you to undertake this research.