Faculty who know theory vs know texts

[WildeThing]

Hey guys, I'm gonna be applying in next year's cycle but neurosis has me looking at things way early. So, my hope is to do my dissertation on approaching a set of literary texts (e.g. Victorian) with a certain philosophical outlook in mind (e.g. Posthumanism). Logic would dictate that a perfect environment would have faculty who are experts on both, even if the knowledge is spread out in different bodies. But let's say that that doesn't exist. Either you go somewhere that has someone on staff who knows the approach or who has done different work on the same texts. Where would you rather go? Worse still, what if the genre or philosophy or texts you hope to work with are obscure or tangenial or ignored or out of fashion, and the only scholars working on them with any dedication work in programs that you're not considering (for whatever reason, be it finances, geography, prestige, etc.)? My instinct is to look for different texts to look at, as that seems easier to adapt than your theoretical backdrop, but maybe that's wrong.

Anyone have any thoughts on this or similar conundrums?

[echo449]

Period matters more than theory, period. Since you'll be on the market as a Victorianist, you should privilege programs w/ Victorianist scholars. You can be the person to bring back Husserl, or whoever, but the market will care much more about your grounding in your field as such, since that's what you'll be teaching. Also, a lot of advisors will let you do the work you want to do--the dissertation phase, for better or worse, is a lonely place. 

[poliscar]

I agree with echo449, but with the caveat that you should still have some idea of the methodological approaches of the scholars in departments you're considering. You don't want to end up in a place where potential advisors are entirely hostile to your psychoanalytic/Marxist/phenomenological, etc approach. 

[allplaideverything]

I agree with poliscar--I think the general attitude of a department with regards to what kind of work they tend to find valuable is perhaps most important. You needn't find a department with somebody who specializes in posthumanism in order to do posthumanism, but you'll at least want to end up in a place that supports emergent trends in critical theory, ecocriticism, science & technology studies, or something like that. I found it very helpful to look at the titles of recent PhD student dissertations.

Considering your specific examples, though, there are probably over a dozen programs with multiple Victorianists and at least one person (not necessarily a Victorianist though) who engages with posthumanist theory. (And if those examples are indeed what you're interested in, I'd like to recommend that you take a look at our program at UC-Davis! We've got like three or four very brilliant Victorian scholars, and lots of folks doing animal studies, ecocrit, STS, new materialism, etc etc, engaging with posthumanism and antihumanism in lots of ways!) (Edited to add: We just hosted a conference here called Vcologies, looking at ecology and Victorian lit, that was pretty rad: http://vcologies.org/#/schedule)

Edited October 27, 2016 by allplaideverything

[WildeThing]

Thanks for the answers! The examples were purely theoretical though.