Positioning in SoP

[Dr. Old Bill]

Hey all,

Some of you may recall that I had a bit of a crisis over writing samples a couple of months ago, which truly defined which direction I would go when submitting applications (I was basically caught in a tug-of-war between professors who loved one potential paper over the other...and vice versa). Fortunately I was able to hone in on one a month ago, and have put that sample through a top-to-bottom revision, and am waiting on feedback from several professors. Assuming all goes well with that, I'm now having to figure out positioning. The problem is that all of my program research etc. was based on using the other writing sample and going in a different direction (not markedly different, but different enough). 

All of this is a preamble to saying that while I am very happy with the direction I have chosen to go in (a philological / historicist approach to Shakespeare's Sonnets), I'm having difficulty expressing my position in my SoP in a way that is neither too broad or too limiting. There are surprisingly few Sonnets scholars across U.S. institutions, and almost none of those take a philological approach. My own interests are not limited to the Sonnets, but I do feel the need to speak at length about my research in that regard. I recognize that rehashing what is in one's writing sample is a major no-no, but based on feedback I have received on early drafts of my SoP, and based on my own personal history, speaking at length about my specific interest in the Sonnets is probably quite important. Of course, given the paucity of scholars working in this area, I always want to be sure that I am not sounding TOO limited in my research interests. I haven't done a lot of philological / historicist work on other material as yet, though I very much want to (I am doing some research on Coriolanus in that regard, but am not sure how much I can play that up). And since there are more early modern philologists and historicists than there are Sonnets scholars, I suspect that I need to put a lot of weight on those methodologies.

Ultimately, this is a question of balance, and I would greatly appreciate any advice that you have. Most of the programs I am applying to have the kind of scholars I really want to work with, but since only a few work on the Sonnets...how do I demonstrate that it is interesting and important research that falls within the wheelhouses of the non-Sonnets folks? I think that this nuance is absolutely vital to the success of my SoP, yet I am having a very difficult time with judging how much weight to put on the Sonnets and how much weight to put on the philological methodology. 

Thoughts?

Edited November 3, 2016 by Wyatt's Terps

[Glasperlenspieler]

1 hour ago, Wyatt's Terps said:

I'm having difficulty expressing my position in my SoP in a way that is neither too broad or too limiting. 

I feel like this is the struggle that faces almost every SOP, so you're certainly not alone.

I'm not familiar with your field, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but my advice would be to focus on the skills you demonstrate in your writing sample and how you could apply it to the projects you would like to pursue going further. Like you said, you don't necessarily want to dwell on your writing sample, but clearly you chose it for a reason and it represents some of your best work. Yet it's not the end product, but rather a stepping stone to what you'll do next. By focusing on the skills you demonstrate there, I think you sort of give the committee a key to how to read your writing sample. It need represent so much what you would like to do as that you can do what you would like to do. So explain those abilities and then explain what it is you would like to do going forward and how those to fit together. I think this not only gives a coherent narrative of your educational progress, but also demonstrates a certain degree of critical reflection that I suspect an admissions committee would appreciate.

Good luck!

[Ramus]

1 hour ago, Wyatt's Terps said:

how do I demonstrate that it is interesting and important research that falls within the wheelhouses of the non-Sonnets folks? I think that this nuance is absolutely vital to the success of my SoP, yet I am having a very difficult time with judging how much weight to put on the Sonnets and how much weight to put on the philological methodology. 

There's no question: you should put far more emphasis on the methodology . You might eventually write a monograph on the sonnets (à la Joel Fineman's Shakespeare's Perjured Eye), but doctoral dissertations never focus on a single primary text and very rarely deal with only one author. Partly that's a job market thing: there aren't jobs for experts on the Sonnets, but there are (a couple of) jobs for experts of Renaissance poetry, so advisors want you to demonstrate competence in the broader job market categories. It's also partly a consequence of the constraints of academic publishing: monographs on a single author are a pretty hard sell normally, and no one really publishes monographs on single works anymore. Even if you got a job after writing a dissertation on the Sonnets, you'd be in a tough spot when trying to shop around your book project. 

I realize you're concerned about selling a methodology when you don't have a lot of experience applying it to other works, but I actually wouldn't be all that worried about it at this point; programs don't expect you to have your dissertation anywhere near figured out. However, I think it'd be a good idea to suggest plausible expansions for the philological project you're discussing in the SOP.  Since your WS is on the Sonnets, it'd make sense if you proposed writing on Astrophil and Stella, The Temple, or the Amoretti next. 

If you're looking for a model on how you might sell a philological project, I can't recommend highly enough the introduction to Roland Greene's Five Words (Chicago, 2013). It makes the case for a large-scale study of individual words without turning to digital tools. You'd think it'd be really conservative project, but I think Greene makes a strong case for the project's innovation and necessity. Definitely worth checking out if you're doing anything philologically oriented. 

[cloudofunknowing]

To follow up on what Ramus says, you could contextualize the stakes of your philological/historicist work on Shakespeare's sonnets within larger fields that contain them, which could include: 

Most broadly, Renaissance poetry - including genres/modes other than the sonnet and/or lyric like the epic (enter Spenser, Milton, and if you chose to look backward, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde) or, for lack of a better term, narrative poems (what happens if you translate your methods to the Rape of Lucrece or Venus and Adonis?); 

Or, collapsing the sonnet within the larger genre of the lyric - such a historical sweep could look at what happens with the lyric in the Renaissance (Spenser, Wyatt, Donne, Herbert, Milton, etc) or could look backward, again, to where the medieval and early modern blur in the 15th and early 16th -- so that it's not constrained by sonnets only (but certainly can incorporate them); 

Or, again within the Renaissance, the poetic sequence, which includes the sonnet sequences (Shakespeare, Spenser's Amoretti, Sidney's Astrophil and Stella) but also other kinds like Herbert's Temple and Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar; 

All of which is to say that you could focus on the history of a genre, the history of a poetic mode -- and/or then decide how you want to bookend it and where. Do you see yourself looking forward toward the 18th century, for example, or perhaps backward toward the Middle Ages? These are just examples of how you can fold a historicist philology of the sonnet form into larger critical conversations. 

I agree that methodology is important, but as that's a toolkit that travels wherever you choose to take it, I'd contend giving an equally concrete outline of the field(s) you imagine yourself inhabiting -- Renaissance poetry, or a scholar of the lyric, etc -- even if it all ends up being fictive in the end. 

 

[Dr. Old Bill]

Thanks a ton for your advice, friends. I'm working on a third draft of my SoP, and your thoughts have made me a lot more confident in the direction I take.

[poliscar]

Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about having your writing sample and SoP so tightly laminated together. I was explicitly told by a POI that it's more important to submit your "best work" than worrying about it being "on topic" in relation to your proposed research interests. Which is not to say that you shouldn't make the connections you're suggesting, but that I don't think you have to angst too much about differences between Sonnets and non-Sonnets scholars. Have faith that the people reading your application—many of whom won't be Early Modernists at all—will be able to follow your argument.

Likewise, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a little bit of speculation in your SoP. Cloudofunknowing's suggestions are really good, IMO, and I think most committees will be more interested in applicants who propose the sorts of "translation" Cloud is suggesting. It's totally ok if you don't know exactly what will happen when you transfer your methodology from X object to Y, and frankly, emphasizing a certain openness there shows that you're not operating in some sort of closed box. What does happen with Coriolanus in such a case—what are your guiding research questions there, and the problems you're running into? If you strategically foreground some of those uncertainties or processes I think you can show that you're still thinking through your approach, rather than having some sort of dogmatic set of rules. 

Edited November 4, 2016 by poliscar