critique my school list (applying next fall)

[Schopenhauerfanboy]

1 hour ago, lyellgeo said:

This is helpful, as I basically have no sense at all of Canadian school rankings (or, more importantly, quality). Are there any Canadian MA programs that you would recommend looking at, besides McMaster and McGill?

 

Yeah, thank you for the advice. The idea is that I can start broad and then narrow down the list to somewhere between 12-18 programs (including MAs). Already, for example, based on more investigation, a few schools even at the top will likely be taken off due to lack of fit, including, for example, UCR, Columbia, and Georgetown. And I've also removed Kingston and Warwick for now, just because of lack of funding.

In terms of the question "if you were rejected form all schools but that one, would you go there?", the answer is 'yes' to nearly all of them—I don't have any specific career plans after graduating, and I would be happy to attend a (funded) grad program even if it was a "waste" or never turned into a career. That said, given the choice between a funded or inexpensive (e.g. Leuven) high quality MA and a lower-end/unranked PhD, I think I would prefer the MA.

The other factor to consider is fit, which is pretty difficult to determine. In terms of topics or 'continental' focus, for example, Oregon is a good "fit," though when I look at their grad courses online, most of the subjects (or rather, the way in which the subjects are discussed) don't seem to fit what I am interested in (not to take anything away from that program). On the other hand, a place like UCR seems to fit the way I like philosophy to be done, but doesn't have as great of a fit in the sense that no one there is especially interested in French philosophy.  

Overall, aside from a few programs that fit both (e.g. Chicago), the best option so far seems to be Canadian or European MA programs, which would likely open up more options and give me a stronger basis to work from.  

The University of Calgary has an excellent, highly funded M.A, program, but for your area you'd need to seek out specific faculty with whom you could work. For instance, you could do their philosophy of religion track, which would allow you to work with continental faculty who are technically in the religious studies department. In philosophy you would be interested in working with Mark Migotti (especially!), Lorraine Markotic, and Katrin Froese, so there'd be enough for a good committee there. You could also work with Morny Joy, Tinu Rupparell and others in religious studies. A lot of the course work is analytic, but you can doing a guided reading course and work with the specific faculty members I mentioned, to grow your main interest in French Philosophy. 

Again, your best bet is really to work with Barry Allen at McMaster - he is brilliant. He was a student of Richard Rorty's at Princeton and he has a background in analytic philosophy, but works mostly in Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Bergson now.. Can't go wrong. 

Your second best bet would be, as I said, to work with Mark Migotti and Lorraine Markotic at the University of Calgary. 

I know the University of Alberta has a good program too, but I am less familiar with their actual faculty... 

[Schopenhauerfanboy]

3 hours ago, Dysexlia said:

I also thought of Brock! Do you think that it would really be a poor choice to do anything other than comparative philosophy? I totally understand that their department is predominantly comparative, but they do have a few very strong faculty members who solely do continental (and specifically French, i.e., Rajiv Kaushik, and Murray Miles) philosophy, it seems.

Brock is a really unique department, and does admittedly have some good people working in continental as well. But Guelph and McMaster are both significantly stronger programs for continental philosophy (all within a 90 minute radius). Brock has placed some people at Penn State, and one at Toronto's Religion PhD, but it generally performs a lot worse than McMaster and Guelph.  

[Glasperlenspieler]

3 hours ago, lyellgeo said:

The other factor to consider is fit, which is pretty difficult to determine. In terms of topics or 'continental' focus, for example, Oregon is a good "fit," though when I look at their grad courses online, most of the subjects (or rather, the way in which the subjects are discussed) don't seem to fit what I am interested in (not to take anything away from that program). On the other hand, a place like UCR seems to fit the way I like philosophy to be done, but doesn't have as great of a fit in the sense that no one there is especially interested in French philosophy.

I think this is a really important distinction and that both forms of "fit" are very important. I'd almost be tempted to say that fit of approach may be even more important that fit of content but I'm not entirely confident about that.

[ThatDeleuzeGuy]

Also with respect to LSU, Protevi is at LSU but he isn't in the philosophy department there ( i think he's in French or something) and there's some tension there. Just something to keep in mind if Deleuze is your focus.

[lyellgeo]

45 minutes ago, ThatDeleuzeGuy said:

Also with respect to LSU, Protevi is at LSU but he isn't in the philosophy department there ( i think he's in French or something) and there's some tension there. Just something to keep in mind if Deleuze is your focus.

Ok, this is good to know, as Protevi would be the main reason for applying there. 

[Dysexlia]

14 hours ago, Schopenhauerfanboy said:

Brock is a really unique department, and does admittedly have some good people working in continental as well. But Guelph and McMaster are both significantly stronger programs for continental philosophy (all within a 90 minute radius). Brock has placed some people at Penn State, and one at Toronto's Religion PhD, but it generally performs a lot worse than McMaster and Guelph.  

All true!

[maxhgns]

16 hours ago, lyellgeo said:

This is helpful, as I basically have no sense at all of Canadian school rankings (or, more importantly, quality). Are there any Canadian MA programs that you would recommend looking at, besides McMaster and McGill?

 

FWIW, McGill doesn't have an MA program in philosophy. They offer an MA in bioethics, but that's obviously not quite what you want! Given your interests, postmodernturn was right to suggest Concordia. I'm kicking myself for forgetting it. IMO it's a very strong MA program, with a really solid set of faculty members. (Note: Concordia has a PhD in humanities, but not in philosophy.)

 

Re: schopenhauerfanboy:

Alberta offers both the MA and the PhD. I don't know about Deleuze, but they do have some heavy-hitters when it comes to Foucault, Nancy, and post-structuralism.