Top 10 programs in Art History

[Imenol]

I know it all depends on your advisor and blah blah but just for the fun of it:

 

1) Harvard

2) Princeton

3) NYU/IFA

4) Yale

5) Columbia

6) U-Chicago

7) Berkeley

8) Stanford ("presentists" as they are)

9) U-Michigan

10) UPenn

 

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Criticisms of my inherently flawed premise? I welcome them all. 

Edited December 16, 2017 by Imenol

[modmuse]

I’d definitely swap out u-Michigan for CUNY but otherwise I think your list looks pretty good (modern/contemporary focus here)

[pedestal]

On 12/15/2017 at 11:13 PM, Imenol said:

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by pedestal

[mrssalad]

Oh no! Not this top 10 thing again! Ultimately, I think one person's top 10 will look very different from another. For example, if you were interested in Egyptian art, I don't think you would be looking at those programs at all. Rather, you might be inclined to look at Emory. Likewise, if you are interested in 18th cent painting, Harvard might be on your list and Berkeley (but Lynn Hunt isn't there anymore). But, you might want to look at Iowa (Dorothy Johnson), Missouri (Michal Yonan), and Wisconsin (Jill Casid, Suzanne Desan in history and they have quite a few lit theory folks). Long story short, I'd go with an advisor who is well known in an area that you are interested in. Granted, I'd also take it as contingent upon what funding package you get. If you get a good funding package 4-5 years guaranteed and have a top notch advisor doing work in your field, you are probably at a good place. 

 

For anyone in the admissions process, I want to stress that above all else, you should go to a play where you think you can formulate the best dissertation committee that you can. By best, I mean people who will push you to produce the absolute best work you can produce and folks who are willing to give you feedback on in class papers in order to turn them into publishable essays (I have many friends who wish they got any feedback at all on seminar papers). 

Edited December 21, 2017 by mrssalad

[Imenol]

7 hours ago, mrssalad said:

Oh no! Not this top 10 thing again! Ultimately, I think one person's top 10 will look very different from another. For example, if you were interested in Egyptian art, I don't think you would be looking at those programs at all. Rather, you might be inclined to look at Emory. Likewise, if you are interested in 18th cent painting, Harvard might be on your list and Berkeley (but Lynn Hunt isn't there anymore). But, you might want to look at Iowa (Dorothy Johnson), Missouri (Michal Yonan), and Wisconsin (Jill Casid, Suzanne Desan in history and they have quite a few lit theory folks). Long story short, I'd go with an advisor who is well known in an area that you are interested in. Granted, I'd also take it as contingent upon what funding package you get. If you get a good funding package 4-5 years guaranteed and have a top notch advisor doing work in your field, you are probably at a good place. 

 

For anyone in the admissions process, I want to stress that above all else, you should go to a play where you think you can formulate the best dissertation committee that you can. By best, I mean people who will push you to produce the absolute best work you can produce and folks who are willing to give you feedback on in class papers in order to turn them into publishable essays (I have many friends who wish they got any feedback at all on seminar papers). 

As a matter of fact, if you want to do Egyptian you should probably consider Berkeley (Whitney Davis). Also, I remain skeptical of an advisor-centered approach. Yes, your advisor is important. But there are other things that matter too: teaching load, stipends, resources, connections, etc etc. Of course, it is true that you need to apply to a top program with an advisor that fits your interests (even if only to secure admissions). But if Joseph Leo Koerner leaves Harvard next year for OSU, that does not make OSU as good as Harvard for someone who wants to do a PhD with Koerner, regardless of funding packages. 

Also, in order to overcome this impasse, I suggest an approach based on Rawls' veil of ignorance. Let us imagine that we need to pick a PhD program without knowing what our field will be once we arrive there. How will we order our preferred programs? 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Imenol

[Bronte1985]

10 hours ago, mrssalad said:

Oh no! Not this top 10 thing again! Ultimately, I think one person's top 10 will look very different from another. For example, if you were interested in Egyptian art, I don't think you would be looking at those programs at all. Rather, you might be inclined to look at Emory. Likewise, if you are interested in 18th cent painting, Harvard might be on your list and Berkeley (but Lynn Hunt isn't there anymore). But, you might want to look at Iowa (Dorothy Johnson), Missouri (Michal Yonan), and Wisconsin (Jill Casid, Suzanne Desan in history and they have quite a few lit theory folks). Long story short, I'd go with an advisor who is well known in an area that you are interested in. Granted, I'd also take it as contingent upon what funding package you get. If you get a good funding package 4-5 years guaranteed and have a top notch advisor doing work in your field, you are probably at a good place. 

 

For anyone in the admissions process, I want to stress that above all else, you should go to a play where you think you can formulate the best dissertation committee that you can. By best, I mean people who will push you to produce the absolute best work you can produce and folks who are willing to give you feedback on in class papers in order to turn them into publishable essays (I have many friends who wish they got any feedback at all on seminar papers). 

I see where this advice is coming from, but institutional prestige matters a lot--like it or not. Academia is not an egalitarian culture! On the contrary, it's obsessively hierarchical. People from Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, etc. have an advantage in fellowship application and job searches simply because of the name attached to their degree; for harried committees, it's a stamp of pre-approval, and applicants from the top programs go to to top of the pile. (There's also a chicken or egg question here. Is it that the best candidates are already at the top programs, and the preponderance of people from those programs in top fellowships and universities is simply a reflection of that? I'll leave that alone for now though....) 

Also, the poster above is correct. You don't want to attach yourself to one advisor. What if he or she leaves? People do all the time. What do you do then? It's also true that the resources, financial support, and connections at the top programs are an advantage, in ways both big and small. Don't underestimate that. You fall behind early because you had to teach for an extra year, on campus, while your colleague at Yale was off doing research in Europe or wherever, with all the time to write and maybe work on an article and meet important people in the field. Already you're at a disadvantage.  

Another point, to take your example of someone who wants to work on 18th century painting. Yes, Dorothy Johnson and Michael Yonan are well respected within the field, but they are not so well known outside of it. People like Ewa Lajer-Burcharth or Darcy Grigsby, by contrast, have made a much larger disciplinary impact; almost everyone in art history is, to some extent, familiar with their work, because their work speaks to people outside of their field. Guess whose recommendation letters carry more weight? Remember, search committees will not be composed of people in your field. To you, as an eighteenth century specialist, a strong recommendation from Michael Yonan might mean a lot; to people outside the field, not nearly as much as one from Lajer-Burcharth or Grigsby. Will you probably get better advising from Yonan? Yes. Will it give you enough of an advantage on the job market when you're competing with top-notch students from Harvard and Berkeley? The sad reality is, probably not. Are there exceptions? Yes. Should you bank on being the exception? Good luck to you if you think that's a good way to proceed. I'm not saying this reality is good, but it is the reality. I've just checked caa jobs: there is a grand total of ONE job in eighteenth/nineteenth century art this year, across the entire country (other fields are not much better, but since this is the example we're working with, I'm sticking with it). With the job market as it is, you need to think long and hard about where you want to get your degree from, if you're going to have ANY shot at a job when you're done.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Bronte1985

[mrssalad]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I am at a top 10-20 program overall. My advisor is well known in and outside of the field. My committee members are the top in their respective fields (English and History). Not the best but by far not the worst. My institution does have a top 5 English and history department. My friend (to leave it as anonymous) is a finalist for 3 tenure track positions at major phd granting places. He/she finished his/her dissertation 2 years ago and has been a visiting prof at a top 50 liberal arts college. I have another group of colleagues who have come from similar 10-20 programs who have done better on the job market than folks at NYU, UCLA and Berkeley. If someone is interested, I would be happy to respond in a private message. Some of the people you listed are not currently taking students.

 

If your advisor leaves, good advisors typically take their graduate students with them (or give students the options). Out of the 4-5 PhD student Is know whose advisor moved, all were given the choice. 

Edited December 22, 2017 by mrssalad

[Pius Aeneas]

Attempts at doing rankings of the best programs are generally sort of pointless because there's always several variables involved. If you're aiming for a top program that potentially leads to permanent (tenure-track) employment in academia, then generally the best programs will be Ivy or par-Ivy (i.e. some other highly ranked private universities or elite public flagships). However, there are always exceptions depending on your particular specialty as well as the influence and clout that your advisor possesses in said subfield. 

[mrssalad]

8 hours ago, Pius Aeneas said:

Attempts at doing rankings of the best programs are generally sort of pointless because there's always several variables involved. If you're aiming for a top program that potentially leads to permanent (tenure-track) employment in academia, then generally the best programs will be Ivy or par-Ivy (i.e. some other highly ranked private universities or elite public flagships). However, there are always exceptions depending on your particular specialty as well as the influence and clout that your advisor possesses in said subfield. 

Amen. At the end of the day, focus on your research. I was on a panel last year at CAA. To protect confidentially, I will say I was the only 1 who was from a public ivy as opposed to a private ivy (or Berkeley on the panel). The work from the other 3 individuals was absolutely sub par (undergraduate students in my lecture course turn in better work). A name and an advisor won't make up for bad scholarship that isn't doing anything to push the discipline. I will stress where the rankings are important at research is important - go where there is FUNDING TO DO SO. Typically "Better ranked programs" have more $$$. But, this isn't always the case. If a place wants you, really inciting packages can be made.